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Crocoduck posted:Nah dude, don't be thinking that way. Bonsai is all tasks, learning how to work a tree at the right time, for the right reasons is insanely important. I would say that ideally every bonsai artist should have a giant set of tools, including non traditional ones like broken glass bottles, sharpened screwdrivers, children's hammers, aquarium tubing, etc. Learning how to grow a tree is important, but learning how to work a tree is what separates bonsai from houseplants. I don't disagree I was more pushing a minimalist approach. I don't think you need a giant set of tools to succeed at bonsai. I learned a lot about shaping a tree so its not a loss, just a bummer
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Aug 2, 2018 23:30
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:I don't disagree I was more pushing a minimalist approach. I don't think you need a giant set of tools to succeed at bonsai. I learned a lot about shaping a tree so its not a loss, just a bummer I'm more on the lines of I want to be able to accomplish every task in bonsai at my leisure, without going to a studio. Pruning - saw concave cutter knob cutter shear second shear in case I gently caress up shear 1 narrow shear Wiring - large gently caress off wire cutters medium normal wire cutters small detail wire cutters jin pliers every size of copper wire every size of aluminum wire Grafting - grafting knife grafting tape grafting nails Heavy bending - rebar branch jack those weird rear end branch benders Carving - die grinder + bits dremel + bits screw driver chisel set si diao set abegglen knife broken bottles child's hammer Repotting - Metal chopsticks Wooden chopsticks Custom size wooden chopsticks Screens Soil scoops Soil sifters Wheelbarrow Garbage pail Masonry dril bits Chemicals Multiple insecticides - bayer 3 in 1, malathion, sevin Fungicide - copper, cleary's 3336F Fertilizers - fish emulsion, biogold, sumocakes, green dream Miscellaneous Power drill Sawzall COLLECT ALL THA TOOLS
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Aug 2, 2018 23:44
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I forgot! This:  Is probably the tool I use the most, if only because I can put it in my pocket safely. I'm not sure I'd pay full retail price, but it's a useful little guy.
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Aug 4, 2018 16:49
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The bugs on my mugo pine seem mostly under control now, between some ant bait and a lot of dish soap. The current container it's in is a (I think) 2 or 3 gallon tub mostly filled with wood chips and potbound roots. Vance Woods and everything else I've read advises repotting mugo right around now. Should I go ahead and repot into bonsai soil do you guys think? The substrate its in now is just awful. And should I trim back and go to a bonsai pot or just put it back in the current one with nicer soil/dead stuff removed? Not planning on barerooting because well, pine. I don't need the trunk any bigger but I don't want to act too rashly.
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Aug 6, 2018 22:15
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New beast of a tree in the garden. Rocky mountain juniper that's probably 300-400 years old.
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Sep 12, 2018 22:05
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Oh my god look at that trunk!!! Did you collect that or inherit it? How much work are you going to do/are you going to show it? Ga drat I'm not worthy I think you need to get it in the ground and thicken it up 
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Sep 12, 2018 23:01
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:Oh my god look at that trunk!!! Did you collect that or inherit it? How much work are you going to do/are you going to show it? Ga drat I'm not worthy Bought it from Todd Schlafer out at https://www.firstbranchbonsai.com. First thing to do is graft it with kishu or itoigawa foliage - both do pretty well in my garden. That will take maybe 5 years before it's ready for its first styling. At that point I'm going to wire the bejeezus out of it and tilt it to the right. I might show it - I'm thinking of showing in the Mid Atlantic Bonsai show next year, I've got a few junipers to submit. After that nationals is up in 2020, but I'm not sure if my skills are up to snuff. We'll see. Definitely need to ground plant it :P
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Sep 12, 2018 23:14
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Crocoduck posted:Bought it from Todd Schlafer out at https://www.firstbranchbonsai.com. First thing to do is graft it with kishu or itoigawa foliage - both do pretty well in my garden. That will take maybe 5 years before it's ready for its first styling. At that point I'm going to wire the bejeezus out of it and tilt it to the right. I might show it - I'm thinking of showing in the Mid Atlantic Bonsai show next year, I've got a few junipers to submit. After that nationals is up in 2020, but I'm not sure if my skills are up to snuff. We'll see. Wow I'd love to check out his garden, some seriously nice trees there. Do you run a blog or instagram or something? I'd love to soak up knowledge from you... like spam the heck out of this thread with pictures and info pleaseee. My only experience with junipers is firefighting in the southwest and they are little monstrous shrubs that were incredibly frustrating to cut so I have some stupid misguided hatred for them. They make pretty amazing bonsai though
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Sep 13, 2018 00:27
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I'm on instagram as joe.rozek and post every once in a while. I had a blog, but honestly, my skills aren't enough to justify the bandwidth I'm taking up.
