new Scots pine

This is a collected Scots pine, Pinus sylvetris, that Marco Merschel has styled in the naturalistic style. I think he has done a great job. I received this tree recently in a trade. Of course, I have to do something to give it my own scent.
So I took off all the old wire and cut off lots of branches that were too long and superfluous. Then I started to wire again. Here the intermediate result . We are about half way through. Tomorrow the final result.

mugo nr. 26 #2

Old bark was removed from dead parts. The deadwood was edited slightly, algae remover was applied onto the whole tree. Now the tree has to dry. I will wait for a couple of hot and dry days. Afterwards the deadwood will be treated with a wood hardener. When this has dried I will apply lime sulphur.
then the mugo will rest for at least a year. if it looks healthy in summer of 2010 the crown will be styled and the tree might be potted into a bonsai pot in spring of 2011. Or the whole thing will take place one year late. Or else. Such is bonsai life. It is certainly a long term thing.

For those who just don't see what is going on here: trust me, this is world class material. It will be a killer tree in a few years.

mugo nr. 26

This is one of my most promising pieces. It is a mugo pine, Pinus mugo, which was collected in Switzerland in 2000. I got it in October 2007 and started right away to work with it since it was untouched since all these years. I brought the foliage all the way down by braking one major branch. Fist three images show what happened in 10/2007. Last year I held my breath to see whether the branch that should form the crown had survived the rude treatment. Well, it did. And today I dared to cut off the part that will not be needed. Now it is obvious what a brilliant piece of material this is. But it was not so obvious when I got it. Otherwise nobody would have parted with it. I am happy he did though. It was a good trade. Guess for whom. Tomorrow I will show further progress.

rowan coming nicely

Rowan or mountain ash, Sorbus acuparia. First three images February 2008. It will shine in a few years.

huge hornbeam

This is a fat hornbeam, Carpinus betulus, indeed. It was collected by Wolfgang Kaeflein. The first image shows the tree in spring 2007, the second and third in April 2008.
Now it's coming nicely. In a couple of years it will be presentable. the pot is by Derek Aspinall.

cembra pine cascade

This is an extreme rarity. It is a Cembra pine, or Swiss stone pine, Pinus cembra. This is a five needle pine living in the Alps and in Siberia. These trees are very rare but even much rarer is a decent piece or material. I have never seen anything like a cembra pine cascade. This took quite a while but now it starts to be presentable. The pot is too big. It will look a lot better in a smaller pot next year.
The old images are from 2004 and the nice ones from today.

spruces, lots of tehm

all these are collected European spruce, Picea abies. It takes decades before a spruce starts to look good. But they do eventually.

Colorado blue spruce

All three are Picea pungens, Colorado blue spruce. They were collected in Colorado five years ago. Now they look very established and ready for major styling. In the coming weeks I will stlye all three of them.

quince loosing bark

This is a Chinese quince, Pseudocydonia sinensis. It is ancient, collected probably in Korea and imported from Japan a few years ago. It was always very promising. Last spring I potted it into this fabulous container by Peter Krebs. and then it almost died. I still don't know what happened. Anyway, it was sitting around all summer looking dead. At my late summer meeting we contemplated to hide it in the garage because of embarassement. And then in winter it started to come again. In spring many of the new shoots suddenly died like they would forom fire blight. And now a few days ago stripes of bark came down and the whole tip of the crown is dead. Today I took off the bark where it looked dead. The rest looks quite happy I will let it grow freely all summer and then cut back at the beginning of August. I will leave the deadwood on that quince. I have never seen a quince with deadwood before. Well, someone has to start a trend.
Maybe it actually had fire blight. Or at least a deadly fungus. Or almost deadly. I hope very much that it does not spread.
I have not used any fungicide or similar. I believe in the natural strength of happy trees.