Summer Tropical Work

Just some quick work on a couple of tropicals. They had some dieback this spring due to low temps but have recovered nicely.

This green island was looking great last year but took a couple of steps back this last winter. Just a general cleanup of superfluous buds and dead branches. I did add one wire in the apex.

The next tree was more of the same, a general cleanup and a few wires. I left the sacrifice branch in the apex to try and thicken the apex a bit to help with the flow of the trunk. Hard to tell in this picture but the wiring helped in 3D.

I should have a couple of other posts soon for general cleanup of trees. Stay tuned.

Green Island Ficus Work

I have this ficus listed for sale, but I felt the need to rework it anyway. I cut back superfluous branches and tried to establish a better structure for the future. The apex still needs to grow in and be worked on in the future. I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out- it looks better in person.

Before work:

Seeing if I could remove two back branches that were lanky and uninteresting:

After restyle:

Slight angle change might be in the future:

This tree should fill out well once it gets outside this summer. I think I would like to make the apex a but taller in the future but I think the two main branches are in a better place for growing now.

Year in Review : Bougainvillea

This bougainvillea was a gift I gave to my grandfather while visiting him last October. It came back into my care early this spring. I went ahead and chopped it back to start training it as a shohin.

As received this spring.

After the chop and wire.

Repotted and cut back this summer.

And the most recent picture. I have started feeding this with bougain, so hopefully, I will have a picture in bloom someday! I hope to develop the branch structure and aiming for a shallow wide canopy. This is still many years from being a good bonsai but this one has a special meaning to me.

Shohin Stand

I’ve been meaning to make a two tiered shohin stand for quite a while, and this weekend I was able to put one together. I had some leftover MDF from a project so I just used the scraps to put something together. By no means is it a finely crafted stand, but it gives me something to start and build displays with. In the future I can hopefully use some hardwoods for nicer stands but for now it works.

It was made with 3/4 thick MDF cut to 8 inches wide. I then cut one piece to one foot long for the top, and 26 inches for the bottom. The legs are 8 inches long and cut to square 3/4. The stand is just under 10 inches tall.

I applied a dark brown paint since there are no grains to stain. I made the dimensions the way they are so it would fit easily on top of my tropical enclosure.

For my first display, I used my green island ficus (surprise) and a tropical accent I picked up this spring. I need more accents in my collection and this is something I’m working on. I’m also missing a scroll, but hopefully I can find one soon. Thanks for reading, hopefully I can have more displays here in the future!

10,000 Views!

There are a lot of other blogs out there that get much more traffic, but I am pretty happy with the accomplishment. I hope to post more in the future and hopefully start taking better pictures. So keep checking back for more updates.

I leave you with a quick shot of my ficus. Thanks for reading!

Tropicals Are In

Well the temperatures dipped low enough that I decided to bring the tropicals in for the winter. I only have a few small tropicals, but man it looks like I’m almost out of room!

Night Work

Tonight I got a little time to get a bit of work done on two of my tropical projects. Both are from Wigerts Bonsai that I got in October of last year. Both were also featured in a post back in May. I apologize for the poor quality photos; I was enjoying my time outside.

First up is a bougainvillea with a story that I chopped earlier this year and has grown really well. I’ve never worked with the species but it was getting pretty dense and I decided a haircut was in order. I thought this tree was going to flower but it hasn’t so far. I may try to sneak it into a nicer looking pot next week at my class.

Next up was a ficus retusa that has honestly been worked on quite a lot this year. It’s kind of a project tree that I like to experiment on and see how ficus respond to certain things. See that long branch zapping all the energy from the parts I actually want larger…

Well I decided to try my first approach graft for a back branch. The ones that are there are too straight and large for the tree so I felt like starting over with the branches. I’m curious to see how if it works even though its not the cleanest graft ever made. The apex was left intact to try and get it to thicken up while everything else was hit back. I am trying for a drop first branch, but it also needs to thicken up.

While I am here, I thought I’d update my Green Island Ficus that I have been working on to show this year. Time to let them all grow out again, thanks for reading!

A Fathers Day Mess

In order to celebrate my first Father’s Day as a father (and also since I missed last weeks Kaikou class), I decided to go ahead and cut back my Japanese maple forest. Thankfully it was all cleaned up before my wife was able to see.

The forest has grown vigorously this spring and a lot of shoots were extending. It is really dense at the top so I tried to thin it out to let light into the other parts of the tree. The forest still needs a lot of work and refining, but its getting there.

Before:

After:

And the mess:

While I’m here, an update on the green island I defoliated a few weeks ago:

Tropical Work

Well lately I have had the bonsai itch, so a round of work on the tropicals was in order. First up are two trees that I was lost with what to do with, so a cutback is all I could think of.

First up is a ficus Retusa that had lost vigor, and now regained it after a repotting a few months ago. I gave this tree to my wife as her project and she decided that it needed to be whacked back. Who was I to say no?

Before work:

After work:

Up next was a bougainvillea that I chopped back and added a little wire. Not much to look at but wanted to start it over from the beginning.

Before:

After:

Lastly, I defoliated and fully wired my green island ficus that I am hoping to have ready to show this fall. It has been growing well and I decided to get a jump on more ramification, and wiring to the tips.

Before:

After:

Tropical Enclosure

Well, I finally got around to finishing up the tropical enclosure that I started putting together last fall. I’ve been using it for my tropicals ever since, but this past week I put the final touches on and painted it up.

I wanted to have a nicer piece of furniture around the house so that it doesn’t look so messy when I winter my tropicals indoors. My wife has been very supportive, and I think she appreciates the steps taken in order for the display to be a bit nicer.

I painted the inside flat white because it is supposed to reflect a large amount of light, and since this was the only light the trees were getting I wanted to maximize the reflection as much as possible. Another feature added to keep my wife, and newborn, happy was to put a piece of solar screen on the front of the enclosure. This keeps the light in and doesn’t shine in the house anymore.

I decided that I wanted to make a frame first, and then I would attach the outside pieces to the frame. I made room for the T5HO lights so that you wouldn’t see the fixture, and the cord would be hidden out the back. I made a second light enclosure that way I could expand in the future if need be.

It was a project that turned out well, but I have learned a lot and I think that it could have come out better. The ficus trees that I have had inside the enclosure have done great and I couldn’t be happier with that.