It's pronounced kəˈtoʊniːˈæstər not Cotton Easter

I saw the most amazing cotoneaster at one of my favorite nurseries yesterday. It had beautiful leaves. The leaves where about just right for the size of the bush. The bush had a few berries hanging on. Yet, The greatest feature was its natural curved trunk. I however, will show you the after shot first. Why? Because I chopped and hacked, and maimed this poor little tree.

What do you think of this tree?

I honestly did not want to. The tree gave no choice, no choice if it wants to become an amazing bonsai. This is what I envision for it.

This is desired outcome

Now let me show you what I started off with.

I know, it had unbridled branches much like the hair of a free spirited hippie who ignores hygiene and never washes their hair. That was what drew me to it. Beautiful leaves and berries on a large mane. What kept me though was its long and well developed curved body. A tree can never reach its potential if the trunk does not look good. A good trunk and bad branches what do you do? You chop off the branches.  Good branches and bad trunk? You can't chop the trunk. You can correct issues with trunks, but that will take longer than a branch problem in pre bonsai trees.

As you can see I had many choices on how I could shape this tree. Different people will have different viewpoints. You may infact say that my choices are crazy, and you know what? You may be one hundred percent correct. However, I have made the cuts so now it's too late to fix anything.

The two aesthetic principles that i gave the most weight to was first, movement. Second, I wanted a nice taper up the tree. I cut away all the dead stuff, and all the things that obviously I did not want to keep. Those would be smaller low branches, branches growing against the direction of the other branches, very large higher branches.

You can see that with some clean up the picture begins to focus. Every time we do something to the tree it should make in our mind's eye a clearer vision of where the tree will end up. I love cascade and leaning bonsai. I would have loved to have left the main line of the trunk reaching out over the pot, but this would not have made a great bonsai. The main line is moving to the right. I needed to change direction to make it more interesting.

After the cut was made the tree looked even better to me. It was obvious that the direction of the main branch though moving in another direction was still too long and straight, and that my friends is not interesting. I also saw that a few branches i had left on top of the big curve did not look so great. Another challenge was that the top branches were very thick. I needed nice thin branches. I knew i would have to lob them off.

The last thought was of movement. The trunks line will end at the apex. The new apex is the little tiny branch the orange arrow is pointing too. Their is a small problem as the branch the new apex sits on is a little thicker than i would like. That is a problem for next year though.

Did i cut too much. I would say yes. We'll see what happens. Good or bad I will definitely learn something from this tree. Cheers.


Update September 27

Did you know that cotoneaster is in the rose family? I was a little afraid that I had cut off more than I could chew. I would say that I chopped off  95 percent of the foliage. Yet, this resilient plant only 11 days later has given me a rose.

Flower!!!

This is of course, a very good sign. the leaves on the left branch are also new. What an incredible find this tree was.


Update October 24

One month and a week after i pruned this little tree it has pushed out many new branches. I will remove the branches that I do not want. Those include downward and upward facing branches. Also, branches growing to close and in the same direction and others. The new branches I leave will become my primary branches. I will not brune those until probably next August so they can thicken and grow secondary branches.

One month and a week after removing most of the foliage

Top view  shows that the branches are growing in a radial pattern.

Nursery Lantana Pre Bonsai

     When I was a kid I hated this plant. I hated its smell, its coarse leaves, and that sphere of green and blue berries it left. When I started bonsai i read that Lantana made great indoor bonsai. However, because of my prejudices i would not consider that species as possible bonsai material for my collection. Then one day i was looking at plants at one of my favorite nurseries when i found the discounted section. There I saw a lantana with amazing taper and these itty bitty leaves. It changed the way I saw Lantana forever.
     So, last weekend I saw this little tree:

Lantana Camara

     The price for this tree was almost $7 U.S. I do not have a lot of disposable income. The more inexpensive I can get a tree the better. I am the first to admit that the branching needs tremendous amounts of work, but the trunk at least to me is superb. The trunk has a nice thickness that tapers and curves. I am picturing broom style for this tree.

Long way

     This is a close up looking down at the tree at an angle. I love those knobby places on the trunk. Lantana are considered weeds in some places. They are fast growers if well watered and fertilized. If planted in the ground and established they can be drought tolerant. By the end of this growing season this tree should have good ramification. Ramification is when you have branches, then you have smaller branches growing on those, and even smaller branches growing on those. This helps reduce leaf size, and gives the tree a good silhouette.

Close Up

    After I see new growth I will prune the tree to the desired length ad watch it grow. Cheers.

Update May 15, 2016

Here is the tree three months later. I have cut it back once a month and fertilize it every two weeks. It has very little ramification and that is what I will be working on. However, as you can see it has a lot of foliage and the placement is much better.

Update October 1

Well, This little tree has come a long way. Not only has it changed its appearance, but it has survived calamity. In july as I was watering the garden the hose fell on it breaking off the apex. Then a recent heat wave almost defoliated the whole tree. 

Broken Apex

I was going to give it away as a gift. I couldn't because of these setbacks. Yet a month later the growth was so much that I had to cut it back. Even with constant pruning the branches had grown too big. I cut off about one fourth of the overall size. Now two months after I snapped the apex I have this:

Its coming back

I bought this little tree which measures now about ten inches for six U.S. and change. It needs a bit more to go. It will be potted in a ceramic pot next late february. Here is a picture for my friend Luke:

Before and After

I started working on this tree in february. It has come a long way in eight months.