Bonsai benches
New railing.
Trash.
Dump trailer full of trash.
Puppy dog.
Couple more puppy dogs
You're the best-est. You're the best-est. Yes, you are.
All the bonsai trees. They are still hanging out.
So what is going on? Why haven't you made us anymore videos, Ben?
well
It's cuz we're moving
[Bluegrass Music]
Welcome to Appalachian Bonsai.
It's true. We're moving.
We're moving because, I'm going back to college,
or university if you live somewhere outside of the United States,
and that's a very exciting time
But it also means I'm not having the time to work on videos for you. I have plenty of footage
I just don't have the time to edit it.
I do have two videos. It's a series, and they are about that close to being done.
So, I hope to have those for you sometime in June.
But, until such time I'm gonna give you a quick update
and, then hopefully, that'll say satiate your hunger for more Appalachian Bonsai.
Here's the flowering dogwood. We've seen multiple times.
I pruned it back hard this year, which you can definitely tell.
There is a video for that and I will put a link right there
For whenever it's ready
This is the Amur honeysuckle
I've pruned it very hard. I've carved it
I've also put it into a new pot. If you follow me on Instagram, you've already seen images of this
but without all the green foliage. It's only been about a month and a half since I've done that work and
It's exploded. I mean, we've got so much growth coming off of what were just stumps.
It's gonna have to be pruned back really soon,
and then it's gonna grow out again and prune it back and grow out again.
Last year, I pruned it three separate times and
It didn't take away from the vigor of this tree very hardy. It's probably why it's very invasive.
So if you ever had the chance to work on a honeysuckle,
by all means dig them up, get them out of your yard, put them in a pot.
and you will have a tree that you can play with, and play with pretty hard.
I do have a video where I carved all of this. I hope to have that edited for you by end of summer.
For those of you in the southern hemisphere, like Australia, South Africa, and Brazil,
You're going to be able to see this just in time for your own carving, in season. So anyway, I hope it's helpful.
Isn't she a beaut!
This is the eastern white pine I collected last year.
It did not need a repot
It's a pine that doesn't need to be repotted every year
This was a lot of fun to play with
Arthur Joura, who is the curator of the bonsai collection at the North Carolina Arboretum,
visited Roanoke, Virginia, which is where I have
the club that I attend, which is the Hinoki Bonsai Club,
and he came to visit us like he does every year, and we got a chance to work and style this tree.
It is not a typical pine styling, which are the big triangles.
This is a very gnarly looking,
very naturalistic style. I like it
I'm happy that he was able to work with me on it, because I had a lot of questions,
and he certainly answered them.
The way this trunk moves
it's just unusual for a white pine.
And, because it's just very strong movement
the branches also need to be very strong in their movement
I think it complements the tree very well.
If this became a very refined pad here, pad there, pad there,
it would not tell the story of how this trunk and this tree came to be so twisted
I think that if you put them in your
standard, common
straight left branch, right branch, back branch paces,
then it would not have the same character, it would not tell the story, and it would be fake.
This is real.
So, you need to make sure that this tree doesn't look like it was taken out of a real situation and then, put into a,
you know, a pampered lifestyle. Which, it is pampered - its bonsai, but this had a hard life
The rest of the tree needs to reflect that it had a hard life. That's naturalistic in a very basic way.
I love it. I hope you do, too. We'll see more of this tree in the future.
Here are two trees you haven't seen before.
Or have you?!
This tree and this tree were actually together in the same pot and they were, and are, Rocky Mountain junipers
that were styled in a fashion similar to that.
I went to take this out of the pot and
put it into a proper pot that had them leaning off to the side,
The root system was really poor and
These two were separated. This branch came straight out and then up.
And I think as a tree it did not work, at least for my taste. This is my tree.
I'm gonna prune it the way I like it.
So I separated them out and I put them in separate containers
Yeah, they do need a lot of work and pruning and they need a lot of wiring and styling
But because I have transplanted these into new pots, I'm gonna let them rest for a year before I work on them
let them regain vigor on their separate,
As separate trees. There was a lot of root pruning on both of them
So it has left them weak. They are coming back with a little bit of bud and greenery from this spring.
I have
this tree wired into the pot like this, because it had such a poor system and I didn't have enough
roots to wire into the pot. So, I've used this to stabilize the tree. It seems to be working out well.
Happy to see them coming to life
This is a trident maple. Now, this is a tree I've been working on for many many years
It stood
a couple feet tall at one point in time and
I air layered it.
So there's a very special video coming out, and I hope to have that for you in June.
That'll be the first video to come out. It's a series of two on the air layering process that I used on this tree
Very healthy and that's exciting
Keep your eyes open
It's one of my American hornbeams. You've seen this tree several times before.
This tree is just about ready for another pruning. I'm gonna wait
Probably another month, because I have to move it
I'm gonna have a whole lot of time and I wanted to make sure I'd do it, and do it right.
But it's not a bad time to be pruning in June. It's actually not a bad time
I even defoliate the whole thing and get some wires in there. That will allow for a nice clean even flush
in the late summer / early autumn and
then by autumn you'll have smaller leaves of an even size and whenever it's time for the leaves to change color and drop they usually change
and drop about the same time.
It's a very exciting vigorous growing tree. I repotted into this new pot. It's certainly explosive
This is a green hawthorn. I dug this up last year. You didn't see a video for that, because I didn't put it out.
Hopefully I'll have that for you this year
We have pruned it up a little bit more for this season
Repotted it and I'll tell you why in that later video, but I wanted to give you a little sneak peek
peek of a new tree
It's another hornbeam & looking good
A little shimpaku juniper.
Anyway,
I hope that this video gives you a good update of some of the trees you've seen in the past,
some new ones that are gonna be coming up in the future, as well as letting you know
what's going on in Appalachian Bonsai.
We do have a new logo. I hope you saw that.
That's from Giant Step Design. Thank You Josh for all the work you did.
I love it. I hope you love it at home.
I hope to have some merchandise: stickers, t-shirts, hats. That'll come later.
Right now, I have to focus on getting my house fixed up, getting my house sold, getting my butt moved,
not far, mind you, not going far,
but, I have school to work on.
So, thank you very much for your love, for your patience, for all the kind words that you've given to me.
I love you back.
I can't wait to do some more work for you in the future. Hit the notification bell, so that way you know
whenever in a new video is posted, and Like and Subscribe because there's more to come.
Thanks for watching.
[Bluegrass Music]