Oct 11, 2018 | General
This long winded article concerns this interesting picture I took earlier in the week. Do bear with me 😉
What’s the story of these two zelkova bonsai?
Bearing in mind the incredible information resources we have at our disposal is it not ironic that the scourge of our day is stupidity? Sadly our beloved hobby of bonsai is not immune from this either. I know this because every day I am talking with well intentioned folk who are seeking to learn about cultivating bonsai trees but after a stint online are so baffled and confused they end up not quite sure which end of their little tree should actually go into the soil. I have quite literally had folk in tears after following bad information they have read on line resulting in expensive failures. At this point I would normally descend into some bad tempered rant but i’ll resist the temptation this time.
In the history of mankind we have never had so much information available to us. Just the tap of a few keys and we have the collective wisdom of the world flooding across our screens. Much of this information is good, most of it is well intentioned but almost none of it is put into specific context. It’s also rare to find good original information that is from a genuinely qualified source. A lot of information online is created by SEO (search engine optimisation) companies and this is often cobbled together from random articles that tick all the boxes for search engines but has little to do with actually cultivating bonsai trees. There is also a lot of information available from very enthusiastic amateurs who try to make up for a lack of experience by substituting it with enthusiasm. There are obviously a million other scenarios that ultimately lead the well intentioned but inexperienced person down a blind alley.
The big issue is that we do not know what we do not know. I remember all too well being an enthusiastic young fellow just getting into bonsai. That was back when I had a full head of hair and there was no internet. My only recourse was to the local library where I ordered every book they listed about bonsai trees. A lot of those books suffered the same fate as I outline above, well meaning information, often re-hashed by publishing companies and absolutely no context. However publishing companies would tend to seek out experienced practitioners to write their books in the first place so I would say, by and large, things were a little better back then. However, I felt like a guy with a broken down car, a box full of tools at my side, all the information on how to fix said car but I had no hands.
They say ‘information is power’ but that’s cobblers. We are drowning in information these days but anyone my age will be constantly aghast at the stupidity we see at every turn. Information is only useful if we know how to use it to get a particular job done. Information out of context is a dangerous thing when it’s acted upon without regard to the bigger picture. Sadly today folk want a quick fix. A couple of lines of text or a two minute video is the preferred antidote to all of our ills and angst. Sadly cultivating bonsai does not work like that. Trees move slowly and anything we do will mostly have consequences that are often not obvious until it’s too late. In order to communicate good quality information about bonsai, particularly to those of less experience it’s important that the information is put into context. In particular any information we pick up needs to be applicable to exactly what it is we are trying to achieve.
Anyone who has spent any time either on this blog, reading the information on our web site or with me in person will know I write long. I talk long too, there really are no short answers to the questions I get about bonsai because the cultivation of bonsai trees is an expansive subject that incorporates a whole world of influences. I have lost count of how many times I have been asked the seemingly simple question”how often should I water my bonsai”. If you have kept bonsai trees for any length of time you will be very aware of what a huge question that is. If you know me at all you will also know that my answer will be long. A garden centre will tell you to water every day. Simple, easy to understand and it gets you off their back but it’s also one of the primary reasons for the failure of most of the trees people buy to start their bonsai journey. I figure that if you know why you have to water (some folk don’t) and what watering achieves you will be set for life and bonsai tree failures will be few and far between for you. Sadly by the time I have given the abbreviated version of that particular discipline most folk have fallen asleep or forgotten why they called in the first place.
It’s really not my fault. We live in an almost inconceivably complex world and understand very little of what goes on around us (in spite of what some folk may say). At an existential level all things are connected and we really don’t get how that works at all. Science would like us to believe we are super smart and know what’s going on but look at the world in the cold light of day and try to convince me, with a straight face, that is actually the case. We’re stumbling around this world like a pissed up bull in the proverbial china shop and making just as much of a mess. I doubt, at an existential level, we could find our own arse with both hands and a sat-nav. So when it comes to bonsai we are at what might be called a disadvantage from the get-go.
Understanding the relationship between plants and their world is not something humans have really got to grips with yet. I feel that if we did we might be treating our planet with a little more respect. When cultivating bonsai we pluck those plants out of their natural eco-system of support and place them in the most stressful situation a plant can endure other than a fire maybe. Where trees are concerned they are programmed to be as big as their environment will allow. That means that standing right there on square one we have set our face against nature. Fortunately plants are infinitely adaptable and can overcome considerable adversity, just as well.
