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I recently picked up a field grown cork oak with some nice movement in the trunk. There are, however, few usable branches at this point.

There’s a lot to try to keep in mind when shopping for field grown material. It can be easy to focus on the lower part of the trunk and think, “This looks nice, I can fix the rest later.” The fix may not, however, always come easily.

Last month, the Bonsai Society of San Francisco invited stand maker Austin Heitzman to talk about his craft. Club members learned about Austin’s design process, the materials that give form to his designs, and the treatments the materials go through on their way to becoming stands.

I recently cut back a root over rock trident maple during a live Q&A for Bonsai Empire. Here’s the tree before I got started.

One of my favorite techniques for developing exposed root pines is bending the roots. To recap some of this work done last year, here are before and after photos on a 13 year-old pine.

Two years ago I started a number of crabapple from seed. They’re do for some wiring.

Six years ago, I started working on a large Japanese black pine that had been developed as landscape material.

I often spend time organizing the garden toward the end of the year. I’ve found it’s far easier to keep trees healthy when growing similar varieties under similar conditions.

Below is a photo of my Korean hornbeam after removing the leaves.

I received some fantastic suggestions last week, both in the comments and in my inbox, about how to improve a refined Korean hornbeam. I’ll respond below, but first, here’s the tree as it looked last week for reference.