I’ve finally found time to take photos and put together a catalog of the new field grown trident maples and the new Root over rock trees but having trouble getting those files onto the wordpress site.

It is now mid spring at Shibui Bonsai and trees are all growing. That means I spend a fair bit of time trimming new growth.

Today is the spring equinox. days are definitely longer and getting slowly warmer. The bonsai have noticed and many of the deciduous trees have started to grow.

By spring sales stock at Shibui Bonsai are usually at the lowest levels. Most of the trees Shibui offers are grown on site. We dig new trees from the grow beds in late winter and pot them up but it takes a few months for those trees to grow new roots. Shipping trees with tender new roots would likely damage those fragile roots as the tree is jostled and shaken in transport. To give you the best stock I don’t ship trees until I am sure the new roots are strong enough to handle the rigors of the postal service.

It is officially spring here at Shibui Bonsai and, this year, the trees match the calendar. Most of the trident maples have begun to open new buds with those lovely red new leaves. Here are a couple of my trident maples today.

Most of the Chinese elms have also started to unfold new leaves. Chinese elms start off with brilliant green buds.

Finally for today, a crab apple. Leaves have opened fast this year. Flowers should follow soon after. This one is old enough to have developed plenty of fruiting spurs so it is usually a mass of flowers. Crab apple flowers come and go pretty quick but I’ll try to catch it at its best for you.

In the last Shibui Bonsai post I showed how I start root over rock trident maples. They are then planted in large pots or boxes in the nursery for the summer. I find the nursery is the best place because the trees get regular water that can trickle down between the rock and foil and keep any of those shorter roots alive until they grow long enough to reach out the bottom and into the potting mix.

Spring is rapidly approaching at Shibui bonsai nursery. Some of the Chinese elms already have tiny green shoots opening so the trident maples can’t be far away from starting to grow too. That means I need to get on with any jobs that involve root work.

Making new root over rock plantings is one of those jobs, so this week I emptied out a polystyrene box of last year’s trident seedlings to select some candidates for new root over rock plantings.

It is still officially winter here at Shibui Bonsai but a few warmer nights has stimulated some buds to start growing so I’ve been stimulated to get on with the repotting.

Yesterday I root pruned and repotted all the small shohin sized bonsai. I’ve found that these little ones do better if they are repotted every year. The roots grow fast enough to completely fill a tiny pot in just one summer so the following year it becomes difficult for water and air to penetrate into the root zone and the trees start to suffer.

Starting seedlings through holes in metal plates is not the only way to grow good nebari. I also grow many trees just by regular root pruning to control and direct root growth. Here are some photos to show that method.

In the last post I showed a couple of the trident maples I’m currently digging and pruning.

You may have noticed the very horizontal root spread.

These tridents have been developed using the ‘plate’ method.