bonsai apprentice

Well, the new blog is not working out as well as I had hoped. The first problem I discovered is that my videos wouldn’t play here. next I discovered that the statcounter program would not record as much info about visitors as it did at my previous site. Then, apparently, the larger pics are only visable for those using firefox browser (which everyone should be using anyway, but many people aren’t.)

Now it seems that the pics on the older sections of my blog have disapeared. When I am in edit mode, the pics are there, but when viewing the blog, they are gone.

It looks like I am going to have to move again. And gee, I have so much free time on my hands too. Argh.

Anyone have a blog hosting site that they like? My number one factor is that it has to be easy to use, and host the images in a way that they can be viewed easily.

This Spring I did alot of repotting of Brent’s more developed trees. He had hired someone to do some of the grunt work, freeing me up to work on some of the more advanced projects that had been neglected. Brent had been so busy over the last 5 years with moving and re-building the infrastructure of his nursery that he had not had the time to devote to working on his own collection of trees.

Here’s a few before and after shots of some of the work I did.

This first one is a Contorted Mullberry (Morus bombycis ‘Unryu’). He had 2 of these, this is the smaller one.

As you can see on the pic, there is a large area of exposed deadwood. It appears that there was a large trunk chop, then the live bark from there down died back, as it didn’t have any foliage to support it. What you can’t really see in the pic (and I couldn’t see it either until I started hosing it off) is that the deadwood is actually just a thin shell on the surface. Underneath is was all rotten.

When I hit it with the hose, the top part broke away and the rotten wood washed right out, leaving a large hollow area that went from the base all the way up the trunk of the tree to the second branch.

I repotted this one back into a nursery container, as it still has some time to develop.

Next is a very nice white pine. It has been in this pot way too long. You can see by the yellow tinge to the foliage that the tree is not happy.

<=before

. . . after=>

looks better already, doesn’t it?

Next is Susie’s (Brent’s wife) favorite tree. It is a crab apple, the cultivar called Marry Potter. This is another that had been in its pot too long.

First I removed all the suckers.

Then here it is in a deeper pot.

More to come.

In some of my free time between seeing patients I've been doing searches for others blogging about bonsai. Here's what I've found so far (not including Brent's blog which is already in my links section to the left.)

First, some actual bonsai blogs:

http://bonsaihungary.blogspot.com/ A bonsai blog from Hungary. I can't read it, but the pictures are good.

http://flowerpot.iwritethecode.com/ This is a friendly blog by a beginner bonsaist. Stop by and say hi, she's nice.

http://www.bonsaiblog.com/ Another beginner blog.

http://blog.ncircle.com/archives/2005/02/network_as_bons.htm this is actually a blog about network security, but the author is apparently also a bonsai guy and has posted a very well written essay comparing bonsai to computer network security.

Google has a new service in beta stage that searches blogs. I did a search on one word – bonsai. Guess how many hits I went down before I actually found a blog about bonsai – 150! Lots of bonsai cats and other crap – but no actual blogs about bonsai until over 150. I think they need to keep working on it. This next one was the first real bonsai blog link I found. How many hits until I finally got to a post from my blog? Almost 170.

http://sandiegobonsai.blogspot.com/ – pretty self expalanatory. Mostly news about club stuff. Not alot of pics.

Tree blogs (non-bonsai):

http://fundmyshort.blogs.com/tree/ This is a blog from a film maker and animator who is apparently making some sort of movie about a tree. He has a gallery on this site where you can email him a pic of a tree that is meaningful to you , and explain why it is, and he will post it. No bonsai there yet, so maybe we should send him some.

http://arboreality.blogspot.com/ this one is about regular trees. Lots of good info there – but no bonsai.

