How to get three flushes in a Hawthorn growing season (mid development)
Source: Tony Tickle 202606
Hornbeam bonsai come in a variety of species. From the Betulaceae family of trees, this deciduous species is gracious with light green foliage and a smooth, muscle-like, grey colored bark. It is reportedly difficult to transplant from a field nursery.
Ironwood is a common name for hornbeam. The name ironwood comes from the ancient times when they used carpinus wood to build ships.
During spring, it produces wind-pollinated pendulous catkins flowers. Hornbeam is monoecious, meaning the male and female flowers are on sperate catkins, but on the same tree.
In general, the hornbeam is a slow growing tree. The leaves will turn yellow, orange and red in the fall and will turn brown when dry. The brown leaves will often stay attached in the winter season.
Six species are popular as bonsai. Two of them are known as Korean hornbeam, while one is known as the European Hornbeam or Common Hornbeam. Two are Japanese Hornbeam and one is the American Hornbeam.
This article is focused on providing additional value, more details on deciduous bonsai care and reminding us of important details as provided in Bjorn Bjorholm's very instructional video.
One thing I learned very quickly is to never fertilize any deciduous tree until the leaves have flushed out in spring. The reason for that is very simple: as we want internodes to be as short as possible and have a tight ramification on the tree, fertilizing in spring - especially with high nitrogen fertilizers- would push the tree to produce longer internodes. Having too much space between each leaf is is exactly that which we want to avoid. The second problem is that high nitrogen fertilizers stimulate the bonsai tree to produce much larger leaves. That too is not on our want-list.
Wiring and styling flowering apcricot trees is typically done in early spring when the leaves have flushed out and hardened off. It is the only time of the year that the branches are very flexible and will not break off. Don't try to wire at other times of the year, your branches are guaranteed to snap when you do. Use a slightly tighter pitch then 45° when wiring because of that brittleness of apricot branches. Better use a thinner wire and double up, rather than using a thick wire.
by Eisei-en (Bjorn Bjorholm) Defoliating Flowering Apricot Bonsai