Summer has come in with a roar and it is only May 25. Temperatures are reaching 100 degrees in my garden. Out come the tropical and sub-tropical trees. Today I visit several old friends and some of my favorite trees in the collection. Olives have brought me joy for over 15 years of collection work.
We are still in the shelter-in-place orders for a bit longer in California. This season, more time has been given to my collection than in previous years; the trees are wanting me to return to office work so I stop putzing with them on a daily basis. This time gave me the opportunity to see
It has been a very odd time in our lives. 2020 started out with a roar and has gotten more and more complex. Some bloggers talk about doing bonsai in this COVID-19 shelter-in-place time has been beneficial to their collections, they have had more time to work on their trees. For those in the business
These are odd times we living now. In California we are all under a shelter-in-place order with the spread of COVID-19 spreading around. One bright side of this crisis for bonsai folks is the change to stay home and play with trees more than normal. We and they are a captive audience. The weather here
January has been a ticking clock of work that must be done this month. Today, I finally took on the last major re-potting of the month. Everything else can wait til February and warming temperatures. This month, I had to complete the California Juniper. The California Juniper is an old legacy tree that has been
Well, I have been remiss in posting. Most of my tree work has been done at the Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt since December but now it is time to address some of my trees. Pines need to get re-potted and some of my trees are showing early budding which will push their window of
The day after Thanksgiving here and taking time do some house keeping and preparation. The tree benches all need rearranged for winter. Trees going dormant move down and trees needing continued winter sun and cold hardy move up. I always do this in stages. Pulled trees before the rain starts for re-potting. These candidates will
I purchased a Ficus from Brussels Nursery in the early Summer with the intent of using it for several demonstrations this year. It was an old tree that was greenhouse grown and put to the side. It will take some years and some special grafting to make this tree a spectacular one, but it is
Part two of the catalog is primarily tropical, shohin, and mame trees. This is not a complete catalog of all trees but it records the growth and development of specific trees over this past year.
Every so many years, I start a project of cataloging my collection to show how a tree has advanced or declined. All of the trees featured here have been in earlier posts and most have been in my development for a decade now. There are a few exceptions.
