I haven’t really updated in a while, thought I’d continue with my progressions. I bought Nick Lenz’s book “Bonsai from the Wild” this past late spring and gave it a good read. In another book I read, both the authors really advocated Larch as bonsai. I then made sure I made a trip to New England Bonsai Gardens to see what they had in stock.
I picked this collected Larch up under the summer sell down tent, where it was 40% off. I thought it looked pretty rugged and even though it had a few trunks, I thought it would be manageable.
A week or two after I got it home I had a day off from work, and decided to style it. I went with a twin trunk, father/son type arrangement. It was pretty much my first time styling a tree. I wired the branches down in order to give it an aged look. In Lenz’s book, he tells the readers how important wiring down the branches is because they will ascend in a pot. I liked the way it turned out and was a start.
I decided I didn’t like that the nebari so I decided to start a ground layer. I wrapped the tourniquet and applied rooting hormone,and covered with soil. I am hoping to start the nebari and flare closer to the fork in the trunks. In the future I plan to shorten one of the trunks to bring the father/son feeling to scale. For now I’ll let it go for a while and hopefully roots start to spread from the tourniquet.
Tom's Bonsai 