Satsuki and Other Trees in Mack's Garden 47

Renewal September 8th, 2018

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I would like to introduce three photos of flowers of Togenkyo though these three trees have not been completed as bonsai yet. The colour arrangements of them are good, but I am sorry that you cannot see the whole figures of them clearly on these photos which were taken on May 25th, 2018. Perhaps they will be completed in 3 years




The Pruning of Pine Trees in August


I pruned my 21 pine trees on August 4th, 5th and 6th because their new shoots were rather long and their whole figures were clumsy. And I can save the time and water: I have to give them more water every day in summer if I do not do so.

I showed you five of them in the web site on February 2nd, 2011. And this time I would like to show you all of them because the capacity of my new web site is rather large and can allow me to contain a lot of photos in it. But since I decided to show you how to prune my pine trees in it after having pruned 3 black pine trees and 2 Japanese white pine trees, I do not have any photos immediately before pruning them. And all of following photos were taken on August 5th and 6th.

One of them is Nishikimatu (Pinus forma). It is the big tree which one of my friends gave me about 40 years ago. Two of them are Japanese white pine trees which my brother gave me about 33 years ago. He brought them home when he had cleared a mountain, using the power shovel. Two of them are the black pine trees which I brought home from the rock cliff in the campus of Shukugawa Gakuin Junior College in 1973 where I was an assistant professor. But now I cannot distinguish them among 18 black pine trees correctly and may have given one of them to a friend of mine. Only I think that I may distinguish them from the nature of needle leaves. The rest of them are the black pine trees which I have grown in the flowerpots from the seeds: they are 45 years old.

Section 1. Black pine trees


Though these black pines are 45 years old, their trunks are not thick. It is because I have not given them a lot of fertilisers since the saplings. If I had given them a lot of them when they were young, their new shoots would have been so long that I could not have grown them as the materials for bonsai.

And since I was born in a small town among a lot of mountains, I knew the natures of natural pine or other trees and had seen a lot of plants in pots which my father had planted till I left my house at the age of 28. But I think that they were not bonsai.

Since I did not have any knowledge of bonsai about black pine trees when I decided to grow them, I got it from two books. I sowed the seeds in the pots and when the seedlings were 2 cm high, I cut them at the bottoms and inserted them into small grains of Kanuma soil. And after spreading the roots by a pair of tweezers in the next year, I planted them one by one into the small plastic pots. Therefore they have rather good nebari.

But since I had not looked after them very carefully for a long term and did not wire them so often, some of them do not have good shapes now. Of course I gave up growing some of them because they were not good as materials for bonsai when they were young, and gave several trees to my friends.

1. Black pine tree A

Though the trunk is not thick, this tree has a good style on the left photo. But judging from the whole figure after pruning on the right photo, the needle leaves are a little bit long. For this reason I cannot give it a lot of fertilisers, too. I had to choose the seeds of black pines which have very short needle leaves when I bought them. But they were so long in a lot of gardens in my native place in my youth that I did not know the natures of black pine trees in each place where they grow. Generally speaking, the seeds of them were sold in the small bags which had the names of places where they grow.

Though this tree is 45 years old and the height is 49 cm, the taper of trunk is rather good. Since I had liked to grow them in a small or middle class of bonsai from the start, I think I have a success in this point: growing all of them like this tree.



2. Black pine tree B

Since the new shoots of this tree are long on the left photo, the whole figure is not good now. And since the top after pruning is a little bit clumsy on the right photo, I have to wire the core and branches when I repot it in February 2019. And I have to wire some branches in order to make it look better, too. The height is 37cm. And the trunk looks straight. But it has slight windings to the left and right and a little bit strong ones back and forth. Therefore it will be better if I change the angle of the front side a little bit when I repot it in 2019.



3. Black pine tree C

The whole figure of this tree before pruning is a little bit clumsy on the left photo because these new shoots are long and the needle leaves are long and strong. And after pruning, since the upper part of trunk had leaned forward, I corrected this defect by wiring it. But it was not perfect. Since the trunk is thick and I could not use the thick wire, I have to bend it again when I repot it in February 2019. And I have to wire all thick branches and make them look beautiful because they are extending a little bit upward. Therefore, judging from the whole figure on the right photo, the upper stream of trunk is not very good. And the lower part of trunk does not have any strong curves. The height is 42 cm.



