This is Janice’s buttonwood. You’ve seen it before in the post Who doesn’t have a buttonwood in Florida from a few years ago. Since then, it was shown in the 2021 Bonsai Societies of Florida annual convention, and its just gotten better. Janice found a new pot for it at this year’s BSF convention (2022) and that’ll be the main work today.

Here it is now, in The Nook.

To begin the story, here are some progression pics.

Here it was in 2018.

Here it was in 2019 (at the end of this blogpost)

At the 2021 BSF Convention.

And, finally, back to today.

The tree was originally scheduled for the 2020 exhibit but, you know what happened that year. As a result, we didn’t repot it in 2020 or 2021, and this year I’ve been working on letting it gather sugars so I can do some work on it. Hence the big leaves.

It had a mild chili thrip infestation at the end of last year as well, and we treated it with imidacloprid, a systemic insecticide.

But the tree is strong now, and ready for some work.

I’ll also be cleaning and applying lime sulfur to the deadwood, which is, as you’ll see, sometimes easier when the tree is in the middle of a repot.

First step, defoliation. I know, oooooooohhhhh, controversial. It astounds me that so many professionals not only poo poo defoliation as a valid technique, but try to vilify those who use it. One of my catchphrases I use all the time is “horticulture is a science, but the practice of horticulture is an art”. That’s why two people can use two seemingly different techniques and still achieve success. Most of bonsai technique has more to do with the timing and seasonality of the technique and less to do with doing it. Here’s an example: there aren’t any arborists that suggest that removing a pine trees candles is ever a good idea. Yet, if one does it at the right time, the way we bonsai practitioners do, the tree responds with increased vigor and better growth.

There are prerequisites to de-candling a pine tree, one of them being the tree should be in good health, but the science of horticulture says “don’t do it”. Yet we do. Why? Because, the practice and timing of the technique works. As it does with defoliation.

Anyway, here’s my quick method for defoliating a buttonwood. They tend to grow like little rosettes, as below.

Take the branch…

…..move your hand to the end of the branch, holding the leaves…

…..take a sharp pair of scissors….

…..SNIP…..now, depending on whether you want to keep the grow tip intact, to continue the elongation of the branch, or you want to encourage backbudding, is what determines how close you snip the leaves off. I left the grow tip intact in this case, as you can see below.

On some, I’ll keep the tip, on others, I cut it.

Here’s something you don’t see everyday, flowers on a buttonwood. Yes they flower, everything flowers, but it’s only when you let it grow and it’s healthy do you see it.

You may notice some black sooty mold on some of the leaves.

Whenever you see it, always check for aphids or scale.

In this case, its not this tree that’s infested, it’s from a tree that was above it on the bench.

Snip, snip…

Snip, snip….

No, I didn’t count how many leaves. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Now it’s time to repot. I would normally repot a buttonwood, in Florida, every year. It’s been my observation that the tree can weather the winter weather better if you repot yearly.

But this tree had been selected for the 2020 BSF Convention exhibit. Unfortunately, that was the year of Covid lockdowns, so the convention was cancelled, and I lost several months due to my own health problems, so that year was skipped. And the tree was shown the next year, 2021. So I skipped that year too. Sometimes getting a tree ready for exhibition can really stress a tree out.

This year is the year though. And I’m not looking forward to it. It’s potted in a container with sides that bow outward (they call it a “bag pot”). It’s a pretty design, but the roots will fill up that space, making removal a bit difficult.

But, no worries, I have my “1980’s era” repotting tool, the ubiquitous black handled, serrated, steak knife.

Before I begin sawing the tree out, I’m going to save the moss. Janice loves moss, so I’ll put it back on the soil surface when I’m done.

I got a little.

Now, let’s see how difficult it’ll be getting the tree out.

Simply saw around the perimeter, and pry the tree up every few inches.

It’s actually going kinda easy.

Ta-Da!

Now we gently rake out the roots. For a buttonwood I prefer a single tined rake or just a chopstick. The American Bonsai Tools repotting tool works well here.

It definitely needed a repot.

Before we finish, let’s look at, and get ready, the new container Janice chose.

It was created by Doug Marcum, from Hippie Dad Bonsai.

