One of the yaupons didn’t make it through the winter. The other, in the duck pot, lives on.

This mess of a guy in the duckie pot. Here we go.

I had attempted an air layer on that right branch, but I did that in late fall, the exact season you shouldn’t air layer in. I had no success, much to my shock. It’s a learning process. So chop it off!

Here he is in all his glory. Humble, tiny. This will be a mame bonsai, a very small one. It has great nebari (surface roots), so that is a plus. I trimmed some roots off, replanted it with the nebari covered in soil to encourage further growth), and added a bit of movement to the new leading branch.

Final product! As I know all too well, yaupons are brittle, and it did snap a bit, hence the raffia. But it should be fine and be a cute little mame once it fills out a bit!

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.

From October 4, 2018.

At Home Depot, i got these two Yaupon hollies, another classic bonsai species. I was drawn to their adorably tiny leaves and respectable trunks.

Thus began my love/hate relationship with hollies. Upon trimming and styling them, I found that hollies are brittle. Very brittle. They do not like being styled. Upon further research, most hollies are styled in a chop and grow method, which is pretty self explanatory. I attempted to wire them to add movement to their very straight branches.

Ewwww, look at all of those straight branches. It just looks like a tiny bush. Which it is. But I want to transform it!

Because these branches were so brittle, I pulled out the big guns- guy wiring. This is where you wire a branch downwards using a contact point on the branch, and then you tie the other end to a sturdy source, like a thick root, trunk, or in my case, pot. I used copper wire from Lowes, as copper wire holds its shape better and is stronger than aluminum. I use aluminum wiring for all styling though, because it is less likely to scar. See, you add movement to branches by wrapping wire around the branch at about a 45 degree angle. You bend the wire, and wait a few months for the branch to grow and maintain that position. Then you remove the wire. But, if you leave the wire on for too long, it digs into the branch and leaves scars. They heal over time, and bonsaists have many opinions about wiring scars (some don’t care about them knowing that the branch is firmly secured in place and is reassured that it will heal, whereas others avoid scarring at all costs to preserve aesthetic value).

Anyway! That was a wiring tangent! I attempted to move a branch down via a guy wire with plastic tubing around where the copper wire contacts the branch (to minimize scarring). I tightened the wire, and snap! It broke. I quickly wrapped it up with raffia, which I got at Michaels. This acts as a cast so that the branch may heal back together. We will see if it worked.

Overall, I’m a bit frustrated with these hollies. They really don’t like training. I’m considering picking a leader (a main branch) and chopping everything else off. That way, I can style branches while they are still green and pliable. If I do this, it will be in the spring.

Bonsai really teaches you patience. There is very little instant gratification. You have to wait for a certain season to do certain training. But I think that is part of the art of it. A commonly posted rule on the bonsai reddit is that if you are bored with you material, because you are just waiting for it to grow, that means you need new material to work on!