Next, blogs that sound like they might be about bonsai, but actually aren't.

http://smuggy4.blogspot.com/ this one is called "where the bonsai grows", but in my scan of it's 2 1/2 years of posts, I only found one post about a bonsai – and it was a dead one. Full of lotsa poems and pictures though – but not about bonsai.

http://www.samurai69.net/mt/archives/000436.php This one cracks me up – it apears to be a Japanese blog about japanese stuff. This particular link is titled "bonsai!" but I think they actually meant "banzai!"

http://bonsai-times.blogspot.com/ While this sounds like it might be a bonsai news mag, it's actually some sort of spam-ish site about cell phones. No reason to go there.

http://www.insideplantslive.org/archives/000667.php This is a pretty cheesy site that is trying to sell some sort of alternative plant soil or something – haven't quite figured it out yet.

Anyone else found any other bonsai blogs?  If you have, leave a comment with the link. 

Darrell was wondering about how the upper part of the rootstock is removed. Today I snapped a series of pics of grafts at various stages of development, so you all can see how it looks.

First, we have one that was grafted fall of ‘04. The scion is growing nicely, but the upper part of the rootstock is still attached. It will probably stay on till next year.

The next one is a graft from ‘02, so this is 2 years farther along in development. You can see that the upperstock has been cut back to a stub. It’s almost impossible to see the graft union – it’s fused so well.

Next is a graft from 2000. The stub has been carved down and it’s starting to heal over.

This is another from 2000, it’s grown more vigorously, so is a little fatter. As you can see, the graft site is practically invisable. Brent really has perfected these grafts. The only thing you notice is a subtle change in bark texture. No line, no bulge. This is great stuff. Once the scar from removing the upperstock heals it will take a very trained eye to fine the graft union.

So, I hope this has helped to clear things up for Darrell, and anyone else who was curious about the process.

Darrell had some questions on part 2, so I thought I would attempt to answer them with another post. Hopefully Brent will chime in with some added info as well.

“Hi Bob,

I was just mostly curious about exactly where one would cut off the top section. I’m also curious about the “plumbing” of grafting in this way. It is probably covered somewhere, and maybe thinking about it as plumbing is the wrong thing, but it seems like the upper side of the scion would be connected “backwards” into the rootstock, as far as “flow” goes. Does only the lower side really fuse with the rootstock?

-Darrell “

Both sides of the scion do fuse. I think I understand what you mean by connecting backward. If you think of the 2 cut sides of the scion as one side facing “downstream” toward the roots and the other facing “upstream” toward the canopy, then yes, it would seem that the upper side would not be receiving nutrients from the roots.

However, I believe that this is an eronious way of thinking about it. The cambium is the vascular tissue that needs to connect to make the graft take hold. As long as this connects in one place there are cross channels that will transfer nutrients all the way around the scion. Obviously, the more places that connect, the more likely the graft is to take. Here’s a pic I lifted from another site to give you a cross sectional view of what is happening.

The website I borrowed this from is here.

Here’s a pic of the “crosschannels” I mentioned.

That pic came from an excellent article here.

So, once the cambium fuses, and the scion is growing, and has developed enough needles to produce enough food to keep the rootstock alive, the top can be removed. This is done just a bit above the graft site, and after some time the wound can be carved down a bit and will heal over.

I hope that clears it up for you.

Two posts down is the link to the video of Brent grafting a one year old black pine. This is the meathod he uses to reproduce his vast selection of black and white pine cultivars. Because of his tedious attention to detail, and the very low placement of the graft, these trees will be very suitable for bonsai. The graft is just above the nebari, which should make the union very natural appearing when the tree is larger.

This first pic is Brent getting ready to make the cut on the understock. He is using a grafting knife that he has sharpened to a very fine edge. This fall I will get some video of his sharpening process. He uses 3 different sharpening stones in addition to a leather whet strap for the final step. He also uses 2 different knives – one for theunderstock and one for the scion. (Right Click to enlarge photos.)

Here's the understock after the cut is made. As you can see, the cut is perfectly strait. If there was any curve at all, the scion would not fit flush on both sides.

The cut goes about 1/3 the width of the understock.

