I need you to hold me to this- never buy a holly again. They are stressful.
I bought these Burford hollies because of the nice girthy trunks. But that doesn’t hide the straight-as-a-stick characteristic, with no chance of alteration via wire.
Right now, I hope to trunk chop them in the spring with my yaupons. They have great potential and beautiful leaves, but I just cannot work with them right now.
Grrrrr. I do not like hollies. I do not like green eggs and ham.
Hollies are very common bonsai material, and they have such cute little leaves, especially yaupons. But they are so. Dang. Brittle. Bonsai is about movement, and these guys are full of rights angles and straight lines. Bor-ing.
In the previous post, I attempted to wire them up and applied some raffia casts. How did that go? Not well.
Only one of the casts healed, and I decided to chop that branch anyway. It is the above, nearly perfect ninety-degree angled branch.
I’m frustrated with these guys. Wiring just isn’t doing it- the branches straighten out over time, defeating the wire structure. I will likely do some major chops in the spring. I can build these little guys from the trunk up.
I unpacked my $4 treasures to see what I was working with. I had six trunks with similar, low creeping formations. I shall introduce them individually.
Here we have an untrained child. I haven’t decided what direction I want to go with him. I am thinking about chopping of the first set of branches that go straight up in the middle. This leaves a nice tapered, semi-cascade trunk. I want this guy to recover more, to grow more leaves, before I work on him.
Once again, I simply haven’t decided how to style this guy. He is healthy and ready to go whenever I am, though. He will probably be a fun project in the near future.
Yup, that is a tea pot. I wanted to get colorful and fun pots, so I hunted down every Goodwill I could and found vessels, often untraditional. I drilled holes in the bottom of them all for drainage, and now it is an adorable pot. Most of my pots have fun stories.
I’m happy with this design! It is nicely balanced. The main trunk line is still a bit straight, but bougies are bendy and that is an easy fix. Once I have some new growth, I will be able to fill in more gaps.
…what is going on here? An experiment. I took the three thinnest plants and tied them together tightly with raffia in hopes that their trunks will fuse. Then I get a nice fat trunk, but it may take a few seasons. I had enough material to experiment with, so it is okay if this doesn’t work. A lot of bonsai knowledge is gained through trial an error.
And that is my bougie family!
Hooray, my pomegranate workout was not in vain. Four of the seven trunks have produced foliage. I call that pretty good! The growth is currently very low, which is not ideal. Those little suckers will be plucked away soon. But I don’t want to remove all of the leaves in order to help it stay alive.
The long term plan for these guys is, well, long. I will develop the branches as they push out. Most of the effort will be thickening up the branches to be in proportion to the trunk. Hopefully I can wire the branches while they are young and green to add movement that the trunks lack. Depending on where the growth comes, I may shorten the trunks. Lastly, I will train branches to hide the ugly chop at the top, like a little hat or wig. Bonsai is about little trees- I have never seen a tree with a flat top trunk like that. But it can be fixed!
My boxwood has been doing pretty well. I was hopeful that the right trunk would push out growth, but it is still just a bare stick and eyesore. Oh well. I will chop it off in the spring.
The left side, however, is doing well. More leaves have grown, lighter in color, which adds a nice texture. However, with my gained knowledge, the trunk is rather thin for the height. It would take years, maybe decades, to get into proportion. So I think I will just air layer off the top and have two babies in the spring. I am finding this to be a recurring theme in my bonsai solutions- to air layer. Hefty plans for someone who has never done air layering. But hey, it looks pretty foolproof.
From November 10, 2018.
Here I am, smug as can be, with my biggest prize yet.
I got this Blue Juniper at sale at Lowe’s. Although I prefer Home Depot to Lowe’s because they tend to have better plant prices, Lowe’s has a clearance section. Sometimes I will swing by there to see if I can find any good deals. And I did! This guy was $12, originally $40, with no signs of sickness. It looks as though they just needed room for the pine Christmas trees. I scoured through all of the trees to find them best one. This one has a great thick with nice taper.
At about four feet tall, he has a lot of potential. I will most likely air layer it in the spring to maximize my material. But air layering is best for the spring. I will wait until then (maybe… I’m impatient.) For now, he is just chilling. I love my big boy.
With the addition of my brand spankin new 4.5 mm wire, I added some curve to my Texas ebony! This is temporarily hideous, only because I now have a more constructed future ahead of it.
I had thought about trying to chase down to foliage, but there doesn’t seem to be any pushing downward. I am thinking I will air layer this bad boy in half. In case I haven’t written about it yet, air layering is essentially where you force roots to grow along a trunkline that can them be transplanted. It would take a whole post to explain. Just imagine, chop, two trunks. By wiring it like this, I would add curve to both trunks. Sometimes you need temporary ugliness for a longer term plan.
These twins have been chuggin along. Just recently, the right guy lost some leaves, likely due to the abrupt weather changes we have had here. They are still thin and spindly. Won’t be bonsai for quite some time, but they are my first babies, so I must keep them.
Look at this unit of wire!! I was so excited to get this new wire in the mail. I had previously only had 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2 mm wire. It was sufficient for thinner branches, but I needed some more power if I had any chance of wiring my hollies. I follow “Adam’s Art and Bonsai Blog,” and I have acquired a wealth of knowledge from his blog. One tidbit was about this thick wire! I had to search much harder to find this wire, but I found this 4.5 mm dark brown aluminum wire that was great. It is, of course, much harder to bend than thinner wire and I cannot achieve quite as nuanced structure with it, but that’s okay. Catch this wire being integrated in my children!
It is I, Claire! The plant lover at Trinity University. I believe that my balcony could win the award for “Most Plants on One Balcony.” It is my happy place, my creative space.
I have decided to document my progress as I dive into the world of bonsai. Some of my earliest work was not well documented via photos, but now that I know I have a source for photos, I will take more progression pictures!
I created this blog for two main reasons. One- I tell people about my love of bonsai, yet sometimes they do not understand the process that bonsai requires. Hopefully, this blog will shed light on this passion. Two- I plan to pursue this hobby for as long as I can. This is a great organizational tool to track the progress of all of my children (plants).
Are you unfamiliar with bonsai? Here are the basics, along with debunking stereotypical assumptions.
This list turned out to be far longer than I anticipated, and I could keep going and going! There is a wealth of knowledge that I am excited to share with you.
I will post tree/project specific posts that fall under the species category on the right (on PC). I may also make general posts about other things, like soil, pots, and technique.
Bonsai on!
Balcony Bonsai 