Progressions

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.

I thought that I would start posting certain trees on here for progression purposes. I will start with a Satsuki Azalea that I got during my first bonsai class this past june. It was completely rootbound and was potted with about 70% of the rootball still untouched. Even so, it has been putting out some pretty nice growth all summer.

I have thinned it out a few times this summer and now will be leaving it untouched for the rest of the year. I had wired it and then taken it off while trying to put some curves into a few of the branches. I still have a tourniquet styled guide wire pulling a very straight branch inwards to increase the density of the canopy. The plan is to repot the correct way next spring I think right after it has bloomed. I may try and hack it way back as well but that might have to wait until Spring 2013. I am toying with leaving the two trunks or narrowing it down to one. I like the way it is turning out so far and it seems to be very healthy at the moment.

The first picture is at the NE bonsai during the class. As you can see the flower are sort’ve large on this tree so that is something that will need to be taken into account in future styling. The next picture is the same day at home, potted up. The latest picture is from August 20th and you can see that the shape seems to look better, and the leaves look much healthier. Since that picture, there are new sprouts all over the place which you can see in the next picture.