Hi all you sweltering summerians, this week I learned that primary structural and design work, actually most bonsai things, take me much much longer than professionals and I need to budget my time accordingly. This weekend’s work on one procumbens took about 8 hours and I’m not done! I’ll share photos later this week in the design thread.
Once back in grad school I got my hands on a video of a Scandinavian furniture maker and he was cutting dovetails blind, sub-millimeter precision. And while he was doing it, he said, “My father was a furniture maker and he said, “It isn’t good enough to be good. You also have to be fast.”” And then bam, bam, bam. Dovetails.
I think I’ll get faster over time. I struggled with the structural wiring which slowed things down. I was overwhelmed with choices. But I got a good design result in the end.
It also took me a while to get the courage to even go near the tree. I didn’t realize I was procrastinating and scared until I made my first branch choice. I’ve grown the tree for 20 years, not really knowing what I was doing, bare rooting every 3 years, mostly cut and grow. Now I’m making a bonsai for the first time, 20 yrs later. More on that in the design thread, later.
This week I learned that the more you work regularly on bonsai, the harder it is to travel without overwhelming bonsai anxiety. It’s a real problem. If i am going more and more into it, and even just economically pushing the value of trees in my collection, is it even sustainable with even light yearly travel?
what do you all do? I used to have our cat sitter water 1x or 2x à day but that doesn’t cut it anymore. As I’ve pushed harder work on the trees this season, there’s a whole range of different watering needs.
Hi Everyone, this week I learned that older material with significant Spring work (re-potting) can really hold onto water through a mild August, and continue right along with daily watering and sometimes only later in the day. I was expecting multiple waterings through august but as days have rarely tipped the low 80F, its been like July watering all through the late Summer.
Hey everyone, anyone else interested in contributing to the learning threads? I’m sure you all are learning tons in your own bonsai journeys. Please share!
This week I learned that my NA larch probably needs more water, akin to a deciduous tree. In nature these things are coming out of bogs in Maine environs. They like the consistently wet soil. I may not repot for a few years having just gone through an agressive root redux and repot this year, but next time, I’ll probably move away from 1:1:1 soil mix for na larch.
What do you all think? Anyone have NA larch experience?
Same here. In central MN, where I grew up (we call them tamaracks), you see them all over the bogs and swampy areas. I’ve got a few in my collection and they are thirsty buggers. My first year (2025) I put them in a standard conifer mix of 1:1:1 and those trees could basically take a drink at any time. The ones I potted this year in a mix like Marty’s are still very thirsty, but don’t dry as drastically.
This week I’ve watched a bunch of late summer design videos and I’ve been surprised by the extent of work done at this time of year. In the spirit of wiring ahead of the vascular growth Fall season, it seems Ryan is doing fairly significant work, especially foliar reduction. The trees are healthy, growing and energy positive. Several of the videos are taking place around a 100-deg heat wave (Scot’s pine masculine orthodox design, Stewartia deciduous feminine orthodox design videos).
First, I am super surprised that the foliage reduction doesnt set the tree up precariously regarding the ability for transpiration from a larger leaf mass to cool the tree.
Second, I am surprised that foliage reduction like this takes place when I don’t think there’s a guarantee for additional flushes in the Fall. I supposed you dont need an additional flush to promote back budding in the Fall.
But full steam ahead. I’ll be wiring and styling a few this weekend, doing some juniper cleaning, even if they were repotted this Spring, just to manage the growth, balance energy, open up space to light.
This week’s learning is horticultural and comes with a question for the group. In my neighborhood, these past weeks I noticed a lot of deciduous trees shedding their taking on Fal color and shedding leaves. We’ve had a mild august and there were a few cool evenings mixed in. I’m in the SF Bay Area.
