A Little Wire Makes a Big Difference

I wasn't really planning to use my Big Schefflera for bonsai. When I took it to a workshop last month I just wanted a little help with repotting it.

September 2018 - before repotting and wiring

However one of the men at the workshop took one look at the tree and decided that it was suitable bonsai material after all.

After a quick repot, a change of front and a little heavy wire, it's on its way.

September 2018 - after repotting and wiring

Looking at the photos, however, I'm beginning to feel that there are too many branches clumped together on the right. I think in time the two lowest branches may have to go. But not right now because they're full of flower buds and I really want those flowers to grow.


One of the reasons for my doubts was the ugly roots. I was unwilling to remove everything my tree had worked so hard to grow.

Roots before repotting

The change of front helped though. That raised root is not so prominent now that it's growing straight to the front.

Roots after repotting

The nebari will never be spectacular, but a little pruning and a change of front made a big difference. And maybe I can cover a bit more of them at the next repot.

Unusual Displays from Last Year's Bonsai Show

With my bonsai club's show only days away, I realised that I still have a bunch of photos from last year's show that I was planning to write about.

Most of the trees weren't quirky, but the manner in which some of them were displayed was unusual.

Ficus with hippopotamus mother and child

Acacia forest with small hut and origami giraffe

Framed juniper procumbens nana rock planting

Junipers growing on a "mountain" - water feature

Juniper procumbens nana in a bathtub

There was also a Juniper in a rusty shovel which I wrote about at the time.

I can't wait to see what our members come up with this year.

An Entire Growing Season Wasted

It's been a year now since I last mentioned my fig tree, so I thought it was time for a quick update. Sadly things haven't quite gone to plan.

It was doing really well in spring, but the leader was getting far too long.

October 2016 - before pruning

I decided to shorten it so that I could get some ramification.

October 2016 - after pruning

The tree responded well. Within weeks there were lots of new branches developing more or less where I wanted them.

New growth - November 2016

Then disaster struck. Four days after the photo above was taken we were hit my a massive hail storm and all that lovely new growth was ripped off, leaving this:

November 2016 - after the hail

It's now four months since that storm and sadly the tree hasn't replaced those branches. After some lesser hail late last year, it's looking worse than ever.

March 2017

With winter approaching it appears that the entire growing season has been wasted. I guess all I can do now is wait to see how it responds next spring.

Still Struggling with my Three-in-One Ficus

When I conceived my plan to fuse three different colour varieties of Ficus Benjamina about a decade ago I had no idea what complications this gimmicky project had in store for me.

While the trunks have fused well enough to confuse some people, differences in the growth habits of the three varieties have resulted in some branches growing more vigorously than others.

Working around that has been a constant battle, further complicated by the fact that I got carried away with what was meant to be minor pruning in late 2015. After that I made the mistake of letting the tree grow largely unchecked for over a year.

February 2017 - before styling

Had the dark-leaved branches (the most vigorous) been near the bottom of the tree, that might have worked out alright. Unfortunately all those branches were high up and as a result they had become disproportionately thick and had also created some nasty reverse taper and a massive bulge high up on the trunk.

Although it's another setback in the tree's progress I decided those branches had to go.

The old leader was contributing to the problem too so, with a better option having presented itself, I removed that as well. I also decided that the lowest branch didn't fit in with my future plans for the design of the tree.

Here it is after another major pruning and some wiring.

February 2017 - after styling

Right now the new leader needs to fatten up a bit, but hopefully I'll pay enough attention to keep the vigorous top growth under control this time.

And hopefully today's work will stimulate some back-budding because the tree really needs a couple of extra branches on the right side to get things properly balanced.

Titanic Bonsai

Last weekend I went out of town to visit a bonsai show held by another club. The trees were divided into three categories - classic bonsai, trees in training and pop bonsai.

I just had to share a couple of images from the pop bonsai section as they were totally different from anything I've ever seen before.

This one was rotating to show messages like "Save the forests and save the Earth" and "Recycle and save the Ocean and the Earth". What a fun way to convey a serious message!

My personal favourite however was this scene of the sinking Titanic. I had fun editing this one in Photoshop to capture the vintage feel of something that happened a long time ago.

I think sometimes we take the art of bonsai too seriously and ignore the fun side of things. I'll try not to do that going forward.