4. Black pine tree D

The whole figure of this tree before pruning is a little bit heavy on the left photo because the top is large and the new shoots are long. Since I pruned it, you can see the good stream of trunk on the right photo, but the shape of the top is not good. Therefore I have to cut a few branches short, or remove a branch of the top after wiring the core when I repot in February 2019. And I have to consider the angle of the trunk when planting it. The height is 45 cm.



5. Black pine tree E

The new shoots are not so long on the left photo that the whole figure is rather good. The needle leaves are a little bit shorter than those of other trees. And they are weaker than those of other trees. The bottom of trunk is thicker than those of other trees and the taper of trunk is rather good on the right photo. I think it is because this tree has more branches than other trees and the height is 45 cm. But it is sad that each branch does not have a lot of small branches. If a tree has a lot of branches, it always has this problem. The height is 48 cm.



6. Black pine tree F

Now the style of this tree is not good on the left photo. If I lean it to the left deeply and wire all branches, it will have better style when I repot it in February 2019. But since I have thought that it is not a good material as bonsai, I have not had any good image of style about it and a lot of time to restyle it so far. Even if the trunk on the right photo was tilted up to 30 degrees to the left, the style will be much better, but it is not good because the trunk base line is not good. Nobody can restyle it because it is 45 years old. The height is 44 cm.



7. Black pine tree G

The whole figure of this tree on the left photo is not bad. But I have to consider whether I should remove the left first branch or not because it is near the soil. Judging from the whole figure on the right photo, if it is removed, this tree will have a large space under the left second branch. Therefore the whole style will be much better. The height is 45 cm.

But since this tree has a small curve on the bottom of the left first branch, if I remove it, the eyes of people will be focused on the curve. If it were young, the problem which contains the scar would disappear. But the trunk will not become much thicker because it has got the present bottom of trunk for 45 years.

And I have to wire the thick branches to make them horizontal when I repot it in February 2019 because they are extending a little bit upward and to form the top by wiring some small branches.



8. Black pine tree H

The whole figure of this tree on the left photo is not good because the stream of trunk is not good. But the arrangement of these branches is good. You can see the stream of the trunk clearly on the right photo after it was pruned. The first problem is the standing trunk base line though it is leaning a little bit to the left. The height is 53 cm.

Though it may be much better if I consider the angle of the trunk and lean it to the left when I repot it, the problem is whether I can restyle the thick branches by wiring them or not. This is the result of laziness that I made for a long time.



9. Black pine tree I

Though the whole figure of this tree before pruning is a little bit clumsy on the left photo because these new shoots are long and the needle leaves are long and strong, the style is good. After pruning, the stream of the trunk is very good on the right photo. But since the old needle leaves are long, this tree does not have a clean figure. When it has a lot of new shoots in three months, I will remove them. And it will look much better. The height is 46 cm.



10. Black pine tree J

Since you cannot see the stream of the trunk clearly, the whole figure before pruning is not bad on the left photo. But after pruning, the stream of the trunk is not good on the right photo. Though the trunk has some curves, the trunk base line is a little bit erect. Even if I consider the angle of the trunk and lean it to the right when I repot it in February 2019, I think I will not get the good result because it has a very strong curve at the upper part of the trunk. The height is 47 cm.



11. Black pine tree K

Since the new shoots are long and the needle leaves are long, too, this tree before pruning looks well on the left photo. But after pruning, though it has a good-tapered trunk, since the upper part of trunk is straight, the style is not good. Though I have expected that it has some new shoots on the left side of the upper part of trunk, it has not had any one so far. And I do not know how to graft the shoot of pine tree on the necessary part. Will I be able to correct the defect in the future? The height is 37 cm.



12. Black pine tree L

Since the new shoots are long and the needle leaves are long, too, you cannot see the stream of the trunk clearly on the left photo. After pruning, since it has some small curves, the whole figure on the right photo is not bad. But since all thick branches are extending a little bit upward, I have to wire them in order to make them look well when I repot it in February 2019. The height is 47 cm.



13. Black pine tree M

The whole figure of this tree before pruning is good on the left photo though it does not have any branches on the right side of the trunk. And the taper of the trunk is good. After pruning, since I wired three branches near the top, the style is very good on the right photo. Though it does not have any branches on the lower part of trunk, since it has two curves there, visual impressions are strong. Comparing this tree with Black pine tree K, the former is much better as bonsai than the latter. The height is 39 cm.



