Magnolia in Flower

This is a pretty little magnolia. The pot is lackluster and the trunk/branches are in total disarray. This year I will work on the trunk and branches, but it was repotted last year and I let it rest. As usual, I can't resist the flowers!
They are so beautiful. Don't leave them out in the rain though. I bring this one in every night and keep it out of the rain, and still I am lucky if the flowers last for a full week.

Satsuki Azalea (Korin)

Every Blog needs a little sex appeal. On a bonsai blog, that definately means an azalea in bloom. This one needs initial styling, but could not resist taking a few photos if the blooms. Yes, that are that vivid!
The pot is a Richard Robertson. It is a Very dark greyish, blue/black. You can see the difference between the pot and the jet black on the top of the turntable.
This azalea is orginally from Telperion Farms in Oregon. If you are looking for a great azalea from nice people, contact them!
The second photo shows, what I expect will be the front, who knows until it is done.

Oriental Sweetgum (Liquidamber)

Nice Hefty sweetgum tree. Just repotted it into the very lovely Richard Robertson pot. The underside just still full of gunky field soil which had to be washed out and the remains of the old tap root. It must have take 1.5 to 2 hours just to get rid of the tap root. (Note, make sure you have a nice LARGE pair of root pruners. When you need them, nothing else will do).
I think I will rotate it a bit more in the future. I know it looks like the base has some reverse taper, the that is an illusion of the photo. The crown is WAY too full and needs to be trimmed. This year it gets a lot of pruing and maybe some wire.
This is the first sweetgum I have ever worked on. I noticed a very pungent and odd smell while cutting the roots. It also oozed and secreted fluid as it was cut. Anybody else experience this? The smell was not altogether unpleasant, but odd none the less.
The fall color of this is outstanding.

Rough Bark Japanese Maple

So this one has been sitting on the bench. It grew OK last year, but not great. The chief attraction is the bark (of course). It is nice an corky. I don't think it is an Arakawa though as the bark is very finely textured. I have an Arakawa and the bark is MUCH more fissured (like a black pine type of bark).
The pot is a beautiful pot by Sara Rayner. I may change it out though as I think it competes with the dark bark a little too much. It might be nice if a tree with lighter bark was in this pot. Anyway, no time to repot it this year, so I refreshed some of the soil and started to prune it. I left the lowest branch in an effort to thicken the trunk some more. The taper is not great and needs work.
The final photo shows where I think the new front may be in the future.

Ugliest Trident Ever?

So this came from Guy Guidry who called it the "Ugliest Trident Ever"! I think that might have been a little melodramatic, what do you think.
It needs all new branches, of course. I hope to experiment on it and give it a little more of a naturalistic image. I nice rounded canopy and in the future a much nicer pot. The round is really more of a training pot for this tree.
You can see in the first photo why you should not put your plastic training pots on the ground. It obviously grew quite vigorously... right out of it's pot!
The roots were trimmed without mercy, most everything was pruned and then some very basic wire was put on.
With a great deal of time, this could turn into a very nice tree.

Japanese Quince

Repotted the Japanese Quince. Not sure, but could be a Toyo-nishiki. It had horribly compacted roots. Whoever had it just, kept putting it in larger pots and NEVER root pruned. I found several different drainage screens embedded in the rootball at various levels. I really had to take away a large chunk of roots, but they were so tangled and there were some rotted ones, so hopefully it will push some good new growth. I have read that it is better to transplant in the fall (because of root gall), but I really did not think the plant could make it till then. Not a ton of blossoms, but I will fertilize well this year, clean out some of the suckers, and prune to encourage better blossoms next year.

Chinese Quince

Repotted the Chinese Quince. It really needed it as it had been potted up in "black mud". The good thing is the roots came clean very easy and required minimal pruning. It likes moisture so I added a fair amount of Akadama to the coarse mix. The tree has a nice trunk, it fruited nicely last year, and the bark color and flecking is spectacular.

