After the exhausting verbosity of the black pine articles, readers of this Journal will perhaps be relieved to find there are relatively few words to read in this latest entry. There is, however, a video to watch, and in it the verbosity will come to you in a different format.

The “River of Dreams” planting is a favorite among those who visit the bonsai garden any time it is on display, and even more so if it happens to be flowering at the time. The story behind this tray landscape has already been told. The article telling the story is titled “Whose Art Is It Anyway?” and can be found in the Free Content section of The Curator’s Journal homepage. The planting wasn’t seen in the garden last year because it was in need of a major overhaul, and it hasn’t been seen this year because it is currently in recovery. That from which it needs to recover is documented in the following video:

Let us take this opportunity to briefly revisit the subjects of the two videos previously presented in this Journal.

The first was titled “Collecting a Field Grown Maple.” Since the time when the video was recorded earlier this year, the trident maple featured in it has been growing unmolested in the hoop house. The tree showed sufficient vigor to indicate it had successfully made the transition from growing in the ground to life in a container, so the decision was made to give the rank growth a good chasing back. The pruning work done at this early stage begins the process of roughing out a design for the bonsai. How it will ultimately look is unknown at this point, but the very beginnings of a primary branch arrangement are starting to emerge:

Before pruning

After pruning

The second previously released video, titled “Out of the Box”, documented the transplanting of a red maple from a grow box to a bonsai training pot. At the time the video was posted the tree had already grown back from the work done at the time of recording and was ready for its first pruning of the growing season. At this point it has regrown from that pruning and has received another. All is going well so far for this tree:

After second pruning

For reference when considering the most recent pictures of the “River of Dreams” planting, here are before and after images made at the time of the most recent video (March, 2022):

Since the video was made, “River of Dreams” has had time to regrow and now has received its first post-op pruning:

At this point the chances look good that “River of Dreams” will be back out on display in the garden for next year’s flowering!

Repotting the River of Dreams