I have banged on endlessly about learning to ‘read’ trees. If we can read our plants we will be very well placed to understand what they need, see problems before they become serious and reduce the stress our plants are under in order for them to perform at their best. A happy healthy plant grows well and with a skilled hand to guide it becomes beautiful mature bonsai and stays that way long term. Happy tree happy owner right?
The problem is the signs a tree gives to us are not particularly significant and often hard to figure out. As an example yellowing of leaves could mean a lot of different things and as often as not it’s NOT just a nutrient deficiency which is normally the go to answer. I have been stupid enough to keep anything up to three thousand plants at a time over the last thirty years. Because I love what I do I have a quite unnatural ability to retain information about my trees, often going back decades and so, over those years, I have learnt how to interpret what plants are saying and act accordingly where required. For those with just a few pots and few years under their belt it’s hard to figure out. There really is no way to distill this into a compact form. How do you condense a lifetimes experience into a few pages?
Learning to read what plants are telling us is the ONLY thing we really need to know in order to be successful with bonsai. All the wiring, carving and styling is actually very simple to master with some concerted effort and practice. All of that good stuff is really only the groundwork upon which we build bonsai. Once the first styling of material is done the real work of creating bonsai can begin, it’s the start, not the end. As an example I live in a four hundred odd year old house. It’s a nice spot but the magic is not the old house some good-ol-boys threw up years ago, it’s the story of what has gone on in the house over all of those years. A good bonsai will always display the skill of the person that formed it in the first place but the real magic is in what the plant does in the decades afterwards and the plant will only conjure that magic if we give it what it needs to prosper.
Because there are SO many variables it really is impossible, even for a long winded gas-bag like me to lay out this subject in an easily digestible form. Learning to cultivate bonsai trees genuinely is the work of a life time and even that may not be enough. Even after all these years I am still learning about bonsai. In fact I would say I am learning at a faster rate than ever before simply because one thing leads to another. The secret to this, as with any other big task, is to break it down into small elements, pace ourselves and have a realistic expectation. You are not going to be a bonsai master in five years in fact you won’t be a bonsai master in ten years either. Some folk I have met didn’t become a bonsai master in forty years. As far as I am concerned the salient point is to be ready to never stop learning and NEVER be satisfied with what you are achieving. I have always said that on the day I know I have done my best work I will sell everything, buy a big leather sofa, spark up a massive cigar and watch the world go by. In the past I have done that with a lot of things I have been involved with, gone as far as I wanted and given up overnight. To date I feel bonsai is only just beginning to open up to me so I should be here for a while yet. Our only limit is in ourselves, come the day we say ‘i can’t‘ it’s all over. I have always said that if someone else can do something so can I. Perhaps I can’t be as good or carry something as far but being as good as we can is surely what we are here for. We only have ourselves to blame if we don’t achieve our goals.
Every time I step out into the garden there is something to learn. Outside is the home of plants and we are perfectly capable of experiencing what they do. Smell the air, look at the light, feel the wind and the temperature. Light, air and water are the magic ingredients that give us plants and understanding this relationship is key. There really are no quantum leaps to be made in the understanding of bonsai just small steady steps which build bit by bit. I figure that so long as I know one tiny thing more than I knew this morning i’m still on the right path.
I have no intention of summing up all the variables I consider important in the cultivation of bonsai trees. Nobody is going to read that. This week I was out watering and came across this good example of what I am talking about. The picture shows two examples of zelkova. Both cultivated in the same spot and treated the same of late. I would also guess, knowing something of the trees histories, that they are broadly of a similar age and level of development in regards to branching, ramification and foliage density. So what can we learn from this picture? What are these trees telling us? Why is one going to drop it’s leaves weeks before the other?
This is actually a really simple one to figure out if you look hard, all the tell-tale signs are there. Look at the leaves, the green tree has some brown tips from summer scorch whereas the other is perfect. The tree on the right is in a larger pot and so could be drying out less in the heat and this would be supported by the lush growth of moss on the soil surface. That would suggest the right hand tree has had a more consistent moisture level over summer that would lead us to believe it is in good health. The brown tipped scruffy leaves of the other tree suggest possible poor health, erratic growing conditions and a plant that has been suffering heat and drought induced stress.
