This year, I didn’t get a chance to repot the tree, and along with the stress of wiring, it didn’t have a great year. Here is a shot in the growing season, weak left side, decent right side, not much interior growth.
In October I unwired the tree. Best to do this before the flower buds start to swell, as they’re easily knocked off. Before:
After, the branches held reasonably well.
And a week later, I removed the yellowing leaves, and the branching isn’t bad for an Ume:
A few branches trimmed, and a couple wired, and it’s ready for winter…and hopefully a good flower showing.
I have been studying bonsai since 1994, in an ever-increasing obsessive fashion. In our last 5 years prior to moving from Iowa to Alabama pursuing a career in the foodservice industry, my bonsai collection was limited to a few varieties that could survive brutal winters outside, or winters under dim light in the dank basement of our humble duplex...my wife puts up with a lot. Including the trailer hitch I put on our brown 1983 Chrysler New Yorker to pull a U-Haul full of trees to Nashville for a 3-month stop along the career path that led us to Alabama. 12 years later, we no longer have the New Yorker; and not a single one of those trees remain on my bench, having given the last holdout to a new club member this summer. I prefer collecting native trees and buying the classical species used in Japan, feeding organic, and reading everything I can get my hands on.
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