I think it’ll be perfect for the style tree, and, most importantly, Janice loves it too. It is her tree, ultimately.

The details are amazing.

He even has bent over nails made from clay, to make it look like a wooden box thrown together.

I rake out the roots and trim some back, and check to see if it fits in the new pot (you can see the process better in the post Jorge’s Buttonwood, from a few articles back).

Before I put it into the new pot, I’m going to use a wire brush to clean the deadwood (“Wire brush?” You ask, because it works. You’ll have to say that part out loud to get the joke). It’s also easier to clean the deadwood while it’s out of the pot, better to get at all the surfaces if you can turn the tree upside down.

Scrub scrub scrub.

Brush it down to bare wood, really removing all the dirt, grime, and old lime sulfur.

Then put it into the pot. I fertilized, then placed some imidacloprid to keep the chili thrips at bay, and then added that saved moss.

Then, since I’m going to lime sulfur it, I water and make sure to get the deadwood wet.

Lime sulfur needs to go on wet wood to help it penetrate deeper.

I’ve had this bottle for a while. I don’t think it’s available from the Hi-Yield company anymore, but you can get a similar sized bottle for very little money from veterinary supply companies (here’s a link, and no, I don’t do any affiliate marketing links, so I’m not getting paid to promote it: Click here you’ll notice that a big bottle, in this case 16oz, costs about the same as a 4oz bottle from bonsai sources. And it’s the same chemical, that’s your tip of the day. You’re welcome)

Get yourself a glass or ceramic, non reactive vessel, a cheap paintbrush, and paint it on.

Yes, it goes on orange, but, don’t worry, it bleaches white.

It won’t hurt the soil but it could damage the glaze on the pot, so I cover them both with a towel or newspaper.

Then I paint. Since it will flow down, being as it’s a liquid and we live in the gravity well known as “the earth” I usually start at the top and work my way down.

This is the cool part, I coat the whole surface of the deadwood, full strength btw, and it’ll look like this:

And about a half hour later, it bleaches white, quite nicely.

Now, before I finish with some wiring, I’ll speak to those that don’t like the bleached white look. First, it’s important to use lime sulfur. It is technically a fungicide, and it slows the decay. If you don’t like the white, you can add a darkening pigment, like India ink or acrylic paint, but, in a few months, the color will fade anyway, so there’s no real need to add the color unless you are showing the tree soon. Me, I don’t mind it. I think it works artistically, and Janice likes the bleached look too. But you do you, it’s your tree.

Now for a little wire and some minor pruning….

And Bob’s yer uncle.

The tree is really developing well. The branches are thickening, and developing strong ramification.

I am liking it more and more.

That quote, in all its incarnations, has been attributed to artists, writers, poets, philosophers, actors.

Like this Ficus microcarpa, the quote comes in many varieties. This tre was once called “nitida”. Kinda like a tiger bark but without the bark.

Get out the saw, add a little wire. Do you know what the purpose of wire is? It’s two-fold. The first is obvious, to hold the branch while we bend it. The second is to protect the branch from breaking, as we bend it. Kinda like when we are under stress, sometimes a blanket or a hug takes the stress off of us and makes the change easier.

But……

……it can only protect where it touches. Let your friends into your life.

….that’s what life is, spending moments and remembering those moments when, perhaps a shared joke, or a drink, or meal, make the loneliness that is the true reality of man, go away for a little while. And it’s those moments one should cherish.

https://adamaskwhy.com/2017/06/22/it-was-a-monday/

Brazilian raintrees were brought into this country (the USA) by a man named Jim Moody. I never met him, I don’t believe, but I was good friends with his grandson, Allen Carver. He left us recently. I never got to say goodbye. But every time I work on a Raintree, I think of him.

Gnarly.

This one came from Jim, to Michael Cartrett, to Javier Cortez, it was an air layer off a big tree that grew in Mike’s yard. And it went to another friend who went his own way, Jose Perez. He had to sell it after a divorce, and now it’s Doug’s. I get to work on it from time to time.

The story of trees are often as compelling as the trees themselves.

I’m glad I get a part in the story. A small part.