Looking at the soil surface is always a valuable part of assessing the condition of a tree. Moss looks great with bonsai. In Japanese gardens moss is used to duplicate the tranquility of nature and, through meditation, take the viewer of the garden to a peaceful, serene place. Moss only grows in places that are left undisturbed for long periods so we know this tree has not been re-potted for a while whereas the tree on the left has no moss growth which tells us it was re-potted more recently. Watering both trees indeed confirms that because the tree on the left drains excess water almost instantly.
Watching the growth of these two trees over summer in conjunction with the above details fills in the blanks and determines what we will be doing with these two trees in the near future. The little green tree was in fact re-potted this spring having been in the same condition as the tree on the right last year. As a result this summer it has made close to a meter of summer growth allowing us to prune several times and dramatically increasing it’s ramification. Watering has been required two or three times a day. Conversely the tree on the right has only made small growth this summer, needed pruning once and it’s only needed watering once a day. So, why the difference in leaf colour?
For a more detailed explanation of leaf colour change see Bonsai Autumn Leaf Colour .
The colour of a leaf results from an interaction of different pigments produced by the plant. The main pigment classes responsible for leaf colour are porphyrins, carotenoids, and flavonoids. The primary porphyrin in leaves is a green pigment called chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is produced in response to sunlight. As the seasons change and the amount of sunlight decreases, less chlorophyll is produced, and the leaves appear less green. Chlorophyll is broken down into simpler compounds at a constant rate, so green leaf colour will gradually fade as chlorophyll production slows or stops. Chemical interactions within the plant, particularly in response to acidity (pH) also affect the leaf colour.
Our beautiful looking tree with it’s dazzling display of colour weeks before it’s compadre is actually displaying the effects of stress induced by being pot bound. Autumn leaf colour can be affected by acidity and the root zone of pot bound bonsai tend towards the acidic. A pot bound bonsai tree has less air in it’s soil and this dramatically reduces it’s rate of respiration and root development and can even lead to anaerobic respiration. For more detailed explanation see Choosing Soil for Bonsai Trees.
Our pretty coloured tree is crying out for help. It’s becoming weak, another year in this condition and it will begin shedding branches and reducing it’s ramification in order to preserve itself in straitened circumstances. Our little green tree has suffered a surfeit of energy this year, like a kid on a sugar high it’s got more energy that it can use, not good when we are trying to ramify a delicately twigged zelkova. It won’t be re-potted next year and it’s growth rate will be better suited to the requirements of it’s future development. Once re-potted however our multi trunk tree will go off like a firework next summer and will grow like a weed. A year of that and it’s full vigour will be recovered and we can then progress with it’s development as bonsai. This is clearly a delicate balancing act and one that is very easy to get wrong.
In bonsai we have two primary growth cycles we use to develop our trees. In the first instance we need incredible strong irrepressible growth with big leaves and huge extension from a big vibrant root system. That’s how we produce a nice trunk and big fat primary branching. After that we need to slow the pace down whilst we develop secondary branching and ramification and settle our tree down into maturity. Over the years I have seen folk developing beautiful mature bonsai trees into raw material by not understanding how this cycle works and re-potting way too often. I have also seen beautiful mature bonsai allowed to descend into almost inconceivably poor condition or even death by not re-potting often enough.
As an example take a look at this large shimpaku juniper. We picked this up about eighteen months ago. The tree was originally purchased form a large well known bonsai nursery twenty five years ago and cost a good four figure sum. Good bonsai like this used to cost a great deal more than they do today. When I got the tree it looked considerably worse than it does today. I imagine that it was a very impressive piece back in the day. That’s what twenty five years of terminal ‘deaf ear’ and a reluctance to be sensitive and flexible does to bonsai. I just can’t bring myself to sling this out even though it’s going to take me ten years to restore the tree.
That’s what 25 years of terminal glue ear will do to a bonsai tree.
