Larch trees can make beautiful bonsai specimens! They have delicate foliage that turns a lovely golden colour in the autumn, which adds to their appeal as bonsai. When styling a larch bonsai, you can emphasize its naturally elegant shape and create a miniature version of its majestic appearance in nature.
Read MoreHints for those bringing materials for display
Read MoreThe Shimpaku Juniper is native to Japan, the Kurile Island and the Sahalin Peninsula. It prefers rocky, well-drained soils. In its natural range, it is most often found growing near the sea. The foliage is needle-like on young trees and scale-like on older trees. The fruit is a small, hard, bluish berry. One of the best characteristics of Shimpaku is its hard resinous wood; ideal for advanced sculptural techniques such as jin, shari and sabamiki.
Read MorePruning leaves to induce a new flush of finer growth. Bonsai defoliation involves cutting all, or some, the leaves of a tree during the summer. In doing so you force the tree to grow new leaves, leading to a reduction in the size of leaves and an increase in ramification.
Read MoreThe Buxus group embraces many forms around the world. The common English Box, Dutch Box, Korean Box, Japanese Box, the Taiwanese Box (Buxus Harlandii) and the Kingsville Box. They share the same needs and requirement when growing and propagation so the information about the Harlandii will apply to all the Buxus species.
Read MoreKevin Ritchie, is our very talented and experienced bonsai expert on all things Eucalyptus and over the course of the evening informed and educated us about the many trees that make up this species.
Read MoreCedars are tall coniferous trees that develop characteristic broad and elegant shapes with age. They are very suitable for bonsai purposes.
Read MoreThe Serissa is also called snow rose, tree of thousand stars or Japanese boxthorn. It is a subtropical small shrub with tiny white flowers that appear from spring through summer.
The Serissa is evergreen or semi-evergreen with fine oval, shiny green leaves and variegated coloured leaves. Flowers range from single white star shaped flowers, double whites and also pink.
Read MoreDefoliation is the complete or partial removal of the leaves of a bonsai tree. The technique is used to reduce the leaf size thus making the replacement leaves smaller and in better scale to the tree's size. Defoliation is often done 3 weeks prior to exhibiting or photographing the tree. Another benefit of defoliation is the increase in branch ramification that occurs with defoliation.
Read MoreIt requires a lot of light, preferably full sunlight, so be sure not to place it in a shady location. The temperature should be kept relatively constant. Figs can endure low humidity due to their thick, waxy leaves, but they prefer higher humidity and need extremely high humidity to develop aerial roots. Winter protection may be required if you experience very frosty conditions in the winter.
Read MoreThe Satsuki azalea is one of the most sought after and satisfying of all bonsai subjects. First and foremost, among its reasons for popularity is that it has a prolific number of gorgeous flowers when in full bloom.
Read MoreA bonsai planting consisting of more than one trunk can technically be considered a “group” planting. Twin and triple trunk plantings are generally not thought of as forests, but the principles inherent in their construction are repeated and ramified in the construction of a forest planting.
Read MoreArguably the only classification that remains unchanged through time, is the Imperial bonsai, due to its origin and name. Meaning, that the largest bonsai trees found in the Japanese imperial gardens are Imperial bonsai.
Read MoreHere is a very useful article by Max Lehey that was published in Bonsai Australis back in 1993.
Read MoreFigs are generally evergreen, mostly with large glossy leaves. Some do shed leaves if it is hot and dry. There is another group of figs that have hairy rough leaves and are known as Sandpaper Figs.
Read MorePart two of the “Eucalypts as Bonsai” article from the Canberra Bonsai Society Newsletter covering suitable species, defoliation, fertilising, and re-potting.
Available to download in a printable format for your convenience.
Read MorePart one of the “Eucalypts as Bonsai” article from the Canberra Bonsai Society Newsletter covering suitable species, defoliation, fertilising, and re-potting.
Available to download in a printable format for your convenience.
Read MoreRamification is the finely divided small twigs that can make our bonsai look more like real trees. When we look at an old tree we see the trunk and roots. We see larger branches growing from the trunk. We see smaller branches growing from the large main branches and growing from those smaller branches we see lots of small twigs holding the leaves. This is ramification.
Read MoreThe cork oak is an evergreen Mediterranean tree that produces a unique bark from which wine bottle stoppers have been made for centuries. The small leaves, the interesting bark and good ramification makes the cork oak a very nice species for Bonsai.
Read MoreThis article is in the CBS Knowledgebase. It covers key aspects of the why, when and how to go about re-potting and root-pruning a bonsai.
Read More