The Screaming Stinkwood Tree

Among the photos I used in my post about the trees I displayed at our club show last weekend was a shot of a rather boring stinkwood tree. The only thing it appeared to have in its favour was a fairly thick trunk.

Suggested front

I acquired that tree off my club's raffle table towards the end of 2012. At the time it was sharing a pot with a young Pyracantha which had taken root in its pot, so my first priority was to separate the two trees. I took them along to a workshop the next day and, once they had been separated, I asked my mentor for a bit of advice regarding styling and accepted what appears in that photo as being the best front for the tree.

Over the next tree years I did very little work on it. Then, late last year I took it to a workshop attended by members of various clubs from my area. I had a special person in mind whose advice I wanted as stinkwood trees are one of his areas of expertise.

Although I don't know him very well he was most helpful and even did some heavy carving on the back of the tree. When he was done I asked if that was still the back and was rather surprised when he replied in the affirmative. As he was the expert however, I accepted his opinion though I was never totally convinced that he was right.

Fast forward to October 2016 and my preparations for the show. I always planned to display the tree showing the "correct" front and when I arrived at the venue, I placed it that way on the display table. However every time I looked at the tree it just felt wrong and I expressed my doubts to many members before the breakthrough moment when one member looked at the gaping hole in the "back" of the tree and said it reminded him of Edvard Munch's painting called The Scream.

That was all the affirmation I needed to go with my gut and I immediately turned the tree around to show this front:

My preferred front

I don't care how many people tell me I'm wrong. It's my tree, and to me the carving is its most interesting feature, so it deserves to be seen. Now I just need to create the canopy the tree deserves.

Use Your Imagination

I hate to admit that when I first joined my bonsai club I became so bogged down by the rules that after a while all my trees started to look the same. I guess realising that mistake is the first step towards creating interesting bonsai, though I can't help feeling that mine still have a long way to go. Slowly I'm developing a taste for the quirky though, as can be seen in the development of my fig tree.

Some people have more imagination than others and fortunately it takes all kinds to make a club. Today was day one of our annual show and there was quite a mix of trees there.

Here's one by an artist with a lot of imagination:

Instead of a pot this Juniper is planted in the bowl of a rusty old garden spade which has been wrapped with barbed wire to depict struggle. There were a couple more elements to the display, but it was too much to fit into one small photo, so I concentrated on the tree and its message.

Obviously this kind of display isn't going to be to everyone's liking. You can love it or hate it, but you can't ignore it. I guess that's what makes it art.

One thing is for sure, my own show trees look very ordinary by comparison.

Reinventing a Tree with Bad Nebari

Shortly after I joined my bonsai club I bought an olive tree from a local nursery. It was tall and straight with no low branches but I always planned to cut it really low down.

April 2008 - as purchased

I let it sit untouched through the first winter and in August 2008 I finally decided to move it to a pot and make the first chop. And that's when I encountered my first problem. The nursery had tied it to a large stick and try as I might I couldn't get that stick to budge.

August 2008 - the stick that caused all the trouble

Under the circumstances I was forced to take it to a workshop where a strong man was able to remove it. He also cut the roots back a lot harder than I'd dared to.

August 2008 - after root pruning

After cutting the trunk further he put it back in its nursery pot. I had no inkling then that the stick would come back to haunt me years later.

August 2008

The tree quickly recovered from its ordeal and put out plenty of new growth. Everything was looking good.

October 2008

It was only two years later when I put it into a bonsai pot for the first time that I saw the first signs that all was not as it should be. The root structure wasn't looking too good. Once more the potting was done at a workshop and my teacher used wire in an attempt to lower one problem root. He also tried to plant moss around the roots, hence the bandages in this photo:

October 2010

Sadly this didn't prove to be very effective as, once the wired was removed, the root refused to stay in place. As time passed it just got worse and worse.

November 2013 - Problem nebari

By late 2013 I was getting really frustrated. Attempts to plant the tree lower in the pot were unsuccessful and in a last ditch attempt to hide the problem, a member of my club planted moss around the roots.

November 2013 - with moss

Although I wasn't too happy with the structure of the tree I might have left it at that, but unfortunately the moss didn't stay there for very long. One morning I discovered that some visiting birds had ripped it to shreds and I was back to square one.

In late 2014 I took it to another workshop where I was persuaded to shorten the tree. The highest root was also removed.

