What Bonsai Are Worked On In June? And, what do we do with them? This photo essay offers several answers. June and July are Satsuki Azalea months. After flowering the entire flower, with the ovary, is removed. Another Satsuki losing its flowers. Carmen has found some tight wire, something else to watch for at this time of year. This one, the Kinsai variety, […]
https://crataegus.com/2024/06/....12/what-bonsai-are-w

Yellow Needles On Conifers: Trouble? This is a common worry, so if you’ve worried about it, you’re not alone.  Mountain Hemlock as an example, though this can be applied to many conifers. The newer needles are pale, which indicates weakness. The inner needles are starting to yellow. Is this a problem? Not necessarily.  Weaker trees do lose more needles. Just […]
https://crataegus.com/2024/06/....04/yellow-needles-on

Shade Cloth Part II: What Color? Most shade cloth is black. But there is also green. Red. Grey. White. Silver. And we might wonder, there a difference, other than looks? A few experiments have shown that shade cloth color can influence plant growth. One experiment showed an increase in internode length and leaf width in blueberries grown under black shadecloth. The […]
https://crataegus.com/2024/05/....28/shade-cloth-part-

Shade Cloth Part 1: A Sliding Scale Years ago in the bonsai garden I put up what I thought was the best guess for shade cloth: 30%, meaning, 70% of the light passed through. After several years it was apparent that was not enough, and we switched it with 40%. Since then, in another area, we have put up 50%.  This led […]
https://crataegus.com/2024/05/....21/one-last-thing-ab

Old Study Suggests Plastic Wrap Closes Wounds Passing on here a study of wound closure from the 1970’s by one of the great arboriculturists, Alex Shigo. I wish to thank local arborist Rick Till for bringing it to my attention.  Alex Shigo Shigo applied both clear and black plastic wraps—with no wraps as the control—around wounds. He concluded that black plastic wrap […]
https://crataegus.com/2024/05/....14/old-study-suggest