My larch which went through a major root reduction and first potting this spring hasn’t regained that much strength. I only had 1 big push this season when normally I’d expect at least 2 if not 3+. À lot of needles are starting to turn color. There are still a few strong shoots. I think the tree has been weak and like the trees in my neighborhood is starting to take on some Fall signs early.
what do you all think? Is this a fair assessment? Any comments on early fall color in the environment?
I’ve learned that I cannot watch (among others) the Structural Wiring and Detail Wiring Pt. 1 & 2 enough. I’m the type of learner who needs to encounter the same material multiple times before everything starts to gel. I have much more time to review techniques in videos than I have material to practice on physically. I’ve watched and rewatched many of the videos in the library.
From my couch, I often feel ready to perform any procedure. But when I get a tree in front of me and tools in my hands, only a fraction of what I’ve learned seems readily available at the forefront of my mind.
I’ve found that with each repeated viewing of key videos, another concept clicks or solidifies, becoming available to me the next time I need to get to work. It’s a slow accumulation, but the repetition has worked well for me in concert with hands-on application. The 2x’s speed has been an excellent way to review.
The library provides; this dude abides.
For anyone else who experiences a momentary lapse of reason while working their trees, don’t be afraid to go back and review videos once, twice, or even thrice.
Be far more careful with chemical fertilizer. Here in Europe access to synthetic fertilizers is more uncommon, getting something like MiracleGro (what I would be using in the US) is not very easy. Sometimes you can find some synthetics that are more around 10-10-10. At any rate my first mistake was using a shitty synthetic fertilizer that I bought for cheap at a grocery store. I think this stuff was just very poor quality and contributed to the death of several of my trees. Second lesson here is to really be careful with the dosage, I think I overdid it on the synthetic fertilizers which led to rapid fertilizer burn and the death of seven of my beloved trees. I am now going to stick to organic fertilizers (solid or liquid) until I get things more under control
I need to re-learn how to water. I placed several of my beloved deciduous in half-day / three-quarter day direct sunshine, thinking that late afternoon sun would be ok for them. I was attentive to water in the morning (soaking the soil) but things still went poorly for several of them and I ended up with quite some sunburn damage. Next season I will mitigate with usage of a shade cloth and also look at watering two times a day (morning and early afternoon) as the trees cannot always extract water from the soil.
Embarrassing for me because this feels like rookie stuff that I should know better. I became too lazy and too confident trying to play around and drifted too far from the fundamentals, so I am humbled by my mistakes.
What are you considering for organic. If I was in Europe I’d be trying to jump on ferti-pad. Is that stuff still available?
Deciduous and leaf burn. Not a bonsai but I have a garden Japanese maple I’ve been trying to rehabilitate over last year and this one. I transplanted it from one location of the garden to another so it’s been pretty weak woth a lot of root damage. I watered like crazy all spring and summer. Often twice a day. It still ended up with crunchy august leaves. But much better than last year. I suspect that leaf burn situation isnt exclusively about water management and takes other factors into account. But I’m curious what others woth more horticultural background would say.
This week I learned that I should have joined the Mirai community a long time ago. My trial period is not up yet and I have already learned probably more now than in 10 plus years of book and YouTube learning.
This week I learned to look for, and appreciate Fall backbuds on elongating species as signs of a good recovery in a repot year.
I also learned not to mess with the redwoods (pictures) as unlike other elongating species, even if they have good budding, they are a species that doesn’t like getting wired in Fall.
Inspired by Cullen’s post I went back to detailed wiring and the companion video on cleaning. I confidently cleaned and rewired a procumbens. It took 1/10th the time doing similar work earlier in the season. My wiring is getting much better and faster.
I then started in on a hinoki I set structure on in the Spirng, but thank god I took a pause to watch hinoki videos in the library. This week I learned that hinoki do not get cleaned like junipers.
hinok interiors, even if they don’t have the bright green growth of the tips, must be maintained and cultivated! I set a pretty nice hinoki Shohin that I’m excited about and have two more in nursery containers I’ll tackle either early this fall or first thing next Spring.
