A few projects from the 2025 June Seasonal workshop—with notes on Styrax, Black Pine, Red Maple, a ground-layered Beech, and a magnificent flowering carnivorous plant.
Jody and Nick defoliate a Styrax.
The Styrax after defoliation. The top is getting strong, as it does every year, but after years of letting the lower shoots grow out, it isn’t as lopsided in energy as usual.
One front option. At this point it looks like a reclining figure in a windstorm.
And another good front option. With the amount of development left to go there’s no rush deciding on front. We left some bottom shoots long to maintain the current energy balance. The goal now is not a polished tree but a sensible one, so we leave more than we want.
Patrick lightly balancing a Red Maple, which was in the Pacific Expo ‘24. Now, after hardening off, strong shoots were shortened to one pair of leaves, then one leaf was cut off. For moderately strong shoots, one leaf of a pair was cut off, but shoots themselves were not shortened. On weaker shoots with small leaves, no trimming was done on shoots or leaves.
We leave the tree this way through the summer. Then in early fall another trim takes remaining multiple internodes down to one. This strengthens weaker areas in the growing season.
The internodes at this point are 1/4” or less. Fertilizing is mostly done after the growth has hardened off, but age appears to be the factor most implicated in internode length. At about 20 years of age this maple stopped growing long internodes.
You may recognize this Black Pine, restyled by Patch Clark, my apprentice, recently. The pine responded well to the restyle, so we decandled it this year. This photo is before decandling and needle pulling.
After decandling and needle pulling. Density will take a few years to even up top and bottom, but at least we are making progress killing off that low branch. More about that planned removal in the restyle post.
A Beech being ground-layered. Beech are notorious for their reluctance in pushing roots from a layer. This may well take 2-3 years. Like all layers, it helps to keep the top pushing strong (no cuts!) and in good light. A shaded layer brings poor root growth.
And this is most unusual…a Pitcher Plant in bloom.
The Pitcher Plant flower is as exquisite as the pitchers. The flower is non-carnivorous, but is in on the game. If you’re not sufficiently terrified by the pitcher, and are small and have 6 or more legs, you should be. The flower will lure you with exotic scents to the pitchers, where in a stupor of happiness you will slip into the last liquid you will swim in. Your little chitinous parts will float about, dissolved of their innards—converted into, among other things, nitrogen. A last squeak of joy on your mandibles. Ah! An exquisite end.
Gothic stories don’t have the same punch in the summer, do they?