Japanese Garden

Taken at Chicago Botanic Garden.

Great banner Nancy!

Nancy great banner, you are making me want to have a Japanese garden

Thank you. Gigi, does that mean we're getting closer to planning out your nursery?

yes, every year, I'm getting closer to retirement.

I couldn't remember if that was one tree or two, so hunted down the original. This was taken back in 2011, it still had guide wires up, which I always have to edit out if it's one I want to keep. I'll have to find that spot again in spring and see what that particular tree looks like now. Hopefully it's still there, I always loved it, but I know they lost several willows, so that might be gone.


Wires edited out.

Great banner! What is the purpose of the guide wires?

It pulls the branches down to give it the airy more open branches. Otherwise I guess they would just grow pointing up without the spacing that gives it that bonsai look. Think of how they train bonsai trees, just on a bigger scale.

So they use wires with bonsai trees, too. I thought those trees were shaped exclusively through pruning. Thanks for the info!

With the very small trees with still pliable branches, they most often use copper wire that can be wrapped around a branch to force it to grow in a particular shape. So it's a combination of pruning and methods to hold the branches in the shape wanted.