Next comes the scion. He picks one that has aproxametly the same diameter as the understock. The cuts on the scion are even more crucial than on the understock. I'm struggeling to describe the exact geometry of the 2 cuts. Remember the X.Y and Z axis from highschool geometry? The Y axis goes down the center of the scion. The X axis is perpendicular, and the Z axis comes out at a right angle up off the table. The plane of each cut must exactly cross the Y axis, without any angulation into Z. Otherwise, they won't be flush with the cut on the understock. If the second cut doesn't match the first, he recuts until they line up. I wish I had one of those 3-D drawing programs to show you how important this is, but you'll just have to take my word for it.

The next pic is the scion snugly in the understock. Both sides are flush, even before they are tied together. The tape just keeps it from being disloged. If the tree could be kept from moving, the graft would probably take even without being taped.

I'll try to get some pics of grafts that are a few years old, so you can see how nice they look.

This is series of pics of a mame Japanese maple bonsai. I purchased it in August '05 from My former teacher, Ivan Waters, in Chicago. I'm not sure how old it is, but it did originate in Japan.

This is the tree as it appeared when I purchased it. Right click on the thumbnails and choose "view image" to see the enlarged pic.

It's obviously a very nice little tree. It's in an antique Chinese pot, and double potted to keep it from drying out too rapidly. I liked italot , but there were a few problems I saw right away. The first branch to the left (highlighted in red) appeared way too thick in relation to the trunk of the tree. The first branch to the right (highlited in blue, actually it comes off the back and swings around right) was also too thick, and the top section of the trunk line (highlighted in yellow) was too strait and too long. The treeneaded to be just a touch shorter, and with a more rounded apex.

What you can't see because of the leaves is that each of these branches had a major fork right after coming off of the trunk. So I removed the larger of each fork, which did decrease the visual weight of each branch.

After a partial defoliation, you can see that the two offending branches appear smaller now. Probably next year I will try to carve the backs of the branches a bit, to see if I can get them even a little smaller. The upper trunk section is still too long and strait. The following pic shows where the branches that were removed used to be.

This is pretty much how I left it for the rest of the Fall and Winter. In early March the buds were starting to swell, so I new I had to take my next step. The treed needed to be shortened and a new apex with more movement and taper developed. So I clenched my teeth, grabbed the concave cutters and had at it. I made the cut right above a small bend in the trunk where 2 small branches were coming out.

These 2 branches will become the new apex of the tree, giving it a more rounded crown. The area in red is where I need to do some more carving. The branch highlighted in blue is actually coming off the back of the tree, it's not really as close to the branch above it as it appears in this pic.

Here it is now, 6 weeks later, fully leafed out. In another month or so I will defoliate again and do some more work on branch structure/ ramification. Stay tuned.

comments, suggestions?

Wow, has it really been 8 months since I've updated this blog? Incredible how time flies. I am going to strive to get back in the swing of things.

To get things off to a good start, here is a video I made in October of Brent demonstrating his grafting technique. Enjoy!

Bonsai Graft Video

Unfortunately, the automatic viewer that worked over at blogspot won't work here, so you have to hop the link back to youtube.   

Yes, I know I’m way behind in updating. And with 2 major bonsai shows coming up this month, the updates will probably still be a wyas off.

But the good news is that my teacher Brent has started a blog of his own. You can check it out here:

http://bonsai-nurseryman.blogspot.com/

enjoy!

The next week (still back in April) we were working on taking some crab apples out of their 1 gallon pots and putting them in the ground to thicken. Crabs tend to throw suckers from any roots that become exposed on the surface. So, if’s it’s a minor root, you can sever it and take the sucker as a new tree. I did just that, and wound up with 14 new crab apple trees! They are tiny now, but they will grow.

Unfortunately, my pics of them didn’t turn out too great, and the weather today was too crapy to shoot any more, so you’ll have to wait till later for the pics. Although, really, there’s not much to see. Little twigs in little pots. I did get some pics of the bigger crabs in the ground – here they are:

We got the crabs in the ground, using the same techniques I’ve outlined before. Sorry – nothing too new and exciting this time.

The next update will be better, I promise!