I've been very slack with updating my progress on my trees over the last few years, and especially since Covid arrived on the scene. For months I only did the bare minimum required to keep my trees alive, and though I've now been putting a lot of effort into bringing my trees back into shape, sadly I've still been neglecting my blog. One big change I've made over the last year is that I've overcome my obsessive documenting of every bit of work I've done on my trees. My trees are benefitting because it means I'm working harder on them than I did in the days when I felt compelled to set up the c ..read more

In February 2019 I posted a photo of a grapefruit with seeds growing inside the fruit. Thirty months later it's time for an update. This is the smaller of my two grapefruit seedlings showing off it's first flower. The larger one has none. In fact of all the citrus seeds I've planted over the years this is the first one ever to grow a flower. Even the lemon tree I planted in the garden never flowered. Eventually I decided to move it back into a pot in the hope of using it for bonsai, but sadly it didn't survive the move. Though citrus trees aren't ideal bonsai material, I have other citruses ..read more

It's been almost a year since I published my last blog post. The pandemic has been bad for my motivation and my blog hasn't been the only thing I've been neglecting. My trees have suffered too. For 5 months, while shut up at home, I did little more than what was required to keep them alive. Then, as lockdown regulations were eased, I started going to those workshops that were available. Sometime over the last few months I came to the realisation that, more than growing bonsai, I've been hoarding trees. To a large extent that was true even before the pandemic. Yes, I'd been trying to reduce ..read more

The tree as it looks today (front view) Everything was going so well with the Fusion Project which I've been developing from a bunch of Ficus Natalensis cuttings over the last four and a half years. I was finally happy with the way the trunk was fusing and had started some styling work. In the period up to January 2020 I took it to a couple of meetings looking for advice. January 2020 - before pruning A few people felt that the first branch (the thick one, above the cutting I've planted to try to widen the trunk) should be removed, but I didn't like that idea a ..read more

When I visit my various online bonsai groups lately I see everyone's trees getting tons of love during lockdown. Sadly mine aren't among them. For me the social side of belonging to a bonsai club has always been almost as important as the trees themselves, and now that club meetings have been removed from my life for the foreseeable future, I'm struggling for motivation. So much so that, aside from watering my trees and providing winter protection where necessary, I've done very little work on them over the last few weeks. It's much easier to go online and read about other people's trees ..read more

I was really proud when I created a mame bonsai from a Ficus Pumila cutting a few years ago. So much so that I even put it on show once. At the time it looked something like this: November 2015 (with apple to show the size) Growth was a little sparse, but I hoped for improvement in the years to come. Unfortunately it's been all downhill since then. By April 2018 the leader had died and it had deteriorated to this: April 2018 - after some damaged branches had been removed With too many trees to care for I never got around to trying any of the options I referred to in my A ..read more

In August 2017 I wrote a post about unsuitable material for bonsai. Most of the trees I discussed in that post were trees I'd grown from seed, in some cases hoping to turn them into bonsai. As I said at the time, however, I had no delusions that I could ever bonsai a mango tree, but I couldn't resist the temptation to grow my own mangoes. By the time I wrote that post my mango tree was seven years old and was flowering for the first time. Mango flower buds - August 2017  I was thrilled, but also a little bit disappointed when I read that it was best for the health of the tree to remove the f ..read more

Last Saturday I decided to attend a meeting at Midway Bonsai Society after hearing that a young member of Eastern Bonsai Society (EBS)  - the club I've been a member of for 12 years - would be doing a demonstration on a huge juniper. Shaundre Craukamp may only be 19, but he already has a lot of bonsai experience, having joined his first club at the age of 10. After that club closed, he moved to EBS when he was 14. A year later he won the EBS and regional new talent competitions. Later that year he went on to win the national competition, becoming the youngest South African to do so. The tree ..read more

When someone at a bonsai workshop advises me to chop trees back to leafless stumps, I'm often reluctant to do it. Although I've had some success with trunk chops, most of the time I'd rather cut trees back to the lowest growth, wait for back budding, then cut back further. Progress is a little slower that way, but I prefer to err on the side of caution. With some species that approach doesn't work though. When I prune Scheffleras they tend to grow back from the point at which they were cut, not lower down where I want new branches. So when I decided that this little Schefflera needed pruning ..read more

I can't believe it's been four months since my last post. Okay, I guess the fact that it's winter in South Africa counts as an excuse of sorts because I haven't been working on my trees that much. Not even the last couple of weeks when I should have been busy repotting them as spring is definitely in the air. Unfortunately I've repotted very few, partly due to the fact that procrastination is one of my big weaknesses, but technology problems have played a big part too. I was unwilling to get my hands dirty while waiting for tech assistance that never arrived! Just about the only time I've wo ..read more