Spotted in the Wild
Historical Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and RSS posts previously curated by the club (2017–present). Not authored by the club — preserved here since the original source feeds no longer carry this history.
Huckleberry Flowers – A January Tradition
Bald Cypress Collecting Trip #4 For 2021
Repotting a Japanese maple forest planting
The Japanese maple below was created by Gene Lynch. It had been a while since it was repotted so I removed it from the pot to check out the roots. Japanese maple group planting Jim Gremel pot As expected, the roots…
Bald Cypress Collecting Trip #3 For 2021
2021 CATALOG NOW AVAILABLE
Our new Spring 2021 Seedling & Pre-Bonsai catalog is now available with many great, new and rare plants. Here are a few featured plants: Dwarf Cork-Bark Japanese Black Pine Pinus thunbergii var. corticosa ‘Hakuro’ The…
Bald Cypress Collecting Trip #2 For 2021
Repotting a neglected atlas cedar
I recently worked on an atlas cedar that hadn’t been repotted in many years. The basic steps are the same as they are for recently repotted trees, but the extent of the work is different. In short, there are far more…
Bald Cypress Collecting Trip #1 For 2021
Happy New Year 2021!!
New Year’s day is a special holiday for our family and religion for many reasons. Most important is to welcome in the New Year, a fresh new yearly beginning especially after the COVID-19 Pandemic. Everyone gets another…
Spekboom Styling
Musings On Publishing International BONSAI.
Beginning in the late 1960s when at college on Long Island I became an active member of the Bonsai Society of Greater New York. In 1978 as a director I became editor of their quarterly magazine The Bonsai Bulletin . At…
Fall cutback on Japanese maple
The Japanese maple below is another beautiful tree from Gene Lynch’s collection. The basics are all in place which means the next step is to continue increasing branch density through pinching and pruning. Japanese…
Bonsai Odds & Ends – Big BC And Rip Van Winkle Color Up
Three reasons to start growing red maples
I’ve only recently started caring for a red maple, Acer rubrum , but I’ve already been impressed by its charms. If you’re looking for a U.S. native deciduous species to experiment with, the red maple is a good place to…
Fall cutback on an informal upright hornbeam
When I sat down to work on the hornbeam below, I thought about how the tree was created. The branches have a contorted appearance – so much so that I wondered if this is a contorted cultivar. Informal upright hornbeam…
50th Anniversary Bonsai Exhibition
Suruga Branch of Nippon Bonsai Association I feel sad and disappointed that the 40 th Nippon Bonsai Taikan Exhibition in Kyoto, Japan was cancelled. Even more so because most foreigners are not allowed into Japan at…
Huckleberry Flower Buds Are Setting
Big branches and little branches on Chinese quince
Over the past few years I’ve wrestled with a question about developing Chinese quince: how do you encourage branches to bifurcate after pruning? I haven’t come up with an answer, but I did notice something heartening…
Options for addressing dieback low on the trunk
As many of you have noticed, there is a large scar at the base of the trunk on my large stewartia. Stewartia with dieback on the trunk Trunk detail There a number of options for addressing the dieback, each with their…
Fall cutback and wiring on stewartia
For the last few years I’ve but cutting back an old stewartia when the leaves turn brown in fall. The work is similar from year to year – a common occurrence for trees in the later stages of branch refinement (see “…
Dwarf pussy willow bonsai
If you’re looking for a new species develop as small bonsai, dwarf pussy willow may be a good option. Procumbent, small leaved varieties grow slowly but are easy to work with. The charm of the trees are the catkins they…
Dogwood Fall Work
Juniper design Q&A – identifying next steps on a Sierra juniper
I received some good questions following the previous post about a Sierra juniper. Why aren’t you planning to keep foliage on the upper branches? Why did you decide to graft and where are the grafts? How did you decide…
Sierra juniper – first steps
A few years ago, I acquired a tall Sierra juniper with interesting deadwood along the lower trunk. I repotted the tree and let it grow freely to encourage as much root growth as possible. The tree is now full and…