Starting a Pyracantha Bonsai From Nursery Stock

A few days ago I found this Pyracantha at the nursery section of a nearby hardware store.

Pyracantha as purchased - January 2019

I shouldn't really be buying more trees, but my only Pyracantha died about a year ago, so I couldn't resist the temptation to replace it.

I was pretty sure I knew what I needed to do with this one, but I took it to a workshop on Saturday in the vain hope that I'd be told my plans were too drastic.

No such luck. It was never going to work as a twin trunk because one trunk had lots of movement while the other was dead straight.

Close-up showing two unmatched trunks

The straight one had to go. Two cuts and I was done.

January 2019 - after pruning

I was really sad to see all the berries go into the trash can, but sometimes the art of bonsai requires sacrifices.

Now I'll let the tree grow for a while before deciding on the next step. Perhaps in time I'll cut it even shorter.

Photo updates will appear on this page.

One little Bougainvillea - three options

Over the years I haven't had a lot of success with flowering trees.

One of my early purchases was a Bougainvillea "Smarty Pants", a variety which doesn't have thorns. Soon after I bought it I took it to a workshop and came away quite happy with the styling that was done. Unfortunately, being inexperienced in transporting trees it didn't enter my mind that the tree might topple over in the car - the outcome was that one or two branches snapped off before I even had time to take a photo of my newly styled tree.

I've been battling with that tree ever since, primarily because I later discovered that I'd chosen a tree with a really bad root system. All is not lost however because I've propagated a few cuttings from it over the years.

I started this one from a thickish cutting three or four years ago.

Front - June 2017

Above is my front and below is what I've always regarded as the back:

Back - June 2017

On Saturday I took it along to a club meeting, keen to get some suggestions for its future.

I received three very different suggestions and have created a rough virtual of each option using Photoshop.

Virtual 1

This is fairly close to what I had in mind, though the back has become the front and I hadn't planned on removing the second branch on the right hand side. Although the leader is coming forward from this side I'm not too keen to have that huge scar facing forward and the right hand side looks rather bare.

Virtual 2

I'm not sure I've got the slant quite right here. This is supposed to be a semi-cascade. I'm not sure whether the tree's root system will support this style but may look into this option when I repot the tree in spring.

Virtual 3

This one is supposed to be a windswept tree. Are Bougainvilleas really suited to this style? Based on this virtual I'm not totally convinced.

Right now I've got a lot to think about but I won't be cutting anything until my little tree loses its bracts (flowers). I think a slight change of slant may be a good idea, but probably not as drastic as what's shown in virtual 2 or 3. I'm also considering a change of front to minimise the gap between the two trunks.

Here's a 360° view which may show better angles than in my unedited photos.



All suggestions are welcome.

Which option would you choose for this tree?

A Flower for the New Year

I've never had much luck with flowering bonsai.

My problems began with one of my first trees, a small Azalea which I bought in the days when I still hoped to keep my trees indoors. As an over-enthusiastic newbie I put it straight into a bonsai pot, and I probably made a few other mistakes that I wasn't even aware of. Needless to say it didn't survive for very long.

On another occasion I bought a beautiful Fuchsia. As far as I recall it was quite a big plant which would have required hard pruning if it was ever to become bonsai, but I never got that far. It too was living indoors and one day it got knocked over. It went downhill pretty fast after that.

Then there was my first Camellia. By the time I bought it I'd realised the importance of light so I put it on a stand next to a large window and hoped for the best. It stayed green for quite a while but I suspect that by the time the leaves started dropping it had already been dead for some time.

Shortly before I joined my bonsai club I bought a small twin trunk Serissa. One trunk died but it recovered well after that setback and started growing quite nicely when I finally learned the error of my ways and moved it outside. I even had hopes of putting it on our club's show, but those hopes were quickly dashed when it received an unplanned restyling courtesy of Mother Nature during a severe hailstorm in December 2007. Though that didn't kill it, it finally died tragically in the great vinegar disaster. Not before I'd propagated a few more baby Serissas from cuttings though.

In 2011 I developed one of those cuttings into a mame tree (or to be more precise a tiny stick in a pot) which I was persuaded to put into a bonsai pot long before it deserved to be in one.

A tiny Serissa bonsai, 2011

Shortly afterwards I foolishly decided to put that tree on display at a show our club was holding at a local mall. It was by far the smallest tree on show and on the Saturday it was admired by several members of the public who didn't realise just how little character it really had.

I arrived at the show on the Sunday morning to be greeted by the news that my little tree had been stolen. As the venue was frequented by wild young people who came there to party the night away, I suspect the thief crept into the fenced-off bonsai area on a dare and looked for the easiest tree to carry. If that's the case I doubt he even tried to keep it alive.

In financial terms the loss of the pot was probably a lot more significant than the loss of the tree, and in terms of time and effort I didn't lose much either, but I still mourned the probable death of the baby of my collection.

There have been a few more disasters over the years and I also have a few flowering trees with little bonsai potential. And then there's my dwarf Pomegranate which is developing quite nicely but refuses to give me a single flower or fruit.

All of which brings me to New Year 2016 and a chilli seedling that a member of my club gave me a few months ago.

Chilli seedling with its first flower (top right)

I hadn't been giving it too much attention as my focus was purely on keeping it alive, but when I was watering my trees yesterday I noticed that it was celebrating the new year with its first flower.

Close-up of flower on chilli seedling

My friend is trying to create a chilli bonsai by fusing a bunch of seedlings into one tree. I only have the one which he rejected because its growth pattern didn't fit into the group. One of these days I'll have to move it into a bigger pot and see if it can develop enough of a trunk to create a small bonsai.

For now I'm having fun turning its photos into digital art for my new photo blog at Tumblr.