It’s important we learn to listen to our trees and do right by them. The result of ignoring the signs will be massive losses. I have lost count of the times I have been told of a tree “I have had it for years and it just died“. If that happened to you, truth be known you killed the tree through ignorance and an inability to learn and adapt. Dead trees are normally expensive either in terms of lost money or time. To an intelligent person losses are the price of an education and a great opportunity. To a dullard failure is reason to give up and do something else. Anyone who ever manned a display of bonsai will have heard the recurrent words “Oh! I had a bonsai once but it died“. Sometimes we have to put aside the things we know and be open minded to something new. Just because I read something in a book thirty years ago does not make it irrefutable fact. Having the ability to look at your bonsai tree as though you have never seen it before and understand what you see, free of preconceptions, is one of the most valuable skills any of us can master. Being honest with ourselves is another and that can hurt.
Remember….
Lessons cost money, good ones cost lots.
A poster I saw years ago said “A wise old owl sat on an oak. The more he saw the less he spoke. The less he spoke the more he heard. Why aren’t we like that wise old bird.”
I say Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut and as we say in Norfolk “Keep yew a troshin”.
G.
Oct 3, 2018 | General
Most people my age are desperately trying to simplify their lives. Apparently everyone is really busy and leisure time is at a premium. Once the kids have finally left home for the last time us old gits only really have retirement to look forward to (not me, no pension) and so I am told we should offload as much as we can prior to getting the big E’. After all (again i am told) I can’t expect to do what I used to twenty years ago. You’ll not be surprised to know I say “Bollocks” to that.
Being ‘comfortable’ is not a natural condition for a human, striving, grafting and fighting for every inch is what we were designed to do. Looking to nature just consider plants, what happens once they stop growing and flower? They produce fruit and then quickly go to seed before withering away. That’s fine if you are a tomato plant but not if you are a father, husband or son (daughter etc’). The more pressure that’s applied to us and the more that’s expected of us the more we produce and the more ingenious we become in order to handle the loads put upon us. As far as I am concerned once I reach the point in life where I stop taking on and doing more, call time and say ‘enough’ it’s just a matter of time before I go to seed and become compost myself.
The last few years I have been working harder at everything I do than ever before. I might not be doing so many hours as I did in my twenties but like my old boss used to tell me ‘It’s not the hours you put in but what you put into your hours’. On the outside it might not appear much is going on but since I started Kaizen Bonsai in 2014 our turnover has increased something like fourteen times over. Thats going on 1200% more than what Bonsai Mart was doing when we took it over. We still only have four permanent members of staff but I am told it’s impossible to turn over the figure we do per head. I am a stubborn cantankerous old sod and being told I can’t do something is like the proverbial ‘red rag’. Just imagine what I was like as a kid!
I really don’t want a medal, a pat on the head or even thanks but I could seriously do with some help. Part of getting older is realising that some folk are better at some things than we are. I’m crap at accounts and even worse at anything ‘tech’ so I let some very good people take care of that for me.
Of late I have been complicating my life by expanding our business into some new areas as well as increasing the range and scope of what we have now done for years. One thing I have done is bought up every bonsai tree and bit of bent stick-n-leaves I can find. As a result I have a few plants I am at a loss to identify. I know there are a lot of folk who like to read the old cobblers I write and than many of those good people are very knowledgeable about bonsai and the plants we cultivate. In the past I have been put right more than a few times by my readers and customers. I am always open to learning something new and as such love to get unusual and unknown plants onto the nursery so I can learn about them.
So here’s a little bonsai quiz. What on earth are these?
G.
So, all sorted now. Sincere thanks for those of you who put me straight.
Plant No1. Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Known colloquially as Chinese hibiscus, China rose, Hawaiian hibiscus, rose mallow and shoeblack plant.
Plant No2. Acacia arabica of the family: Leguminosae. It is estimated that there are roughly 1380 species of Acacia worldwide so this ID is likely a bit vague.
Plant N03. Calliandra brevipes. Pink Powderpuff is an attractive shrub with finely divided leaves and clusters of red powder-puff flowers. It is native to southeastern Brazil, Uruguay, and northern Argentina.
1. I am pretty sure I was told this is hibiscus and has red flowers. I have other hibiscus and they look nothing like this does.
