Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Butterfly Bush & Mums

The butterfly bush was put into the ground this weekend. It is now a very happy butterfly bush that has put out new growth. Hopefully this will not harm it and it will come back next year.

My mums... or mum... whatever, it is doing very well. Unfortunately after my mom complemented it she said that they have had bad luck planting them and getting them to live. I was not a happy camper when I heard this. I need to do some research to see if there is any way to try and coax it into living through the winter.

Other then that we had a rather large wind storm last night. The wind was stronger near the tops of the trees so all the leafs are still in the back yard. All the warm weather that we had been having seems to have left with the storm. my co-workers were joking about the snow coming soon. :-(

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Wild Grape as Bonsai pt2

I tried popping onto Google for trimming advice. A lot of what I found was for killing wild grape vines and people saying that they were invasive. This boggles me to no end because they are a natrual species.

Oi.

So I'm getting around in the same circle. I don't want it to louse its shape. I also don't want it to try putting out fruit before I really know what I'm doing. What I want it to do is put out a few more suckers lower down the mail trunk to bulk it up. But what I want is not necessarily what will happen.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Mystery fungus

Don't you just love these sot of things?

The mystery fungus was bright orange and created lots of little points on the underside of one of my poplars. Said poplar is now residing in the trash waiting for garbage day. My dad insisted on tossing it, I was pretty pissed but agreed.

I'll just skip over the giant argument of were the poplar got infected and if it would come back if the sapling was defoliated.

Fortunately we have a lot of poplars in the yard so even thought I lost a whole growing season on one plant, I can still not loose the time I spent working on it. That knowledge doesn't make me any happier though. :-(

Friday, October 8, 2010

Fall Bonsai Care pt2

My new and improved list of things I need to do just got longer and shorter at the same time.

1) Watering.
I seriously have to adjust how I water my plants. I thought I had lessened my watering enugh untill I picked up my Cotoneaster and spilled a ton of water about. Because it's tray is attached to it's temp pot I had to tip it to drain the built up water. This is what I get for not useing the chopstick method for watering.

The chopstick method is to take a cheep take-out chopstick and stick it in the soil of your pot. Some people say to go for the root ball and others say the edge. Right now I place it in between the root ball and the edge of the pot. This works very well for real bonsai soil.

2) Move bonsai to a new location or more protected location.
This makes sense to me just because I have frozen a pot and watched it slowly brake apart during the winter. my dad has put pots in the ground to prevent the roots of the plant from dieing. But due to my inability to keep things alive I found I have mostly saplings. I'm still not sure were I'm going to put with my Cotoneaster yet.

3) Plant saplings outside to encorage growth.
I have a nice spot on the side of the house. Almost everything I have is going to be planted there. I have marble tiles in the basement that I am going to put under them so I don't have to dig deep when they are ready to be truly worked on.

The whole 'put it in the ground and forget it' advice shtick is heavily thrown in your face if you are brand new or not sure when you should start to gently guide your plants. I have seen people post such a response on some forums and nothing else or seem to get hostile. If you have been in this situation then just play with your tree in a pot. you will get a feel for it and know when to stick it in the ground. :3

4) Protecting the plants in the ground.
At my house we have bunnies, moles and chipmunks that will eat anything they can reach during the winter. My dad has some finer chicken wire that they should not be able to get through so I am going to make a good sized cover from it. Tall enough to protect the tops after I stick the thing as deep as I can the the little buggers can't dig in to get them.

Beyond the four things I have listed I'm not sure what else I can do. I wish I could stick things in my basement because it's cold enough to let them go dormant, but I just don't know.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Fall Bonsai Care

I started moving some of my non-blizzard tolerant plants into the Florida room. It's basically a porch closed off with sliding glass doors so it isn't temperature controlled. But it does offer a bit of protection until i can set something up inside.

Yes, I'm committing the cardinal sin of bonsai. Keeping the plant inside!

My hope is to clear out my shelves in the garage again.  It worked last year for the maple and juniper. I think I'll sneak them into my dads boat so they get a little more protection. This is far from the perfect situation, but I still live at home and my mom doesn't like plants inside.

Which doesn't stop me from taking them inside any how.

Fortunately the Sequoya will be safe in the kitchen along with my lavender. With the orchids and other things that haven't died on me yet. I have a few poplars that I am going to put in the ground. They are far too small for anything right now. with luck the rabbits and moles won't eat them.