Grapevine Bonsai

I-er don't have on per say. What I do have is a ill kept grapevine in a pot. It is very scraggly if you peek at it past the leafs that it put out this summer.

See, in the beginning I did surf around looking at what few I could find on the internet. At around $65 a pop I decided that I would try and cultivate my own. Silly me believed that it wouldn't be all that hard.

My first problem was locating a Grapevine that I could dig up. Second to that was finding the roots to dig up. Ad to that one that was legal to did up because I did not want to spend money on permits and the such. Fortunately my boss suggested digging up ones that were growing in our court yard that was being dug up. I ended up getting several plants from there. A mulberry, several mystery plants and one itty bitty twig of a grapevine with a smattering of roots. Since it had roots growing in two sections I had to stick it into a deep pot, which isn't much use for a bonsai's shallow pot.

So my next brilliant idea was to root cuttings.

Out of about a dozen different cuttings only one survived. A few died right off the back. The one that lived didn't have a visible root for around 3 months. That lone root is now growing feeder roots like it was going out of style. As soon as there are enough roots I'm sticking it into a pot. Right now the roots are at the base of the cutting and would be very shallow. Sadly it's a very twiggy looking cutting.

As of right now I am on the side of Grapevines not making very cheep nor very good bonsai. Maybe in a few years I'll look back and change my mind.

Bonsai Master

I had a wonderful conversation with a master named Danny on Saturday. I never realise how much you could only understand in person.

Best conversation ever.

I didn't get advice so much as why certain things are done. The internet is full of how to do this but not why it's done and why it works. In the one hour that I talked with Danny, we covered so much, things just started making sense.

He has even purchased a bonsai from Japan.

He did not tell me what he spent on it. But he did tell me that it was over 300 pears old when he purchased it. There was a ream of paper work documenting every single person that had ever worked on it. He also said there were fees and paper work to get the tree into the US. When he got the tree, he met the son of the former owner for a moment. The son had carried the tree on the plane on his lap from Japan to Seattle (Danny is from New York, another round trip plane ticket.) to hand it off. Then he hopped onto another plane back to Japan. This was added to the price of course.

Then after all this, his wife found out what he had spent on the tree. That ended up costing him a diamond necklace with matching earrings.

Now, what he did tell me was what it is/was insured for back in the day when he bought it. $25,000. He said that today the tree is worth more then what he insured it for. I just about dies at the price. He laughed at my reaction.

The conversation just covered so much in that one hour that I was a little over whelmed. I am going to do my best to go to the bonsai sociaties meeting in October. It will be their auction meeting so I'm going to bring a very limited amount of cash with me. He said the lowest price he usually see's is around $350. but who knows? Maybe I can walk away with something everyone gave up on.

Trumpet Vines

This past spring my aunt gave me three little Red Trumpet Vine plants.

Her plant is very well behaved and very, very old. So old that I thought it was some kind of tree before it bloomed. It puts out good sized red-orange blooms. And did I mention that it's well behaved?

The three little plants are not.

They are also no longer little. There are several 4-5 foot vines on each plant. If they were growing up something this wouldn't be a problem but they are in a pot on the deck. I looked into a pre-made trellis and they were far too expensive. Even at Walmart.

I might put one out by a large tree in the back yard for it to grow on. I think it would look very nice out there. The problem would be convincing my parents of this.

I have a feeling they won't put out flowers until next year.

Rosebush

I love roses.

I have two orange climbing roses that are not doing all that well. I think one might even be dead, but it is mostly blocked by Black-eyed Susann's right now. When they are dormant I am going to move them to another part of the yard. I would put them into a pot by they probably wouldn't survive the winter.

My other rose is in a pot. It is trimmed like a tree but looks like a ball on a stick. When in bloom it has the palest orange blossoms. I really love it. I don't know how far back I should trim it. On one hand I'd like it to get bigger. But if I trim it back it might throw out more blooms.

Next weekend I'm going to call my aunt to see what she has to say about roses.

Home Grown: Peppers

Peppers seem to be one of the easyer things for me to grow on my deck. They have been very forgiving if i forget to water them in the morning. Thy don't complain if they get blown over in the wind. And if I keep watch on them I can get a huge payload of tasty tasty food.

My Sweet Banana Peppers have been producing like good little troopers. I have a gallon freezer bag in the freezer right now. I have over a dozen on my counter to cut and clean before I can put them in the freezer as well. I put them in & on everything that I think will taste better because of them. I will mix fried chopped bits into my macaronir & cheese. I put them on my pizza. These are a very good idea to grow if you like them and a good bank for your buck.

I have grown Cayenne Peppers before. We dried them and didn't use them for about a year. At that time my dad was making cajun creole and needed more cayenne powder. So he just grabbed what we had and ground it. When he tasted it his eyes were bigger then the moon. He said the homegrown peppers were far hotter then the store bought powder. Next summer we will be growing more. Unfortunately we do not know if letting them dry on the bush made them hotter. Either way I think I'm going to trim them as they get red and put them on a string to dry.

I have only tried growing Bell Peppers once. They need a alot of water and mine did not do very well in pots on the deck. They would always be dry and wiltty by the afternoon. If I had the space to plant them in the ground I'm sure they would do better.

The Scotch Bonnet. I grew one plant once by accident. I had it in a pot that was far too small for it so I only got two peppers to grow on it. One was chomped by a chipmunk. The one that did survive dried poorly and we ended up tossing it.

Wind Damage

I found out yesterday that the wind had blown over most of our low growing plants. Unfortunately the view when I pulled up was blocked by taller plants that had not blown over.

One that fell over was my butterfly bush. It was very willty. With luck it will come back.