Tuning a guitar. Trying to get the spaces between the strings just right. So that the song sounds good. That’s Jack, a good friend I don’t get to spend too much time with.

Life is not the counting of numbers, it’s the space between those numbers.

How much can you fit into an hour, a minute, a second? How much should you? Can the appreciation on that infinitely divisible moment of time between the seconds in your life be enough, or do you need to fill up those moments with importance?

How many beats per minute does your heart count? Are we promised only so many beats per lifetime? Is it written in our genetic code? Or do we just time of the calculation and stop counting? How many leaves on this buttonwood? Does it matter?

It’s like the space between the branches. The air around the tree. This gives meaning to the tree.

And some things you just gotta see in person. Go to a bonsai exhibit, or all you’re seeing is the blast of pixels in an image against your retina. We “see” with all our senses.

The best story will never be written because it’s your story and you’re making it up as you go along with your life.

The story has truth and lies. And even the most honest of us have all these things we tell ourselves to help us get through the day. But we believe them.

Kurt Vonnegut said “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” in the novel Mother Night, in 1962. Harsh and cruel. You should read it.

Another buttonwood. Let’s help it along. It needs stress and pressure to forge it into what it wants to be.

It needs that blanket so the branches don’t snap and break, as we bend it. This time there’s wire and a secondary wrapping of self amalgamating, rubber, electrical wrap.

How about this pot? Made by an auto mechanic that builds transmissions. Lynn Baker, goes by the name Herr Lynn. A local potter from the west coast of Florida.

I think it adds to the story.

But the story is false. This buttonwood may have started out on a beach in Florida, but it’s nature wants it to grow straight. Like the branches in the first pic

That’s why it’s species as designated as “erectus”. Like the hominid Homo erectus, an ape that walks upright, Conocarpus erectus will grow straight, but if it’s in the environment like the southern Florida coast, with the hurricanes, the sun, the surf, alligators and crocodiles, and the land developers and tourists, all causing stress and beating down and torturing the tree, it will be transformed into the twisted trees we so love.

We have to tell a story, a true one, but not true in this case, of all the struggles a buttonwood can go through and live.

To get back to our initial pondering in the title of this article, it was Picasso who was first quoted saying that art is a lie, in 1923. Here’s the full quote, translated from Spanish:

“We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies. If he only shows in his work that he has searched, and re-searched, for the way to put over his lies, he would never accomplish any thing.”

I promise, I wasn’t hanging out with any rich men in Northern Virginia. It was all cool bonsai peoples. See?

Not a single politician (I don’t consider Roberto a politician, and he was in Peru anyway).

I was at the beginning of my summer tour, making a triumphant return to the Northern Virginia Bonsai Society. I brought a lot of trees for the workshops.

They gave me a tree, what I believe is a Ficus macrophylla (or the Moreton Bay fig, a ficus from Australia) as the demo tree. . This particular specimen has been passed around in the club a few times, with no one really doing much with it. Maybe a trunk chop or two. I liked it and the challenge.

I kinda like an underdog, so I tried my best, using my tropical tree bonsai superpowers to bring out the most I could from the tree.

We start with an approach graft.

Cut it back in places, let it grow in others.

The graft….

The growth….

The cut back.

And below, my hand in an anticipatory gesture of the “Let it grow!” number, along with choreography and three part harmony.

This was the demo. Along with the work, I told the chicken sexter story (I’ll have to tell you, the readers, that story sometime), I explained what different plant growth growth hormones do (see this post: I use some fancy words to justify my defoliation habit, go figure ). I talk about my childhood trauma and how I use it in the styling and care of tropical trees in the sunshine state (not really, my trauma is manifested in less healthy ways, as it should be).

I told the story of my youth in bonsai, trying to find as much about bonsai as I could, and happening upon a website from a guy that not only grew tropical bonsai in the Great White North (coincidentally, in Massachusetts, about four miles from where I grew up), but developed spectacular tropical bonsai, better than most bonsai artists from Florida. His name is Suthin Sukosolvisit. One of the only true Masters in American Bonsai.

Anyway, I had some fun making a fool of myself on stage and hopefully imparting some knowledge.

