Hope nobody is getting tired of my recent splurge of daily bonsai posts. My collection is close to 30 trees or so, and I have plenty more upcoming updates on my little trees.

This one is a pussywillow. According to my records, I haven't shared any updates on this tree since last September, almost a year ago! And it is having a grand year.

Lots of newly expanded branch divisions. New leaf buds are popping open every other day this Summer. I keep pinching them to shorter branch lengths, and it always encourages more buds to appear. Exactly what I want in a developed tree like this one, to keep all branch parts full of life.

Pinching also trains the leaves to grow to a smaller maximum size. The leaves on this tree only grow to half the size of when it was a young tree.

Historical Information

ID: 0007
Nickname: KitKat
Type: Pussywillow
Age: 6 years
Grown: cutting
Last repotting: Spring 2020
Wired: Summer 2019

Past articles by @creativetruth featuring this year in its younger form provided in the links below. It is very inspiring to look at images of this tree through the seasons of many years.

• Pussywillow Tree: Summer Leaves
• Pussywillow: Stretching it to its Fullest Potential
• Snip-Snip: Let's trim a small tree
• Winter Pruning Strategies for Pussywillow
• Trimming the Curly Willow in Winter
• The tree of cats is also very down to Earth
• Break me off a piece of that Kitkat branch

When the tree was younger, it was difficult to control the growth. As you can see, very few branches grew on the left side, but many were growing out to the right.

Until it got much taller, it finally decided to flop over and grow a lot of leftward growth on top.

It leaves a tree a bit bald in the center, where the former apex was clipped off.

Personally I don't like my trees to get much taller than this. Too large, and they become very expensive to maintain (giant pots, gobs of fertilizer, buckets of bonsai soil), and a very challenging to reach around and lift.

In the Autumn, the leaves will turn butter yellow, and the red stems will begin to harden into gray bark.

Autumn, might be a good time to shorten some of the larger branches, to better draw a clean silhouette around the shape of the tree. I'd like to see it a bit less thick in the top area where most of the branch growth has been focused.

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Photos in this post are all #originalworks by @creativetruth, unless stated otherwise.

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Post Beneficiaries:

• 1% @mendezand
• 1% @cryptopie

This is my way of thanking each of you for your friendship and support. By sharing my talents on Hive, I can also share to help with your needs.

Let my success also grant you some happiness too.