December 2014

This might have improved the tree somewhat had I kept an eye on it over the next few months, but unfortunately I neglected it and while I got a lot of new growth, the tree suffered some serious die-back lower down. A year later it bore no resemblance to the (bad) bonsai it once was.

December 2015

It was time for drastic measures. My second trunk chop was even lower than the first. All that remained was the branch that's visible in this photo and another hidden at the back.

December 2015 - second chop

I was advised to wire the visible branch upwards but always felt that was the wrong move given the fact that the rather quirky nebari were on that side. I felt the tree needed to slant in the opposite direction and waited in hope for a new leader which, thankfully, soon arrived.

June 2016 - growing strongly

By June 2016 that leader was nice and strong and it was time to remove the left branch.

This is what it looked like in July 2016 after I'd removed that branch. I didn't touch the leader but I zoomed in for this shot to show the root that's caused all the trouble.

July 2016

What was once a really bad formal upright is now on track to becoming another quirky tree.

Breaking all the Rules

I know I've written at length about my fig tree, but I thought one last update would be in order before the Southern hemisphere winter arrives. Already the days are getting shorter and there's a nip in the morning air, so this tree will soon drop all its leaves. I can't see anything changing between now and spring, so you won't have to read about it again until at least September.

This tree has changed a lot over the course of this summer, and most of what I've done has gone against advice I've been given both online and at my club, but that's okay. It's my tree and I'm the only one who has to like it.

December 2015 - before pruning

This is what it looked like in December, before I started work on it. A strange twisty trunk low down with a dead straight top section. My plan was always for a short tree though, and all that height was just to thicken up the apex.

When I took it to my club for a crit just after this photo was taken, I didn't expect any positive feedback, but I did get some, and based on the advice I received, I cut it back to this:

December 2015 - after pruning

It didn't take me long to realise that I hated that as a front, so I started exploring my options, finally cutting them down to three possible fronts before deciding that the one I thought I liked best was probably just a bit too out of the box. All the while I was gradually cutting down on the number of branches, and by the time I took it to a club workshop today, only two remained.

Fig tree - before season's last pruning

I was determined to get rid of one of them, but should have known better than to ask for other people's opinions. Out of all the people I asked, only one agreed with my strange decision, and some even questioned my choice of front, preferring an angle that I dislike.

Sometimes I give in to others' opinions, only to regret it. In this case, however, I was not to be deterred from what I wanted to do. However, after hearing what was said, I did a little unplanned wiring to the leader. I also tweaked the front ever so slightly.

Fig tree - March 2016

In spring I'll repot it again, because I really want to bring it a bit more upright, more or less how it looked when I tilted the pot for this photo.

Proposed angle for repot

That will require a bit of root work though, because there are some really heavy roots at the back. After that I'll leave the side branch to thicken a bit, but I won't let the apex grow too much higher because I'm not planning to let it thicken much more and I really want to start working on ramification.

Sometimes I get carried away

Some of the experts at Reddit's bonsai group have accused me of doing too much too soon and I have to admit that I'm often guilty of that. While some of my trees can sit in my bonsai area for months or even years without my doing much work on them, some get more than their fair share of attention.

I'm trying to improve my bonsai skills though so, since becoming aware of the problem, I've been trying to restrain myself where possible. Despite that I sometimes find myself getting carried away once I have a branch cutter in my hands.

In a recent post I wrote about an odd little Ficus Benjamina I've been working on. Although it's not traditional bonsai, I had fun creating it. After its last haircut it was looking quite good, even if a couple of branches didn't feel quite right to me, and I even had thoughts of finding a bonsai pot for it.

That was over two months ago though, and it was starting to look rather overgrown again, so a couple of days ago I decided to bring it inside for a little trim while I watched the South African cricket team in action. I didn't plan anything drastic, just to tidy the top up a bit.

Before pruning

Perhaps part of the blame could go to my team's poor performance, or maybe that's just a lame excuse, but I suddenly decided that those branches had to go. Somewhere along the lines I also concluded that the tree was too tall, so I reduced the height as well. By the time I was done, my poor little tree was reduced to a mere skeleton with a few leaves on each branch.

What's left after excessive pruning

I'm not sure whether to be embarrassed by what I've done. Part of me feels like I've done something awful, but I'm also curious to see what new growth the little guy puts out during the rest of the Southern hemisphere summer. Who knows, in time it may still become a better tree.

One thing is certain though - that bonsai pot will have to wait!

