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As the weather has started to cool where I live, leaves are now falling from some of the deciduous trees in my garden. This is the perfect time for fall pruning.

 
The “official” 2019 growing season has now ended, despite the lack of a killing frost, yet. We do expect some cold days later this week in the mid-20F range, and perhaps two inches of snow. That’s actually what I’m waiting for, so the bonsai in the main display area can be protected for the winter. All the bonsai in training, sales bonsai and nursery stock was put away yesterday by my Monday Senior Crew. They are a great group of hard working friends who help me with the bonsai and my bonsai activities to promote, expand and improve the bonsai community.

I was surprised to find yellow banding on a few of my pines this fall. It’s not something I’ve seen much of in my garden over the years so it caught my attention when small yellow patches appeared.

After more than twenty years of growing pine bonsai from seed, I noticed a big difference between red and black pines this year. Red pines are harder.

Fall is a good time to thin satsuki azaleas that filled in over summer.

I’ve often sat in front of trees and wondered if it’s a good time to prune or if I’m better off waiting. Even when the trade-offs are clear, it can be difficult to figure out the best approach year after year in a young tree’s life.

Last weekend the Yamato Bonsai Kai held their 48th annual exhibition in Union City, California.

There were many larger bonsai on display outdoors in the entrance way greeting the visitors to the 5th Zhongguo Fen Penjing Exhibition in Nanging, China. A few smaller, but still large size specimens were displayed indoors in the demo room. All of these were very large and impressive.

 
 
Today I spent the morning studying and photographing the shohin bonsai exhibition. The trees are superb, equal in quality to the huge specimens displayed outdoors. Shohin bonsai do not present the heavy and powerful feeling of the larger specimens. It appeared as though each artist had about 5-6 feet of display space. They were all filled, mostly in good taste too.

The 5th Zhongguo Fen Penjing Exhibition is being held this weekend on October 19-21, 2019 in Nanjing, China, a short 4 HOUR bus trip from the Shanghai Airport, after traveling over 18 hours from home.