I almost waited too long!

bonsaial1

During this past year I have spent almost every weekend remodeling the outside of my home. I have been satisfying long and unending "honey do" lists, and also using this upcoming birthday party in my honor as an excuse for a little landscaping of the bonsai area. Well the party is this next weekend, The Big 50 and I wanted the backyard to be just right. We have 64 people coming to the bash and almost all of them have never seen my trees.

This is an example of one of my favorites in my collection. It is my wifes personal favorite and she was very dissapointed that I had let it get this bad. It was overgrown, it had not been repotted this year, the weeds were as tall as the composition, and the pot was white with deposits. I am embarresed to even show this picture.

I started in on the pruning. Some of the shoots were as large as a pencil, and had started to ruin the shape of some of the more delicate trees. The branches that were lost in the tangle showed signs of dying due to lack of light. I managed to save the whole thing, and am glad that I did the work when I did. Two months more would have made it impossible to use some of the trees. They would have to be chopped and regrown.

The top of the soil was in bad shape due to it not being repotted. This tree forest grows very fast and some of the tree show signs of being jacked right out of the pot. I was able to get some pruners under the root ball of those trees and cut right under the matt and remove sections of the roots to get the trees back down into the pot.

The weeeds were removed and the top soil redressed. I used a heavy layer of 3/8 black lava to keep the new soil in the pot during watering till the feeder roots get in there and stabilize the matt again.

The pot was cleaned and polished. Thank goodness for mink oil, the white just wipes right off.

Attached Images

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bonsaial1

Well out of the pile of debri I cut off I was able to bring the forest back to life. I have some detail pruning to do over the next month to get rid of lots of large stubs where I cut off some of those shoots.

The forest back into its place of honor on the benches.

Thanks, Al

Attached Images

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diatribe

its amazing what pruning and a skilled hand can accomplish.

Peace,
Diatribe.

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jeremy_norbury

Ha! It's not the forest I expected to see when I looked at the first two pictures...

Looking really good now though.

Jerry

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007

Wow what a change from before to after! Was not expecting that at all!

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mike_p

Good show Al. I think I've seen this group before, and I spotted the same branch that bothered me before. On the main tree, right side, not quite halfway up is a branch that seems to heavy, and to me doesn't harmonize with the rest of the composition.

Regards

Mike

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bonsaial1

Ditto on the branch Mike. Since I haven't even looked at this forest for 18 months, I had forgotton just how large that branch is. We can be sure that in the past the same things happened over and over, and the branch was just left to grow and grow. Spring will be a good time to remove it. Not only does it look terrible, but it interferes with branching on the trees to the right of it. They overlap too much and this is something I dispise more than a too large branch.

Thanks, Al

Attached Images

branchremoved.jpg (47.8 KB, 52 views)

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