Back from the brink of disaster

My last post ended on rather a negative note. I'd totally lost my way in trying to turn a young fig tree into bonsai after making a chop that I soon came to regret. My poor little tree ended up looking like this:

August 2010 - extreme chop

Under the circumstances I wasn't too surprised to receive a comment on Facebook saying "I would've thrown it away!"

It's not in my nature to do that though. My trees are my babies, and while there's life, there's hope.

But I really didn't know where to go from there. So I did the only thing I could do - nothing. I just left the tree to do its own thing and waited for it to present me with some new options.

If I'd been working with a different species, it may well have grown a new branch close to the cut, and in time I'd have been able to revert to the original design, but this tree has a mind of its own, so I was forced to work with the leaders it produced.

I would let it grow for a while, then pick the leader I wanted and cut back to redirect its energy in the desired direction. I don't believe that I did any wiring over the next five years.

Finally last week I decided that it was time to commit to what I had. Here is how my peculiar little tree looked in all its overgrown glory:

December 2015 - before pruning

As it was growing rather low in the pot, I took it out to get a better view of its structure.

December 2015 - before pruning

It had developed a lot over the last five years, but I didn't find that view too pleasing so I tried rotating it, and found a view that looked slightly better.

December 2015 - before pruning

Before going further I decided to take it for a critique at my bonsai club. I must confess that I was a little nervous as to how people would view this rather quirky tree that I was trying to pass off as bonsai material. After all, it breaks just about every rule I've ever been taught.

I was in for a pleasant surprise. Once people looked beyond the long sacrificial branches, they could see that what I had grown was a "fun" tree with some interesting curves.

Rather than remove a branch that was in a totally wrong place, it was suggested that I thread it through the first bend in the trunk to give me a branch on the side that was bare. In most cases that would be inappropriate, but for this tree it just felt right, so that's what I've done. Now that branch needs to thicken up until it's in proportion with the rest of the tree.

This was the suggested front:

December 2015 - after pruning

After giving it some thought, however, I wasn't sure that I like that angle. I prefer this view:

December 2015 - after pruning

I haven't totally committed to it yet, but if I do, I'll need to remove one small branch which is coming straight forward. For now, however, my final step was to defoliate the tree to help it recover from having its roots pruned.

December 2015 - after pruning and defoliation

I know this tree won't be to everyone's liking, but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out after such a disastrous beginning.

Three Trees Become One

At a recent meeting of my bonsai club one of our senior members spoke about grafting, discussing a variety of different ways in which it could be used to improve our trees.

Although I've seen several of these methods used at workshops in the past, traditional grafting isn't something I've tried doing myself and to be honest I'd probably need a man's help if I chose to try some of the things he demonstrated.

Among the methods he showed us was how fusing several trees together can help to create fat trunks quickly. I used that method to create the tree being discussed here, although my reason for doing so was slightly different.

Tree created by fusing three different varieties of Ficus Benjamina

Many years ago, before I ever joined the club, I dreamed about creating a ficus bonsai with three different colours of foliage - different colour leaves on different branches. I'd seen braided ficus trees for sale on many occasions so that seemed like the obvious way to go. I didn't realise at the time that braiding is not the recommended method of fusing trunks as it can give a rather knobbly effect which never really goes away. You can see that effect in this photo of a tree which  was already braided when I bought it.

Knobbly effect of plaited trunks on a nursery bought tree

Fortunately I started my tree with very young material though, so the effect of the braiding is not so obvious. I used three very thin cuttings from different varieties of Ficus Benjamina and braided the cuttings tightly as soon as they had formed adequate roots to support them.

As Ficus Benjamina is a fast growing species, my tree quickly reached what I regarded as a decent height so that I no longer had to worry about braiding but could focus my attention on branch development. I was spoilt for options and had to remove a few branches to prevent the tree from looking too bushy. There are still visible scars where the branches were cut off, but in time they will become less obvious.

With hindsight I made a couple of mistakes. The first was in my choice of material for the palest leaves. I had two different varieties to choose from and sadly I chose the less vigorous one. The result is that those branches will never be as vigorous as the branches with darker leaves. I'm trying to fatten them up, but I'm not sure I'll ever succeed in getting the balance right.

My second mistake is more a change of artistic vision. I don't find the middle (yellowish) leaf shade so appealing and wish I'd restricted myself to using only the other two colours. I've often contemplated starting a new tree using just those two and hope to do so this summer.