On the minus, the branches are not great, nebari stinks, and there is NO ramification. Ramification is what is on the plate this year, and trying to chase the branches back so they are not so lankey. The Tokoname pot from the Yamaki (sp?) is quite nice and I think works much better than the round one.

Japanese Maple

Unknown Cultivar of Japanese Maple. As you can see the Japanese pot had a little bit of a hard time over the winter and kind of exploded. I will use this pot now as a training pot to work on the roots of some young Japanese Beech that are being trained for a future forest planting. (Waste not, want not).
The new Sara Rayner pot is simply beautiful and the color is perfect, don't you think? Plus it is planted a little deeper to allow for better cultivation of the roots.
The branches are a mess! This tree has undergone a lot of hard times. It had a bad case of mealy-but infestation several years ago and I almost lost it. It figures that they would go crazy when I was away on vacation and had to treat it when I got back and most of the foliage was missing! It has been wee ever since and I have let it grow out to try and recover some strength. This year I cut the roots short, cut off long internodes and intend to fertilize and water well to increase vigor. In addition, the two trunks have become too similar in size and shape and the dominate trunk needs to be strengthened. I rotated it 180 deg. Which front do you like?

Kashima Maple Repotted

Finally found some time to repot the Kashima. The buds had just broken and it was time for a new pot anyway. The old erin pot was nice, but not for this tree. I tried two pots, one from Erin pottery and one from Sary Rayner. I chose the one that Sara made as I like the look of it, and I feel the green/yellow complements the leaves. What do you think?

Repotting was pretty typical. The pot was crammed with roots as this maple always grows strongly. I just wish it would wait to push new growth a little longer! I tilted it slightly forward to incline the trunk (and will continue this on future transplants), and gave it an all over haircut. I reduced the lowest branch and in the future may remove it entirely. The whole tree needs a restyle, but not this year!

Repotting a Koto-hime

Well the time came (a bit too soon as the weather is still quite cold) to repot the Koto-hime. It was horribly pot bound. Last year I could not get to it before it leafed out and had to simply pull some soil away and add some fresh soil around the edges. As usual this one started to leaf out before everything else.

The original pot was too large/deep and is that typical "import" blue. The rootball was clogged and the soil had degraded into "mud". It took several hours of chopstick attacking and water blasting to clean it out. I was tempted to just do it partially, but thought better of it. The whole tree needs branch and root work, and I thought it better to clean out the "junk" and get down to business.

You can see how much smaller the rootball is. There are also two large wounds on the trunk that were not properly cut or sealed. Since it is too dangerous to do both of them at once I decided to re-open the large one and try to get it to close better. You can see the size of it in the photo.

The final pot is a vibrant blue pot by "Erin". Lots of branch and root work to do, but I will just trim the branches and then let it grow rather freely to recover.

Kashima Maple

A nice Kashima, needs a trimming this year, and a little wiring to bring the lowest branches down a bit. Perhaps some guy wires as it is impossible to get the wires in the dense canopy. The pot is a nice pot, but just not the right pot for this tree. I have a nice one by Sara Raynor that might do the trick. It needs replanting this year. I missed it last year as the buds just got out ahead of me. I did notice a post on Walter Pall's blog where he stated that you can repot immediately after buds have popped. Doh, wish I had known that last year!

Japanese Beech

Nice Japanese Beech. The leader was broken some time ago. This year is about trimming out unneeded branches, establishing the new front, and TOTALLY changing the pot. Have a nice green Tokoname pot that it will be going into within the next few weeks. Will post again when it's done.

Deshojo Japanese Maple

This is a nice Deshojo Maple. It is still in development (hence the reason the lower branches are there to help heal a few wounds. The Pot is by "ERIN". Needs some wiring and pruning. The Spring color is phenomenal and I will re-photo when the buds pop.

Spring Photos and Start of Blog

Ok, Finally got off my butt and started to take some pictures. I wanted to get a few done before the buds all pop (within a few weeks). As usual the maples are the first to start. The weather is totally screwy and today it will be a high of 70. It's just a fluke though, and I know to be careful of the sneaky late frost.

I have not done any pruning yet. I will retake photos after I have to show the difference.