Hello lovely Hive Bonsai community....
Im really happy to be able to post here in Bonsai community, i did wait a good while to be able to post something, it was bad timing last year but hey spring is just around the corner here so there will be a lot to share from my side.
Im not a Bonsai expert by any means i don't have even a tree i could call proper Bonsai but i do Bonsai art for a good while and i have a lot of experience..also i dont think you need to follow the strict rules just have fun and if you enjoy the end result - that is all it matters.
I had some spare time today, the weather wasn't great, a lot of rain, grey etc, it was a day for some work in the greenhouse. Its still a bit early for digging other trees from the ground or do any repotting it was a time to do some winter clean up on one of my Azaleas....
I will give you a bit of the it story - I grew it as a cutting for some time, done really remember when i took the cutting but i found this photo from spring 2019 when i moved it to the bonsai pot.
Have a look.
With added moss that was later robbed by black birds....
I also managed to find couple of photos when it was in flower in 2020
So you can see it was getting some ramification etc.
Last year Spring 2022 i repotted it in March i think, took a lot of roots off etc – no photos of that unfortunately. It was recovering well and i was happy with it but than suddenly we got here very late frost in early May and it did suffer that, all the new buds were all gone and it didn't look promising.
I was just about to dump it but i thought i will give it a chance, some other trees that got affected by frost started to recover so i though why not, and i was right, it did recovered.
It started to grow again but not from the top of the branches...so anyway i left it as it was whole last year, did nothing to it apart of watering and a bit of fertilizer....it grew ok but as you can see on the photo below there was a good bit of clean up needed, so today was a day for it....
There was a lot of dead branches on it, moss and other stuff needed to be bring back to normal....
So i gather some of my bonsai tools and started to work on it – btw i have strong opinion that you dont need to have bonsai tools to have a bonsai tree – there is couple that defo helps but not super essential.
I stared from the base, roots start to look good, however i still need couple of big ones at the back,
The big branch that i cut some time ago is starting to heal nad cover the cut up.
Using variety of tools i trimed back all the dead branches and also removed some unwanted growth
I also used my old tooth brush to brush off any moss from the trunk and roots
So now you can see it before
And after photo with the final result,
I like the final look and i think i also found the new front for future.
It still has a long way to go to be real bonsai tree, during the summer i probably will have to remove couple of other branches but i didnt want to be to drastic at this time...i only took off a little bit
Tell me what you think about it, would you change something ? – i know it should probably be in a bigger pot to let it grow faster but i enjoy the process in this pot, i don't mind a bit more time it would take...also i think Shohin Bonsais are really cute...
Please stay tunned i have a lot of more trees to show you this year, in next couple of weeks i will be doing this type of the work, have few more Azaleas – i love them, i really do like the flowers and colours...
btw do you know how to get ride of those guys? in last 2 years i got a lot of them all over the garden...
Thanks for stopping by, till the next time...
Peace and Love!
In Lak’ech!