uga, buga, Mugo (the european bush conifer)

Winter is in full swing here in southern California. Where I live the Temperature has dropped below 50 degrees fahrenheit a few times over night. I know, t-shirt weather in many places around the world. I picked up a few conifers this week so that I could start working on something during our two and a half month long winter. I have not had much success with conifers in the past. It could be said that I have outright murdered them.  I have made some progress over the last year however, and now feel bold enough to attempt conifers again.

TI picked up a dwarf mugo that cost around $7.00 in U.S. I had bought one before that was much bigger. I found that the branches were very leggy. The legggy branches made it very difficult to work with.

For this tree I started at the easiest place to start. That would be the base of the trunk. The place where the trunk meets the soil. As a general rule there should be no branches there. I keep removing branches as i move up the tree until I feel satisfied with how the trunk looks. With all the foliage removed from the base I can see the tree in a better light. I can make better decisions regarding which branches stay and which branches “got ta go!”

I chopped off all the branches that grew straight down. After that, I chopped off the secondary branches on lateral primary branches. In other words i cut the branches growing up from main branches but not the ones in the tree apex. This thins out the tree quite a bit. It's amazing to see how drastically different a tree looks after each part of the pruning.

After that, I cut branches that are growing out of the same or near the same spot. Sometimes it's obvious which one to cut. Other times it doesn't matter.  You do have to get rid of one for aesthetics. I also cut some of the very small branches that give the tree needle volume but that are not very useful for composition. As a general rule i try to follow the concept of brackets like the kind they use for playoffs but backwards. I follow the main branch, that should split into two branches, those split off into two branches each etc. At this stage in the trees life it is not to important to remove all of the unnecessary branches. I did trim the top a bit to give it some shape.

Brackets like a perfect branch should look like

I still was not feeling right about the tree. so I chopped off the two lowest branches and then it came together in my head. I know some of you may not agree with the last two cuts I made, but I think that this is the foundations for a great bonsai. Did I cut too much? Let me know.

developing refinement, the tree, me and my daughter

Last Christmas I saw some beautiful holly decorations. So, I set out to look for holly. Last week I found what to me was a holly with great potential. The pot was not priced however, and it was sitting next to 35-40 dollar plants. I went home without purchasing it. When I got home I was unloading the car when I saw a green flash against the yellowing grass (we are conserving water here in southern California). It was a $20 dollar bill. Hooray, I was going to finally buy my holly. The nursery sold me the tree for 20 dollars even. I was giddy with delight.

Some people do not like variegated plants for bonsai. They say that they are weaker than the common varieties. I was willing to experiment. This holly looked well aged yet had new growth.

For this project I was going to have My daughter whom I lovingly call Monkey do most of the work. This would be an exercise in guiding and teaching my daughter.

What we set out to do is remove unneeded branches, reduce the overall size of the tree, and set the trees skeleton by lowering the lower branches.

We chose to cut the branch at this point because it was just above a growth of younger branches. These newer branches will become the apex.

It was somewhat difficult for my daughter to cut the branch. First, the places where her hands could get leverage where directly in the path of the saw. Second the cut was at an awkward angle. It was difficult for her to get a rhythm with the saw. We lost a few of the young branches.

After, the branches were cut to size relative to the new apex.

And finally the lower branches were wired and placed where they needed to be. What will become the first or lower branch (the big one moving left) was not pruned so that it can grow relatively undisturbed. The other lowered branches were thinned a bit to promote back budding.

The stage is now set to develop this tree into a bonsai. Of course I might have been frustrated at moments, but I never said a word. The key to my daughter appreciating this hobby and maybe sharing it with me is positive reinforcement. She puts up with my eccentric hobbies because she likes spending time with me. I would not want to discourage her by micromanaging or scolding her. Like a bonsai I am trying to develop my daughter’s potential.

Well, enough about that. We’ll keep you updated on the Ilex. Cheers.


Update 06/29

Well, it's 21 days later. My daughters work is coming to fruition. The tree has a lot of new growth and plenty of back budding. All those reddish brown spots are brand new soft supple leaves.

New Growth

This is going to be the lowest branch. it was long and only had leaves all in a clump at the very top. Now many new leaves are growing from the bare branch. The Holly is next to a stone pine. That is why there are needles in the pic