With some down time over the Christmas holidays, I finally got around to re-styling THIS TREE. It had been growing mostly untouched for a couple of years and had well and truly outgrown its former style. As it had been left to grow a lot of the growth had become leggy and a lack of […]
So, after some time nurturing and styling your bonsai, the time has come when you think it has reached a stage where you would like to put it on display for others to appreciate what you have achieved. At this stage, presentation is very important to make your bonsai look its best regardless of whether
Leptospermum is a genus of flowering plants in the myrtle family (Myrtaceae), mainly native to Australia and New Zealand. These plants, commonly known as tea trees or manuka, are small evergreen shrubs or trees, typically 2-5 metres tall. Leptospermum are an excellent choice for bonsai for several reasons: • Naturally small leaves • Compact growth
I’ve had this Ficus macrophylla (the Moreton Bay fig) for twenty years, inheriting it when I bought the property and nursery, Bibo Bonsai, in Peats Ridge. For many years it has been kept alive and just moved with me when we sold and moved to Green Point. The tree has a large base with excellent
Marcela Ferreira is a Melbournian passionate in her interest in Australian native trees as bonsai. Marcela has dedicated her bonsai interest in working with hundreds of natives from tube stock to yamadori and has achieved a reputation as an authority on these plants. Her attitude is- grow lots, kill lots, learn lots. Marcela gets a
In bonsai, a raft is one trunk along the ground supporting a number of ‘branches’ that have become trunks in their own right. Rafts come in straight and sinuous and are usually developed when a stock plant has branches on one side only. Plants that are good for rafts are privets, figs, crabapples and junipers,
Water Gum (Tristaniopsis laurina) is a great choice for bonsai, particularly in the Sydney area where it is commonly used as a street tree and thrives with little or no attention. Shiny, attractive foliage with bronze tips in spring, easily reducible leaf size, clusters of small yellow flowers and beautiful bark which flakes off in
Towards the end of 2022, BSA was fortunate to have Evan Marsh give a demonstration on growing Shohin bonsai. Evan is well known for his prize winning Shohin and has studied with Koji Hiramatsu who is an expert Shohin grower and board member and instructor for the All-Japan Shohin- Bonsai Association. Shohin are small bonsai.
Don’t we all have pots like this or am I just weird? One of the downsides (?) of being a bonsai enthusiast is the tendency to collect pots for which you have no tree, not now, often never. This translates to a pot collection greater than the number of trees you have. Still, you won’t
The most commonly asked question that I get asked everywhere I go is how to grow azaleas. Here is a repeat (a revised edition) of the things that I do, with success, on how to grow and get these beautiful shrubs to flower and keep alive. I keep hearing, ‘I had an azalea but it