2. This was sold as acacia. It has thorns so that’s probably correct but there are over 1350 different types in the genus 🙁
3. I didn’t even buy this one, it was thrown into a deal and I have absolutely no idea what it is.
Sep 26, 2018 | General
Today we took delivery of another bunch of new trees. Many of these are looking a bit scruffy after the long hot summer but rest assured before we let any of them go we will make them look pretty. Total delivery was around 70 trees but here are a few highlights. There are a few very rare trees here including a ficus neriifolia, probably one of the first in the UK. There is also the best Trident maple I have ever owned, just wait until all those leaves fall off. Once we are happy with the condition of the trees they will start appearing on our web site, stay tuned.
New yamadori arriving in about two weeks 😉
G.
P.S Anyone know more about the acacia pictured below and can help identify it precisely?
Hamelia patens
Satsuki azalea
Malus pumila x 4 available
Durantha repens variegata
Trident maple
Juniperus itoigawa x 10 available
Juniperus itoigawa x 10 available
Pinus pentaphylla
Stewartia monoadelpha
Styrax japonicus
Ficus neriifolia
Styrax japonicus
Buxus Harlandii
Satsuki azalea
Acacia ???????
Satsuki azalea
Pinus pentaphylla
Pinus pentaphylla
picea jezoensis
Acer palmatum
Trident maple. Acer beurgerianum
Sep 13, 2018 | General
I am always on the lookout for new bonsai trees and good raw material, it is my business after all. Every year it’s getting harder and more expensive to find just the right material at a workable price. Lucky for me I know some great guys and have a long reach. Sadly a lot of those guys are, just like me, getting old and humping great big bonsai trees around becomes a chore. That means occasionally a collection will become available and that’s largely what we have here.
I started into bonsai close to thirty years ago now and how that came about is a long story but there was a wonderful old gentleman involved, a real old school horticulturalist who would have bled sap. His grandfather supposedly came into contact with bonsai in China around the time of the Great War. Upon return home he employed some rudimentary bonsai techniques on the family nursery. His son had much the same experience during WW2 and my friend was the third generation to be bending and pruning trees. Once he largely retired from commercial horticulture I put myself into deep debt to buy as much of his stock as I could, most of the rest went to another friend and bonsai aficionado. Now his advancing years mean those trees have now come to us.
This little juniper was shaped with string prior to WW2!
Today we moved the entire collection of my long time bonsai buddy and fellow Norfolk native. These trees have been lovingly cared for over the last twenty to twenty five years and many are little time capsules and hold fond memories for me. There are a couple that even go back to to the old gent’ that started pioneering UK bonsai in the 1930s. Some of these will not be for sale simply because I am a sentimental old git. I obviously have to sell some or I’ll loose the roof over my head. Here you can see most of the collection and a few other random bits and pieces we bought over the last week. Once I get everything cleaned up and figured out they should start appearing on the web site
G.
P.S. Sorry no prices yet. Please drop me an email and slide the images you are interested into it and I will put you on the list of contacts once I know where I am. There are another thirty trees coming in two weeks time 😉
Scots pine
Scots pine
Satsuki azalea
SOLD
SOLD
Picea a bit sad after the hot summer.
Mugo Pine cascade bonsai tree. Very old bonsai.
San jose juniper bonsai
Shimpaku juniper bonsai tree
Shimpaku juniper bonsai tree
SOLD
Squamata juniper
Mugo pine bonsai tree
Mugo Pine Bonsai
Quince, Chaenomeles
SOLD
SOLD
Japanese black pine bonsai material
Huge carpinus raft yamadori bonsai (cheap).
SOLD
Japanese maple.
Japanese maple bonsai
Yamadori Beech raft bonsai.
Japanese maple
Blaauws juniper bonsai
Large Japanese maple bonsai tree
Juniperus Chinensis
SOLD
Squamata juniper bonsai tree
Fuchsia ‘Mrs Popple’ gnarly old bonsai tree.
Old Japanese shimpaku juniper
Korean hornbeam yamadori
English Oak Bonsai material
SOLD
SOLD
Old Chinese elm bonsai
Zelkova bonsai
Yamadori Taxus bonsai tree
SOLD
English oak
SOLD
Punica bonsai material
Korean hornbeam
Japanese maple bonsai material
Very old Chinese elm bonsai
Pinus sylvestris ‘beuvronensis’ Old bonsai tree
Japanese maple bonsai tree
SOLD
SOLD
Big Japanese maple bonsai material
Carpinus bonsai forest.
