Text Box: P.O. box 9591 Mobile, Alabama 36691 Text Box: Azalea City Bonsai Text Box: Text Box: Text Box: Text Box: Text Box: Phone: 251-344-5873 Fax : 251-342-6431 Email: ACBSBONSAI@AOL.COM Text Box: Text Box: Text Box: Text Box: Where you are is where you are Text Box: Walking around the bonsai area at this time of the year is the least fun time of the year. We don’t get those beautiful colors on most of our trees. They just look ragged and tired. Some have about 20 percent of their leaves hanging on. The dead wood is more green than white. If you worked on your tees a lot this year or you didn’t get to do much work at this point you are at the same point. You are at the point of starting the next cycle of development. It’s almost November and we are still in a Summer type heat. December, January and February will probably be the months we have to get it all done. Remember my previous article. With holidays, sports days, sick day and weather days you will be lucky to get 4 free weekends out of those 3 months. That’s only 8 days, days when you are lucky to get into the bonsai area by 9 A.M. and it real dark by 5 P.M. These cold days are the time to either get a fresh start or move either further ahead next year after a good year. Bonsai will not stand still very long. A couple of seasons of not working on a tree and you loose it all. It might be a short winter working season but good organization, dedicated work habits will make all the difference. If you don’t have time to make both horticultural changes and style changes to every tree that needs it choose to improve the health of the tree. A healthy tree with good bonsai potential is always an asset to your collection. Joe.