Time for a haircut. In more ways than one……. Yeah, lookin’ like a crazy man here recently. In fact, it’s getting easier and easier to lose oneself in the electric lime green foliage of this tree…..

Dumm dum duhmmmmmmm!

I’m a weirdo. But I’m feeling much better now……

Now, you’re saying “I’ve seen this tree just recently?!” Yup, just a little over a month ago, in this post, it looked like this when I left it to grow.

And now….. Blamm!!! That’s Florida for you.

After a little pruning and wire removal. I’m pretty happy with the additional branching that’s occurred. Let’s see what I can get going.

No, I’m not too worried by those wire marks. Are you? The tree, as you can obviously see, grows fast, and the wire marks will grow out and make those branches even more gnarly and twisted.

In the pruning, I cut back heavily, some branches to just one leaf.

But on some of those new branches I left some length. To fill in some spots, cross the trunk, you know, all the things you’re not supposed to do. .

Here’s an instance where this hackberry is acting like a ficus. See how heavily scarred the branch is? I still needed to tie it down with a guy wire.

Bondage like.

And then I did a cute little hack. Instead of just a loop, I used the wire end to wrap the branch tip. I’ll be going to bonsai jail for that. Amongst other infractions too. Like the styling of this tree….

I’ll get a better shot in a bit. The sun is about as bright as the…..ah, the sun I guess.

The next tree is a legacy bonsai that I’ve been developing from a piece of stock material given to me by my friend Juan’s widow. I can’t find the original bloghpost I did on it. I’ve been trying to close these scars.

Which are coming along slowly. I had removed all the wire last night, and now it’s time for a little more non conformity. Here’s a pot by the talented Martha Goff, author of The Tropical Greensheets I and II, purveyor of a fantastic organic fertilizer called Tropical Green. And pot dealer extraordinaire. The style pot is variously referred to as a crescent…. ….scoop… ….eggshell… …..half moon…. Whatever you call it, it’s pretty cool. She does an awesome job making them feel light and delicate. I think she’s on top of the field with the quality of this style. It’s also fired well, it rings like a bell when you flick it.

Now, usually, a pot like this is used for trees to do something like this: But, you know me, Dottie, I’m a loner, a rebel, and I do things my way…..

Nice roots, for a ficus. Must be that turface I used.

A little trimming.

That should fit.

I think I like it.





Now I’m off to Epcot. Gotta work the CFBC Meet N’ Greet booth for the Flower and Garden Festival. I’ll wire it up there.

Here’s a quick update on the ilex vomitoria known as The Snail, from this blogpost

I was manning the booth with Jose, whom you’ve met in various YouTube videos. ​

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He worked on this dwarf African strangler fig. Those four outside vertical lines that look like aerial roots are tiedown wires. He stole my idea and wired the tips as well.

And now, the reveals!

Willow leaf ficus:

And the hackberry: if I worked this hard this year I think I could get it on display somewhere soon.

Oh! And my own haircut: How do I look? Still crazy after all these years.

What’ll it be next? What do I have to write about? Maybe how to make pickles, or maple grafting? How about building a display stand? Maybe another soil post to bug the snobs……Lots of things. I guess you’ll have to wait on this madman to show you his next trick. Buh-bye!