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Sep 13, 2018 10:13
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Attended a workshop/gathering last weekend which was great and while there, I had one of my trees styled by Ian Young from Bonsai Eejit It was a very dense mess of crossing branches that was super daunting to sort through, Ian helped find the way towards a nice open canopy. This species has tiiiny flowers and leaves and very nice bark that forms early. A lot of these paperbarks have this upright wavy broom-like growth habit which this tree may suit. The world bonsai convention is coming to Perth in 2021 and I'd love to have this tree exhibited there as a shohin. I've got some work ahead of me! I may get involved with the local club organising the exhibition as well and lend a hand if I can.   
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Sep 19, 2018 10:25
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Gorgeous! We had a full size paperbark in front of my old house and I remember wondering if they could be mniaturized. The bark is so cool. There's not much to do with trees this time of year so maybe more people can post more pictures of what they have going on 
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Sep 20, 2018 05:14
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fuzzy_logic posted:Gorgeous! We had a full size paperbark in front of my old house and I remember wondering if they could be mniaturized. The bark is so cool. Are you Northern or Southern hemisphere? Plenty to do in Northern. Dude sweet that's a really nice tree. I might like to see it in another pot though.
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Sep 21, 2018 02:51
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Crocoduck posted:Bought it from Todd Schlafer out at https://www.firstbranchbonsai.com. Didn't he apprentice under Ryan Neil? I'm a huge Bonsai Mirai fan.
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Sep 24, 2018 22:30
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Crocoduck posted:Are you Northern or Southern hemisphere? Plenty to do in Northern. fuzzy_logic posted:Gorgeous! We had a full size paperbark in front of my old house and I remember wondering if they could be mniaturized. The bark is so cool. Thanks a lot  this was both this tree's first bonsai pot rather than a plastic nursery pot, as well my first time choosing a pot for a tree. The next pot will be a different smaller as I'm able to reduce the root mass size further and i'll look at different styles and colours as well.
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Sep 25, 2018 11:34
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Koth posted:Didn't he apprentice under Ryan Neil? I'm a huge Bonsai Mirai fan. He did. Guy is becoming a fantastic stylist as well as a good collector. Ryan Neil is a personal inspiration, I'm lucky to occasionally study under another one of his students who has one of the best collections I've ever seen.
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Sep 26, 2018 07:55
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I'd like some advice on my first bonsai tree, since I think it isn't super happy with me (and probably for good reason).  So I got a dwarf olive tree maybe 6 weeks ago, and I spent the first few weeks underwatering it because I read it liked dry soil  . I've been keeping it indoors, next to a west facing window that gets pretty good sunlight. Well, after a few weeks, I noticed that the leaves had lost a lot of their color, were curling up, and falling off easily. So I then did the opposite thing, and started to overwater. I eventually bought a water gauge to help tell me what the soil is looking like and try to keep a more consistent hydration level. So, since I started watering it more, the leaves have stopped coming off, but the leaves are stilled curled up and dull. Today, I also saw a couple new leaves sprouting and even some sprouting out next to the base of the tree (second trunk forming???). I tried googling around, and I couldn't really get a good idea of what is going on. Maybe its fungus? Please help me be less of an idiot so I don't kill my new plant friend
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Oct 12, 2018 02:20
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My guess is under watering. In a natural environment, olive trees can live in dry places with dry soil because they send roots deep underground to find water. In a bonsai pot that’s not possible, so you need to water it consistently. If anything, you can let the soil dry out a bit between waterings, but it should probably never be 100% dry. Trees drop their leaves when they lack water because water evaporates from leaves, and so the tree tries to protect what little water it has in the trunk and roots by pulling water out of the leaves and ditching them. If your tree is forming new leaves, it’s still alive which means you probably started watering it again just in time. If the curled leaves are REALLY dry and come off easily when you touch them, they won’t come back to life and you can safely remove them. The tree should form new leaves given time and proper watering.
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Oct 12, 2018 11:03
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Are they normally ok inside?
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Oct 12, 2018 16:14
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I don’t have a similar tree so I don’t know, but time will tell. If it has new leaves that’s a good sign.
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Oct 12, 2018 20:39
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Ok, I'll keep watering like I have been recently and hope it holds on Thanks
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Oct 13, 2018 00:31
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Crocoduck posted:Are you Northern or Southern hemisphere? Plenty to do in Northern. I'm in California, we're just entering indian summer so I'm really just watering and fertilizing. Needles don't need pulling for another month or so. My mugo has also decided to list slowly into the sweet embrace of death so I'm trying to fight that off.
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Oct 16, 2018 03:29
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Wow there are some incredible looking trees in here. I know nothing about bonsai or if this even falls into that category or not, but I fell in love with this Operculicarya decaryi at my succulent place yesterday so I bought and potted it. Looking online it seems like people use these for bonsai and they can take on some pretty interesting shapes, but this one is already pretty big at ~3ft. I'd like it to take on a slightly more interesting shape than 'lollipop'. What are my options here, or is it just matter of letting it grow back out and seeing what's there to work with? It's obviously been heavily cut back by the grower. 
CheddarGoblin fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Oct 31, 2018 |
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Oct 30, 2018 00:55
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At what point do I decide my Mugo is dead and not coming back? it's mostly brown needles with some green and I'm seeing no new growth. I water it but th soil stays wet and the needles stay dry, which to me says it's not taking up hardly any water. Is it worth trimming off the dead stuff and trying to coax it into a comeback or should I call it now and resign it to compost?
