At times I’m reminded of my Mother saying, “well you wanted a puppy…”, because when it comes to Bonsai there is a lot of work to be done.  However I am still very happy that I have my Bonsai collection, and my trees are all doing very well.

Here is my huge Trident Maple after its first year in a Bonsai pot. The weather hasn’t fully turned very cold yet, so I helped my tree go dormant by removing the leaves.

You can see all the buds in place ready for next Spring, so removing the leaves didn’t hurt the tree. However it does allow me to get a look at the growth, and get prepared for all the wiring.

Notice how all the new growth is growing straight up, well that’s what needs to be wired down. Why? Well first of all old trees have hanging branches, whereas young tree have branches that grow upwards. So by wiring them down we add the illusion of age. Also it opens the tree so that light can get to the trunk and more branches can grow. Remember last year there were very few branches so in a very short time this tree has become rather dense.

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