I’d love to have the tree for myself. Maybe there will be some altruistic NVBS member who bids on it and sends it down to the FLA as a gift.

After the demo, and some lunch, we had a workshop. My wife took the pics with me in them. I think she’s biased, but she likes them.

In my element, surrounded by trees and students.

The trees got smaller as my ego got bigger.

Love a good trunk chop. It’s like the smell of napalm in the morning.

Here’s a link for the ficus trunk chop, above https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuwgSarMCtD/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

And below, a willow leaf that needed some courage….

Like a pretzel. We just needed some cheese.

Doh!

Where did the pretzel go?

Yea, of course it’s a reel. Here’s the link from Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuyRox2g05X/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

And just the video. For those that don’t like Led Zepplin.

My wife channeling her inner Jack Kirby with the wacky camera angle.

Now, we get to a cool tree. It’s a tree originally from Ed Trout, one of the last true gentlemen of bonsai. Ed had sold it to a man named Jonah Hill.

I know. Adam lavigne helping Jonah Hill work on a bonsai tree. The joke writes itself.

Study the pic just above. You’ll notice a hole in the middle of the trunk.

Below, I have a tree that no one wanted. So we are going to graft that into the hole.

I cut off a piece of the tree, a piece with a good aerial root. The red circle is where I cut it and the graft will occur.

This, below….

….needs to fit into here. that’s the front of the tree, to keep you correctly oriented.

There’s Jonah, at the top of the pic. I’m about to stick the graft through the hole. Yup. Through it. That’s Jack behind me.

This is the back of the tree. The leaf end of the graft will act as a new back branch.

We use a brass screw (use a non reactive metal) to attach the graft.

Here’s the front of the tree. I arrange the roots, artistically, so that they compliment the tree. Notice the screw in the bottom left. And my wife giving me the “Look”

To get the graft to grow faster, I remove all the leaves except the last few, and I leave the grow tip.

There is still a hole, but as the graft grows, it’ll fill it up. That’s LeAnn, on the left, who was my host, giving me the same look my wife gave me. Both of them want me to work on her buttonwood. don’t worry ladies, it’s next.

Some more pics to give you some detail.

Jonah has done well reducing the leaf size.

Just about done. We tied some aerial in place (bottom left).

And, finito!

For the next tree, and the next post, we get to meet LeAnn’s buttonwood. An amazing tree, also from Florida (like Jonah’s tigerbark), and originally from none other than Mary Madison, the Buttonwood Queen.

Excited?

The Shofu Bonsai Society of Sarasota has a pretty good auction every year. Granted, some years are better than others, but the year I got this one, maybe 2021, was spectacular. This tree was on the silent auction.

Yeah, not the live auction, the silent auction! I didn’t have to raise my hand or pull my earlobe to win this beauty. I just wrote a bid down on a piece of paper.

I don’t even think I went higher than $100 on it.

Since I’ve had it, it seems like only a few branches have grown.

But that’s typical. I don’t do anything to it for those few years except to water it. And when you ignore this species, a Ficus microcarpa, it will pick one shoot on each branch to feed the sugars to, and, like the pic above, you get long spindly branches and the smaller, interior branches tend to die off.

The lack of sun is the impetus to tell the tree how to allocate the resources.

(Not to belabor a point, but that’s another reason for timely defoliation techniques on figs. Defoliate to let sun in, calm down the randy shoots and allow everyone to grow. )

Oh! Notice the blue bottle? That is one thing I’ve kept up on for this tree. That bottle has a systemic insecticide in it called “imidacloprid”, which is a synthetic nicotine (what they call a neo-nicotinoid) that I treat all my F. microcarpa with to control thrips. An insidious insect that takes the leaf and folds it to make an incubation structure to breed more thrips.

Below, there’s one on my arm. They call this one the “Cuban Laurel Thrip”, as that’s one of the common names for this ficus, Cuban laurel. I call it the “Indian laurel” as it’s more indigenous to India than Cuba, though it is endemic in the island.

The tree does have flaws, like the wire scars below.

And, as a species, the leaves are bigger than say, the “tiger bark” variety. And they are prone to branch dieback (like the Ficus benjamina) if you don’t leave strong growth on the tips when you prune.