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Oct 30, 2018 04:19
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The most common way I've killed plants over the years is definitely overwatering #1 and then leaving them outside overnight when it's too cold. I'd say wait until spring to call it dead. This is the fun part of bonsai!
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Oct 30, 2018 18:00
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fuzzy_logic posted:At what point do I decide my Mugo is dead and not coming back? it's mostly brown needles with some green and I'm seeing no new growth. I water it but th soil stays wet and the needles stay dry, which to me says it's not taking up hardly any water. Is it worth trimming off the dead stuff and trying to coax it into a comeback or should I call it now and resign it to compost? s deadfuck
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Nov 5, 2018 07:54
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Crocoduck posted:s deadfuck I don't know what this means. Harry Potter on Ice posted:This is the fun part of bonsai! It is?!? Anyway I cut away the totally dead stuff and soaked the foliage and bark and it looks like some sap is still moving so I'll hold out until all the needles are dead I guess.
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Nov 6, 2018 05:36
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fuzzy_logic posted:I don't know what this means. I'm pretty sure it isn't good.
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Nov 6, 2018 05:46
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Got a new tree, pretty happy.  TheMightyHandful posted:I'm pretty sure it isn't good. No... it ain't. Crocoduck fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Nov 12, 2018 |
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Nov 12, 2018 00:34
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RIP the mugo. When you get trees half off from the clearance rack it happens sometimes I guess. Other trees are chugging along and since I have nothing but conifers I figured I'd pick up two naked little maples this weekend. Mikawa yatsubusa on the left, shirasawanum 'Aureum' on the right. The lighting in my living room is awful but because of the smoke it was even worse outside. I put them in the yard and plan to mostly ignore them until they wake up in spring. The aureum does have these onboxious sucker-looking shoots all over it, though, they're mostly all coming from the same spot and look awful. I really want to cut them off but some reading says they're a symptom of overpruning (I can see some big removal was done near the graft) and I should leave them totally alone and then gradually remove them over time. I'm concerned about a gross knuckle forming in that spot but please convince me to keep my hands to myself.   (obvious graft is obvious) The yew is also perfectly happy, although I'm going to need to do a little work to balance the weak and vigorous sections, the disparity is pretty shocking in terms of backbudding and needle length.   vs 
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Nov 12, 2018 03:29
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Were the suckers underneath the graft union? Might be the root stock trying to get some foliage of its own.
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Nov 13, 2018 23:52
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Crocoduck posted:Were the suckers underneath the graft union? Might be the root stock trying to get some foliage of its own. They're up at the top of the tree but I can see some big wounds below the graft where those suckers were recently removed. ed: wiser minds than I opted to remove the 2 most problematic shoots and remove the apical buds from the rest. fuzzy_logic fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Nov 18, 2018 |
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Nov 14, 2018 05:37
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I'm not very good with shohin or mame. The kind of balancing necessary when you're dealing with that little foliage is genuinely beyond me. I'm starting to learn, but it's a whole thing. Whomever you're talking to is probably a better resource, so I'd listen to them. I am learning though, maybe I can give you advice in another five years :P
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Nov 21, 2018 07:02
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So, obviously I have some time, but what's the estimate before I have to do something with my new Ficus? Six months? A year?
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Nov 21, 2018 07:17
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ante posted:So, obviously I have some time, but what's the estimate before I have to do something with my new Ficus? Six months? A year? Five years.
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Nov 21, 2018 17:33
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Cool, I better get started, then
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Nov 21, 2018 19:02
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ante posted:Cool, I better get started, then The bonsai is not you working on the tree; you have to have the tree work on you
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Nov 22, 2018 02:00
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:The bonsai is not you working on the tree; you have to have the tree work on you I recommend getting super high and then just sitting down and attempting to communicate with the tree for like an hour. I do it like every other week and it works great.
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Nov 22, 2018 04:32
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 Really happy with this new tree. I'm trying to only purchase trees that I can see myself working on for 40 years plus, and this is one of them. Well, if I can have some help moving it around. Thing is small enough that I can lift it by myself now, but later... Styled first by Tak Shimazu out in Cali, it's a gorgeous piece that needs some fine tuning. It will spend the winter in my friend's greenhouse.
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Nov 22, 2018 09:07
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drat, nice tree and cool idea fuzzy_logic posted:I recommend getting super high and then just sitting down and attempting to communicate with the tree for like an hour. I do it like every other week and it works great. Same and it works.
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Nov 22, 2018 22:17
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Are there any ideas for doing bonsai but not having a realistic place to leave them outside? I say this because I live in the city and i've had plant things stolen, pots, stands, water canisters, etc outside my front door. I haven't really had that happen in the back, but it's actually more isolated in an alley and anyone walking by who sees a bonsai back there and might get itchy fingers. So basically I don't think I could have them unless I hide them well (and then what's the point of having them) or find a solution for keeping inside?
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Jan 3, 2019 04:34
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