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,
Lovely trident, upper structure well developed and ramification coming along very nicely. But the nebari looked like two legs doing the splits. A couple of years ago I cut a path all along the front nebari, brushed on rooting hormone and covered it up. A few roots developed but grew straight down. Which, while understandable,
I took over care of a Japanese red pine in December of 2017 from a very good friend who had had the tree for many years. It is an old Koreshoff pine that was grown from seed planted in 1951. I have come across quite a few 1951 Koreshoff pines with a number living in
At this time of year a lot of azaleas and camellias have or will be finishing their flowering period. It is important that if you want to have them for bonsais, there are a few things that you must do straight after they flower. Cut off all the old dead flowers and seed pods. Trim
An elm that has greatly benefited from GoGo Juice. March 2018 – Well, the lower trunk was nice, and I thought the lower left branch would be the new apex. However, it thought differently and died, the little devil. I stripped the bark off the jin but obviously left a remnant because I have a