Let’s open it up and select some branches.

Hmmmmmm….might be useful. Below?

Nah

Below, there’s that growth tip.

I’ll leave it to grow longer.

But some I’ll cut back to encourage back budding.

Clean up, clean up….everybody do your share.

Kah-chop!

There we go.

Some wire.

The result of clip and grow. Good movement.

More grow tips to preserve.

Now just let it grow.

But not willy nilly growth, directed growth.

If you ever take a class with me, and I say let it grow, you should let the things left, to grow, but get rid of growth that’s not needed.

Here’s a video

And here’s an idea of what it’ll look like. Needs a better pot.

Let’s see what happens, I promise to show the repot and updates

What we used to call a “Shefflera aboricola” back when I grew up in bonsai, has now been renamed to the oddly hard to pronounce “Heptapleurum arboricola”.

This time it was actual genetic testing that changed the eggheads minds. But, to quoth Kipling, “it’s not ours to wonder why, only to do, and to die”.

This morning at 4 am, myself and the best bonsai artists in Florida (yeah, what the hell was I doing there, right?) picked up the bonsai on display for the 2025 Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival. The trees were there for about three months, outside in the Florida heat and rain, on view to about 4 million viewers as they passed through the Japanese Pavilion in the World Showcase at Epcot.

That’s another tree that was on display, a Neea buxifolia. And that’s Rosie Posie Puddin’ Pie, the cat.

She kisses all the boys and makes them cry.

And the schefflera.

What’s the work today? A hard cut back and defoliation. Then a repot.

It’s been eating up all the Florida sunshine for the last few months, and it’s bursting and ready for some work.

It’s about to walk out of the pot.

The question is, I’m sure, why do you feel the need to defoliate?

Well, I think I might just tell you.

First, check out this post: I use some fancy words to justify my defoliation habit, go figure.

It explains more precisely what defoliation does. But basically, the tree does things, like grow, flower, drop leaves, etc., because of hormones. All because of hormones. Some people say “energy” is what causes growth. But no. Nope. Nada. Energy facilitates growth. But a tree will grow itself to death. It will use all its energy without anything left, and it will die.

Why? Because of hormones. So when we hear “them” say that by utilizing a specific pruning regimen of techniques, they are “balancing the energy, what they are really doing is utilizing the hormones to make the tree grow a certain way we find favorable.

By defoliating, first, we are taking the trees ability to feed itself. Therefore, the hormones cause growth of new leaves, and, by proxy, more branches.

But, if we cut the terminal buds (like the blue circled branch below) and remove the hormone that causes branch elongation, we will free the hormone that causes backbudding to cause, well, more backbudding (auxin and cytokinin, respectively). Go back and read that post I linked earlier.

If we defoliate, and leave the terminal bud (like the red circled branch above) the branch will get longer.

Now to prune the aerial roots. I know, I know, we like aerial roots.

But we also like to have a believable tree. And aerial roots this high….

…don’t make for believable banyan trees. An artist isn’t a camera, we don’t have to copy nature as it grows, we show you what should be, or could be, or, simply, what we see.

Snip snip snip!

Getting close.

Take a look, from all sides.

That’s a lot of leaves. Looks like an explosion.

Needs some wire….

And a “quick” repot. Remove the old moss, save for later, it’ll green up again.

Maybe the repot won’t be so quick. Those roots are rooty.

Old bark on on a big sheff. Looks old, like my face in the morning after a night out.

Or just any morning. I’m getting old.

Yeah, this will be a chore removing the tree.

DOH! Actually not bad. It just popped out.

The damn thing is heavy and I’m alone in my driveway, that ain’t gonna work.

That’s a better setup. Now for the hook

THE HOOK! A new product made by my friends at American Bonsai Tools, based in part on my handmade hook.

Makes for short work.

I’ll tell you what, the fragrance from a schefflera will clean out the nasal passages

In the pot, some tweaks on the branches, and….

Below, the sheff as it was submitted to Epcot.

The day before install.

When I picked it up this morning.

After I repotted, cut back, and wired.

And Bob’s yer uncle! And my next door neighbor.