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Bonsai Empire Intermediate Course 2: a review
A few months ago, I got an email from Oscar Jonker, from Bonsai Empire , asking me to give an honest review of his newest online class. I’ve collaborated with Oscar in the past, providing some media,...
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Rehabbing a neglected banyan ficus
It’s been too long since I’ve attended to this poor tree. And the blog. Sorry to the tree and to my readers. I’ve been busy with client’s trees, planning the Bonsai Societies of Florida 2023...
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Back Bumper Bonsai
Today, I got to diagnose what’s wrong with a 2012 Jeep Compass, take my daughter to PT, and go and take a dog outside to poop. In between the PT and the Dog poop, I practiced a little Back Bumper...
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I thought that it surely had died…
Here I am, back in Cincinnati, it’s July, 2023, two years since my last visit, and I find that a tree I had worked and, most assuredly, had killed, was still alive. Wow… I’m not a northern conifer...
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Time for a change
This ficus has been in this remarkable container for..ahem..four or five years, without a repot. I’m sad to say it needs a bigger pot. Sad because I love the pot and the tree combo. Today, I’m hanging...
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Ground Layered Fig Dip
Well now, did the story start with scotch? Or end with scotch? It’s kind of hazy looking back now. But I’ll try….wait, I remember…it started with bourbon! It actually began in 2019, but you didn’t see...
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Welcome to Tropical Northern….Virginia???
I promise, I wasn’t hanging out with any rich men in Northern Virginia. It was all cool bonsai peoples. See? Not a single politician (I don’t consider Roberto a politician, and he was in Peru anyway)....
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LeAnn’s buttonwood
That’s Washington DC. I think. Lots of converging lines and paths layered on top of each other. I posted a similar insane street map last time I was up in the area and I visited the Bonsai and Penjing...
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Rock ‘N Roll
Now that’s a chunk of a block of a rock or something. Actually, it’s concrete, a manmade rock. But it’s “done broke” as they say… It looks like a reptiles beak, below. The story begins with a text,...
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Spekboom Chutney by any other name might just be called dwarf jade relish
Consider the Portulacaria afra, what many call dwarf jade, or port, for short. In South Africa, where the tree is native to, it’s called “spekboom” which literally means “pork bush”. Interesting...
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“What are you gonna do with that piece of sh….. “
It’s been about four years since I found this, and every year, looking at it and pondering the next move, I’ve missed the opportunity to work it. Why? I needed to repot it, get a look at the roots,...
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Ficus microcarpa from an auction…..3 years later..
The Shofu Bonsai Society of Sarasota has a pretty good auction every year. Granted, some years are better than others, but the year I got this one, maybe 2021, was spectacular. This tree was on the...
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Finding Balance
Raise the head, close the eyes, breath in and test the air. Feel the sun come out from behind a cloud, the breeze gives a kiss on the forehead, a caress through the hair. Let the breath out, loud in...
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A sweet, Dwarf Yaupon Holly
This work was from February or March of this year, 2024. It took me that long to figure out where the comma goes in the title. And which words to capitalize. Not really but an excuse is an excuse. So,...
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Schefflera for days
Well now, this tree is bigger than my head. Which is saying something, I got a big head. This is what they used to call, in the seasons of my youth, in bonsai, when I was green and learning the words...
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