Japanese larch bonsai forest.
Wisteria bonsai.
Cedrus atlantica var. glauca. Blue cedar bonsai material.
Cedrus ‘brevifolia’ dwarf cedar bonsai tree.
Azalea bonsai.
Very special Japanese satsuki azalea.
Pinus sylvestris ‘beuvronensis’ bonsai tree, OLD!
Aug 28, 2018 | General
I’m pretty sure I have said it before and, apropos of nothing, I will say it again, I get bored REALLY quickly. I have a short attention span and absolutely hate doing the same thing twice. These are all really bad characteristics for a bonsai wallah. What keeps me coming back (for nearly 30 years now) is bonsai’s infinite variety and the mechanics of constantly trying new things. When I started this business fifteen years ago my parents were dead against the idea and admitted they didn’t think I had the discipline to work for myself. As it turns out I don’t have the discipline NOT to work which sucks as all I ever do is work. Anyhow, before I spiral into a deep hole of self loathing let me get to the point.
It’s been many years since I got my first mugo pine from the Italian Alps. I have been lucky enough to visit some of the wildest parts of those stunning mountains and the trees I have seen profoundly affected myself and my bonsai. High in the Alps where the air is thin and cold, the sunshine is brilliant and the snow is deep and cold for a large chunk of the year, close to the tree line is the natural range of the mugo pine. Mugo survives where the average summer temperature is just about 10° C and winter temperatures drop to below -30° C. Snow can pile up several meters deep compressing the flexible pines into incredible shapes. During the spring snow melt huge chunks of compacted snow and ice can wreak inconceivable havoc. Add to the mix possible rock falls and 100mph wind speeds laced with ice crystals and sand and you have the crucible in which bonsai magic is formed.
The Italian Alps, the home of mugo pine trees.
Over the last fifteen years I have been privileged to have a lot of mugo pines. Sadly most passed through my hands pretty quickly and I have never entirely got to grips with the species in the way I have with other types of pine used for bonsai. On balance I have relied on the wisdom and experience of others and the underlying horticultural “wisdom” we tend to accept as being “gospel” in bonsai circles. However, on balance, this has let me down and the results are some fairly spectacular failures and heavy losses equivalent to being hit by a train. Like they say it’s not how we fall down but how we get up that defines us. In Bonsai, dead trees are inevitable, it happens, most often those deaths can be attributed to what we have done along the way. However if we are folk of honour we will acknowledge our mistakes, suck up the loss and give the fallen tree the respect it deserves by learning from it’s demise and not being so stupid henceforth. A man who never made a mistake never made anything and mistakes are the price of an education. Education costs, simple. Sadly many folk in bonsai are not prepared to pay for education seeing the value as limited. Having spent the last thirty years obsessively cultivating bonsai I have my own opinions about that.
There is only one source of wisdom in bonsai, it’s not a forum, a book or a fat bald bloke with a beard. The only place we can learn how to grow our plants is from the plants themselves. Everything we need to know about bonsai is written in plain sight right there in the pots on our benches. The trouble is most of us don’t speak “tree” and because most folk think the cultivation of bonsai is in some way different, special or more complicated or involved that other branches of horticulture the beginner is on the back foot right out of the gate to mix my metaphors. In this modern age of oppressive health and safety it’s impossible to do anything at all without training. We even need to be shown how to handle a hot beverage and lift a heavy box, WTF. But any idiot can go out and buy bonsai trees, often very expensive ones, without showing they have the required skills. Then, once it’s all gone horribly wrong they come back demanding a refund because i am such a despicable low life crook.
