Nine members attended our workshop last month and had an interesting time doing Root over Rock figs. Some trees created at last year’s Root over Rock workshop had their roots exposed to check on progress. Of these, a few needed adjustments in their position on the rock, roots trimmed or more sphagnum moss added. They […]
I have a fetish about putting all my trees into bonsai pots, even the trees in early training that don’t begin to deserve a dedicated pot. My benches are just outside my dining room and kitchen windows so you can see the trees all the time, and they simply look nicer in nice pots. But
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
What a fantastic demonstration from Brenda Parker last month. An expert on azaleas, Brenda explained everything one needs to know, from history to care to surprising facts, about this beautiful flowering species. Did you know that all parts of the azalea is poisonous? Kindly Brenda has allowed us to publish her excellent and detailed article
The Origins of Jins and Sharis In nature these occur naturally without the aid of human intervention on junipers. There is a variety of a mountain juniper called a nezu and the natural jins and sharis are made by a blight fungus, which belongs to the family of mould that causes athlete’s foot and this
In preparation for our move from temporary residence in Commonwealth Park, up to our existing facility within the National Arboretum, we increased our holding of bonsai and penjing from around 30 trees up to a number over 100. In order to do this, we relied heavily on the bonsai community to increase their loans and
Grewia is an evergreen native of South Africa and is a beautiful flowering plant but seldom seen in bonsai displays. I am basing this article on two short, early attempts and the grewia I have now had for two years. In gardens, the grewia grows to be a substantial bush and is happy in sun
Well known for her very beautiful kusamono and kokodama, Young Choe has a deep interest in moss and is a member of a moss identification group along with Zach Stanley, a bryologist from the Pacific Bonsai Museum. In this workshop, she and Zach explained mosses, their identification, collection and cultivation. It was most interesting, even
Last month at the workshop several members still chose to work on their figs, as well as some conifers. Figs were still able to be repotted, with the conifers just being tidied up or wired. Adrian used raffia on an advanced juniper that he wants to shape for its future styling. This month is special,