14. Black pine tree N

The whole figure of this tree before pruning is not good on the left photo. But the taper of trunk is good. After pruning, the stream of trunk is not good on the right photo, either. Since it is 45 years old, if I wire the thick branches when I repot it in 2019, perhaps it will look better as bonsai. It is because the age is considered valuable in the field of bonsai. The height is 41 cm.



15. Black pine tree O

The whole figure of this tree before pruning is good on the left photo though the left first branch is longer than the right first one. Therefore I cut it short when pruning it. And the style is much better than before on the right photo. And the stream of trunk is not bad. If I wire the small branches of the top when I repot it in 2019, it will look much better than now. The height is 41 cm.



16. Black pine tree P, Q and R

I did not take photos of Black pine tree P, Q and R before pruning. The left photo is the whole figure of Black pine tree P after pruning. Since the stream of trunk is not good, the style is not good. Though the taper of trunk is rather good, I would not like to wire thick branches when I repot it in 2019. The height is 51 cm.

The middle photo is the whole figure of Black pine tree Q. The stream and the taper of trunk are good. Therefore when I repot it in 2019, if I wire some thick branches because they are extending upward, the style will be much better. The height is 40 cm.

The right photo is the whole figure of Black pine tree R. I gave this tree to a friend of mine about 10 years ago. And since the core of the top had died, he brought it back to my garden 4 years ago. Though the taper of trunk is good, I cannot restyle it as bonsai because I cannot make the shoot or branch stand as a core of the tree. Therefore now it is not bonsai, and not a material for bonsai, either. The height is 43 cm.



Section 2. Nishikimatsu (Pinus forma)


The whole figure of this tree before pruning does not look well on the left photo because the lower part of trunk does not have any branches and the needle leaves are very long. Though it already had not had a lot of branches when I had been given it by a friend of mine about 40 years ago, it is fact that a few branches died. And I think that a shoot of nishikimatsu was grafted on the sock of a black pine tree. Therefore the bottom of this tree is thinner than the other parts of trunk. And the lower part of trunk is thinner than the upper part of trunk, too. Since the part had not had any branches for a long time, a lot of clumps of bark fell out.

The style after pruning is not bad, for nobody can make this kind of pine tree into a basic bonsai. It is because we cannot wire it. Therefore I have grown this tree by pruning only by a pair of scissors since 40 years ago. Since I cannot remove the moss on a lot of clumps of bark perfectly, I have a great trouble about this tree now. The height is 67 cm.



Section 3. Japanese white pine trees


When these Japanese white pine trees were given me by my brother about 33 years ago, they were very weak and did not have a lot of branches. It is my belief that I continue to grow any plants till they die if they were given me by some persons. Therefore I have grown these trees since then.

I did not take photos of them before pruning. The left photo is the Japanese white pine tree A after pruning. Though recently it has a lot of small branches, I still cannot make it into basic bonsai by wiring it. It is because the top cannot be formed by several branches. The height is 49 cm.

The right photo is Japanese white pine tree B. This tree is still weak and does not have a lot of branches. But though it is about 40 years old, it continues to live in spite of the bad conditions. Therefore the vitality gives us a kind of reverence for life. The height is 45 cm.



Section 4. Fringed orchids


It always takes me and my wife a lot of time to plant the bulbs of fringed orchids in a lot of pots at the start of March. And we give or lend one thirds of them to our friends. We take the bulbs out from a lot of pots, soak them in the water of an agrochemical to kill germs, plant them in a lot of pots including the sizes of very small, small, middle, large and very large pots, and spread the sphagnum on the soil.

They have flowers in midsummer. Therefore they give us an impression of coolness when it is extremely hot. These flowers look like herons which are flying. Therefore we Japanese call them sagiso. Sagi means herons and so means plants. I have 5 kinds of them. These photos were taken on August 19th, 2018. And flowering depends on each variety and the quantity of sunlight though they do not like a lot of sunlight. We have a great problem when growing them. They are so liable to diseases of germs that we often have to spread agrochemicals. I lost all of them twice for these 40 years and asked one of my friends to give me several bulbs. Therefore we never use old soil and sphagnum which we used the previous year.





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