Mastering the cultivation of bonsai trees requires a deep understanding of horticulture. Plants need light, air, water and a growing medium that’s suitable for it’s roots and that’s pretty much it. We make our lives tough by using unfeasibly small pots that, most of the time, do not have the required amount of root in them. By and large we make it almost impossible for our bonsai to thrive because we are constantly pissing about with them. I have always said bonsai happens when we are indoors watching TV. Our constant poking and prodding just upsets our trees and in many cases ensures they will never become bonsai. Up there in the Alps there are beautiful examples of naturally dwarfed and stunted trees that can make you burst into tears and cry like a little kid with a crayon stuck up it’s nose. I have lost count of the number of bonsai collections we have purchased over the years, many from thirty plus year veterans of the hobby. I can honestly say that I have been close to tears over many of these occasions at the tragic sadness of tortured trees fighting to survive. If we don’t stop the nonsense and start to learn our horticulture properly sooner or later somebody is going to ban bonsai because it’s cruel and so they should. Bonsai is considered an art form because that’s what we make it. A lot of what I see is the art of the torturer. What other art form is created at the expense of it’s subject?
So, getting back to my point. I have not had great success with mugo pines in bonsai cultivation. Sure some have done well but some have not and until I see 100% perfection I will not be happy. There are a lot of factors to consider before we can take a step forward with any wild collected tree. Firstly I live at sea level in the UK. We have largely cool summers but 20°C is double what a mugo normally sees. We have mild wet winters, the opposite of what a mugo has in the mountains, frozen dry conditions. Even in summer on a crystal clear day our light is weak in comparison with the brilliant high UV light experienced at ten thousand feet altitude. In the mountains the growing season will likely begin in late May as the snow recedes and will all be over by mid-September. Those factors alone should make us wonder if keeping a yamadori mugo pine is even possible.
Take a look at this picture……
Growth rings on a mugo pine.
That twig is about 6mm diameter and each segment is about 6-8mm in length and represents a years growth. That’s about fifteen years to grow 10cm. This tree has a 5″ diameter trunk so go figure how old that might be. I came up with (assuming a consistent growth rate) something from 317 to 448 years so lets go nuts and say this tree is two hundred years old.
There is not much soil in the high mountains. Most mugo actually live in their own needle litter, some moss and a bit of grit and sand that blows in. There’s not much in the way of nutrients and in summer not a lot of moisture around either. A root will follow a crack and pick up what it can where it can. Research has shown that often a trees root system can be meters away from the actual tree in a pocket of dirt somewhere else. Therefore collecting one of these is always going to be a bit hit and miss unless you pick it out of a pocket with most of it’s roots in tact. All things being equal we have to concede the odds of keeping a mugo pine alive and actually creating bonsai with that pine are pretty long. On a bad day I would say there’s no chance but look agin, what does the above tell us about mugo pine? It’s pretty tough, right? Just one proviso, mugo are extremely tough and can survive where most others can’t but they don’t move far, in fact they don’t move at all. Much like me getting a mugo to a different place and making us happy is a big ask.
So having spent more than a decade trying to get the best of the mugo pine I was struggling to see where I was falling short. Re-potting only when the tree began making strong growth after several years. Re-potting in late spring once the buds were open. Alkaline soil mix with a lot of pumice and bark to mimic the natural soil. Top in full sun and pot in the shade. Limited use of fertilisers, dry cold winter conditions. Very little pruning and lots and lots and lots of waiting and waiting and waiting, these are very old trees! My mugos were growing but were never doing what I just know they are capable of.
Last year I pulled out a mugo that had been knocking around here for more than five years. I got into it at the wrong price and to be honest it was crap. A three foot straight trunk with a knot at the top, no nebari and no deadwood. Looked like a pissed spider balanced on a cocktail stick. Having had dozens of ground layered mugo pines I figured out an air layer would work and so around April time I stripped a ring of bark and wrapped it in moss and cling film in my tried and tested manner. Nothing happened all summer except the tree growing well as normal. Then around mid-August in just four days the moss filled with fat white roots, looked like a jar of beansprouts. Incredible, less than a week and we had a pound of fresh roots. Around the end of August I unwrapped the plastic, cut up a plastic pot and cobbled that around the trunk in a haphazard fashion before filling it with soil. I then put it back outside in the sun and left alone.
Mugo Pine. They don’t come much uglier than this. Spring 2017 prior to air layering.
August 2018 successful mugo pine air layer.
This late emergence of root got me to thinking. As an experiment we decided to re-pot a massive mugo that was growing in a bath tub of a pot. This huge tree was growing well but once we got into it there was very little root and by the time we got it bare rooted there was about 5% mass compared with the foliage. Undeterred we potted it up into pumice and bark, secured it into the pot well and put outside in the sun. A year later the tree is growing like a weed.
