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Monday, July 26, 2010

Update on my Maple and some of my other maples.


Buds are coming out all over now.
Well it has been a couple of weeks now since I cut the maple back hard and it is budding out nicely. I changed the moss also in the bottom and exposed the roots a little more. I am really happy with the way its turning out. It will take some time but I think this is going to turn out being very nice.
This is my Fire Glow maple.
This is my Trident Maple lots of new growth coming up on this one.
Here are a few pictures of some of my specimen maples I have growing in my yard. I am really proud of them and I plan to get more soon.
This is my Moutain Maple.

Friday, July 16, 2010

My Japanese Maple


I bought this maple from a nursery here in my area and it has been free growing for a long time. Its about 12 yrs old and I knew it needed some work to get it to where it needed to be. So I contacted Mike Konig of MIKobonsai and he helped me out tremendously with where I needed to clip and snip all my branches.  The first picture was the before and the second is the after. You can see I shortened the tree about 4 inches and all the branches were brought in closer to the trunk. That was about a week and a half  ago and im already seeing some new buds starting to peek out. I have to say I was super nervous about chopping down my maple but I can see it was for the best. :)
Hopefully I will get some really good new growth so I can wire out and get the branches in the areas I need them to be. I also am using the back side of the tree now as the front. This was recommended by Mike because of the obvious knot there at the bottom of the tree. I will post a update in a few weeks to show how it is progressing. I will also be posting pictures of my specimen maples I have growing in the yard. Which includes a Trident which  I Plan on using as bonsai in a few years and also a nice Mountain maple and also a Fire glow. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think. Thanks again Mike for all your help!

Friday, July 9, 2010

Boxwood Bonsai...

This is my first Boxwood Bonsai attempt and I have to honestly say I am really proud of this one. Its potted in a 8in pot I purchased from Joe Bonsai the link is listed on my page. These little trees seem to have a aged bark and trunk that make it seem its been around for 50+ yrs. It has beautiful root structure and it trimmed out very nice.
My wife says she could imagine laying under this tree in a field. I have seen some tire swing ornaments for bonsai im thinking of putting on this one and maybe a park bench. Since I have made this tree which was last week I have had a few yellowing leaves on the backside so hopefully it wasn't to late in the season to root prune it. But I am a novice so I must learn by experience. I really think its going to be ok though. Ill have updates on the progression in the future.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Before and after...



In the pictures on the left you will see the beginning of the juniper below it and the one from my first post. The juniper in this picture was trimmed down to almost nothing and had two opposing branches arching away from each other. I don't honestly like the shape of it but its unusual. I'm not sure what will happen with this one in the future but we will see. These were created before I had my proper bonsai tools which I will show pictures of later and the proper way to mix soils. Hopefully soon I will be able to add some videos of me designing trees in the future.
Thanks for reading!

First Post ...First bonsai

This is my first post of hopefully many to come. The Bonsai on the left is the first one I made. It is a small juniper and its sort of a test subject. I say this because this tree is planted in Sphagnum moss only nothing else. I saw this on a video on youtube. This guy plants all his trees in this stuff and swears by it so I tried it , it has some new growth coming in so it seems to be working. We will see .(I have made more bonsai since this one and use normal bonsai soil mixtures, I am not promoting using only sphagnum moss) It's a really small juniper but hopefully it will pick up some size in a few years.
The moss on the top was taken from the woods near my house so that was really easy to come by. The pot was picked up at the local dept store for $3 and I drilled drain holes in it with a masonry bit. So that is it for the fist post in my new blog. I am always up for suggestions and your thoughts.(Unless you want to be a jerk then please refrain :) ) I will have more post coming soon with my other trees. Thanks for reading.