This week’s work is on a Carpinus Coreana from the Franchi Bonsai company. The bonsai, in semi-cascade style, has now reached the end of the season, giving us a beautiful autumn foliage with colours ranging from yellow to orange.

After manually removing the last remaining leaves, the hornbeam highlights the entire branching structure. As this is a recently arrived plant it is not possible for me to know the date of its previous shaping. Spring pruning has further intensified the density of the vegetation. At the moment the peripheral branching is fine but untidy with many small branches crossing each other. The first step is a rough selection of the branches: I proceed with apex replacements, thinning out the bifurcations and shortening or eliminating straight, cylindrical branches.

As is often the case, I don’t decide to work too drastically and therefore prefer not to cut too many branches in order to offer a well-branched end result.

I also decide not to proceed with a total wiring but only with a tidying up done by pruning in order to keep the appearance as natural as possible. The wire, if used, will only be used in cases where it is necessary to give the branches a new direction.