The Virginia Nomad

I am a trainer with the State of Virginia. I travel throughout the state to teach Erosion and Sediment Control and Stormwater Management. I try to take the back roads and I like taking photographs. I am a naturalist, trained in biology and ecology with a very deep rooted love for nature. In this blog I like to share my photography hobby, other hobbies of mine, including my passion for sailing, biking, hiking and nature. I will also share my philosophical outlook on life and some of experience.

Monday, July 8, 2024

Bonsai update (7/8/2024)

I realize that I have been teasing a lot of you about my hobby of growing bonsai trees; at least that is what I try to do. Most of my trees are in the pre-bonsai stage, but that is the fun of it. Recently, I had to move things around a bit because of the fence we put in, I briefly mentioned it <here>. In this post I want to discuss my hobby a little more by answering some basic questions.

How long have you been doing this?

I fell in love with bonsai the first time I saw them. This was in Longwood Gardens (PA) in 1977. I was fascinated by them ever since; however, because of our travel I was unable to pursue the hobby. A few years later we visited the National Arboretum in Washington DC where I saw some more examples of the art of miniaturizing trees. Finally, in the late 1980s when studying in New Mexico could I start playing with them. Our friend and colleague Daniel owned a plant nursery and at one time he gave me at least 7 seedings for me to work on. Later I bought another tree, and when we moved to the Four Corners region, I took a class by John Naka and purchased two more trees for his course. So, you could say that I have been doing something with bonsai for 36 years or so.

That long! Do you have any of your starter trees?

All seven trees that I got from Daniel are still alive. This includes three Siberian elms, three New Mexico privets (aka NM olive) and a Japanese black pine. The hackberry that I bought died some 20 years ago. I did not do much with the trees for a period of 10 years (1994 to 2004) they were terribly pot bound and barely hanging on. The two Naka trees also survived. One of them (an azalea) died two years ago.

What are some of your strangest or more interesting trees?

It seems that a lot of people who are into bonsai concentrate on one type: junipers, pines, maples, or deciduous trees. I never had that luxury and tried the techniques on anything I could get my hands on. The craziest tree that I have is a mimosa. It is what is called a yamadori or a plant collected in the wild. I collected in my yard, so technically they call it a gardendori. I had cut the darn mimosa and it kept growing back. Eventually I had enough of it, and I stuck a shovel into the soil and yanked out a foot and a half (40 cm) of root. Thinking what the heck, I stuck it in a pot with soil and that spring it started growing. The root was too long, so I planted it sideways in a pot and it is thriving (five or six years later).

The general answer to the question would be that I like them all. As any proud parent should, I have no particular favorites. I have over 100 trees in various stages of development, and I need to slow down and reduce the numbers a little. It is a lot of work, and I am sure that this is why none of my trees are show worthy. I once heard that having 25 trees or so is a comfortable number.

Do you have any mentors of people who you learn from?

I have always felt terribly inadequate in my bonsai knowledge. I have a lot of books and I used to prescribe to the magazine. Again, I really did not know what I was doing, even after an afternoon of Naka. It really was YouTube where I eventually gained the confidence to experiment and have some fun with my trees. I became a member of our local club three years ago and I became a member of Mirai, a training school. This finally gave me some more design prowess.

I have a few favorites on YouTube. These include Mirai, the Bonsai Zone by Nigel, Dave’s Bonsai, Bonsai Heirloom, Bonsaify, and Growing Bonsai by Jelle. I watch others as well, but these are my go-to at the moment. I think I now feel much more comfortable growing bonsai, shaping them and even advising on the craft, thanks to these channels.

If you have more questions for me about bonsai feel free to contact me and I will address them somehow. Also look in the label section on the right side of my post. With this post it seems I have 64 posts with the keyword bonsai, or posts where I at least mention the art of bonsai. Good luck browsing through them.