April in Kansas...

To the tune of "April in Paris"

"April in Kansas, winter storm warnings,
No global warming, to see...."

Pavement Ends...here on the prairie, spring comes in fits and starts. In fact, the entire winter was a roller coaster of temperatures. It seems that each month since November we have had instances of temperatures in the 70s one day and winter storms the next. April has been no exception.

Last Sunday we canceled due to ice and snow (although it mostly missed us here in Ottawa), then warmed all week until Saturday which was 70, and then winter warnings yesterday. So we huddled in the shop and worked on some trees.

Here, Mark is working on cleaning up the soil (soji) on his Korean hornbeam. We just repotted it last spring, so this spring was for working on building the structure of the branches, etc. Soji is usually performed in the fall, but it's good to do in the spring if not the previous fall. He removes about a half inch of the soil to clear it of moss, weeds, congealed fertilizer, and fine roots, then tops the soil with fresh bonsai soil to allow water to soak easily.


We left the lower branches long, to encourage them to thicken up. With aggressive feeding, these should put on several feet of growth this year which will thicken the bases. Then we will prune back and do it again until the branch bases are proportionate with the trunk. Here's the result:


Tom brought some nursery stock with him, so we gave him a good bit of chop chop.



Then we went to work on wiring technique. All in all it was a rewarding, if cold, day.