The cold winter of 2018 was perfect for mugo pine I guess. Come the thaw and spring flush my newly rooted mugo air layer grew better than ever. By summer a little Green Dream around my makeshift pot was my only interference. By mid-August I was curious to see what was going on and a poke around in the pot confirmed it was full of root. I decided to cut it off the stump but once in the workshop I was surprised to see the bark falling off the original trunk. In just a year the tree had created a mass of new root and jettisoned it’s old root system itself. Now potted into a terracotta training pot we will see what happens in the future. The other big lump we re-potted is doing well too.
Thinking hard about this, as I have for a year now, I remembered being in the Alps around early May one year. There was still a lot of show around and it was horribly cold, just a degree or two above freezing in the middle of the day. In one spot of deep snow I could see the tips of mugo pine sticking up in the snow, the rest of the tree was completely buried and frozen. On those tips were little tiny candles of new growth, actual candles that were pushing through the surface of the snow. At the time I didn’t really think much of it, I just marvelled at the determination of the mugo pine.
Think about what we ‘think’ we know about trees. By and large things are dormant in winter. Come the improving weather roots begin to grow before we begin to see the evidence in swelling buds and eventually new growth. We also believe that roots feed the tree with nutrients and water from the soil so roots grow to fuel top growth, right? I certainly think so, by and large (without going into too much detail) but not all trees are the same. Wherever there is a water source and light you will find some kind of plant or tree that can survive there. When you get to the tree line in the Alps you will find mugo pine, pinus cembra (a type of five needle white pine)a few larch and spruce along with some ground cover willow. So if all trees were the same how come there are no maples up there? Just because a tree has roots at one end, leaves on top and wood in the middle it does not mean it’s the same as all other trees. Trees all have their own unique coping mechanisms and occur where conditions suit them best. A ficus wouldn’t last long in the Alps and a mugo pine wouldn’t last long in the tropics.
My conclusion so far is this. Whilst a mugo is frozen in winter it’s resinous sap won’t freeze. The thick bark of the pine and soft open wood structure allows the tree to store a lot of energy and moisture over summer and this is used in spring to fuel new growth as the roots are still frozen solid. This gives the tree a head start in the short growing season. By mid-summer the new growth is soaking up energy from the sun and this is passed back into the tree for storage for next year and to fuel new root growth which goes on until the soil once again freezes.
When we re-pot bonsai, or pot yamadori for the first time we have to time the work correctly. Ideally a few days before new root growth begins we can jump in. As soon as we have finished work, root development will get under way. This gives the root mass and the tree overall the best chance of a fast recovery and a favourable outcome. If the survival strategy of a tree or it’s natural rhythm of growth is out of sync’ with our silly notions what chance do we have of success? Hot weather trees go dormant at the height of summer which for a ‘little Englander’ is a bit hard to fathom. As an example ficus and olive do best re-potted at the height of summer in mid-July. If a mugo pine is naturally still frozen solid during our traditional re-potting season of March-May why would we think it should bow down to our convenience. Evidently mugo pine in the UK make root in August and so far, having re-potted a half dozen large and very old trees it appears to be working wonders.
This process of working out what plants need and how I need to change my techniques and approach for their well-being is what keeps my interest alive. Learning to speak Bonsai Tree is what we should all be focusing upon, the other bits of bonsai are pretty simple by comparison.
G.
P.S Just because we are re-potting a tree why do we assume we have to root prune? With yamadori particularly at the first or second re-pot the only reason to root prune is if you can’t get all the root into your pot. If that’s the case think carefully about the size of your pot. Putting a tree in a bonsai pot does not make it a bonsai, in fact it often ensures that tree will never become bonsai.
Jul 26, 2018 | General
I have a lot of stuff, much too much stuff. I was poking around in the warehouse earlier and noticed we have a lot of interesting stones that have been sitting around for a while. I hate slow moving stock so I thought we could have a sale! (wash your mouth out with soap Potter!).
These are genuine, and some are massive, discounts and i’m hurting. Some of these special prices are less than we paid so grab a bargain before the heat-stroke wears off. Discounted prices will end on 26 August and won’t be repeated.
G.
