Alpineart's Blog

This method is used were any plant is purchased from a nursery whether it is pot bound or not .I usually do this the moment i arrive home with a new plant .I also perform the same tactic all year round  .Firstly  remove the plant from its pot  then using a Bonsai root rake tease the soil away from the top section to expose the radial rootsUsing a very sharp knife , insert it into the top of the root-ball and all the way down to the bottom .Then slice the roots to the outer edge .Some plants require several slices other may need more .After slicing the roots up like a pie simple fold them up from the bottom  and out to spread the root-mass .A root- ball that was 100mm high is now 40-50mm high and usually twice its width , no roots were trimmed .It is the wrong time of the year to root prune , hence the simple slip potting . .Now prepare your bonsai pot using a mixture of 50%original soil and fresh free draining coarse material .Place the plant in the bonsai pot and fill with the prepared soil as per normal potting .Make sure the longer  roots are  placed so they travel in the same direction ie clockwise or anti-clockwise , this will ensure they are easily raked out during the next re-pot/ root-prune . Iprefer to used oval pots for the ease of positioning a plant into and allows for simple un-restricked root growth after disturbance .A good size pot would be around 250mm x 200mm however for this exercise a smaller pot was used .Cheers Alpineart

This was a rare purchase from a nursery as i prefer to collect my material .Although not everyone has the potential area’s that i have for collecting Yamadori tree’s . I purchased several Needle Junipers from the same nursery , all had little or no potential , however inside the foliage of ordinary plants there is always a tree in the making  , all you have to do is look beyond the leaves , needles or foliage . Starting at the bottom i removed very little foliage so the wiring was applied and branch placement set .I may get a bit of die back on some of the branches as the were bent down at a rather extreme angle .This is the   finished trainer  slip potted into a training pot and placed back on the bench . At a later date i will apply more wire and increase the movement into the trunk . Cheers Alpineart

These will pose a little challenge due to the fact they are multi- trunked  and and plenty of vertical side branches that will require removal .The tree’s are around 1.8m high and the trunks on these are around 150mm and as yet i haven’t tried to remove them from the ground .I did transplant them from another area in the garden about 15 years ago however a bobcat was used to excavate them and to transplant into their current position .I would expect them to continue to back shoot  down along the trunks that are remaining .I will keep them in the ground until winter then remove them .I most certainly wasn’t gentle when it came to trimming them , 2 down 6 to go . There is several green varieties and golden forms as well.Cheers Alpineart