The right stuff

Repotted several bonsais and I wasn't sure if I liked the stuff I used. Right now I think I should repot them asap because they look like they are in wet sand. the other stuff was too dry. oi.

The Mayan Apocalypse

Or rather, the Apocalypse That Wasn't. Looks like thoughs rapture guys arn't the only ones missing their mark. Thankfully.

I know one person I work with was kinda hoping something would happen that would wipe her student loans. Can't say that I blame her for that idea.

I wonder if all the people that bought 'doomsday' survival kits are demanding a return?

I won a Large Ficus Bonsai in a raffle

I have a small idea what I want to do to it...

It's not a lot... but in three weeks I'm going to defoliate it and then I can plan better. :3


Also... this is a good compareson shot...

It's a beast.

I have no idea where I am going to keep this thing in the winter.

Going to a Bonsai Club meeting

Seriously, if you are just getting into the art or if you have only
been reading about it for years, you need to go to a bonsai club
meeting. You have no idea how fun it was to talk, see and touch real
trees and theories.

I have problems with the whole wire wrapping thing. I make jewlery but
when wrapping branches I start to panic. This class/meeting I went to?
It helped so much.

And yes, I got a tree at the class.

They just started having a bonsai club at my local dojo and I need to
join. :3 I think they are working with the Buffalo Bonsai Club but I'm
not totally sure yet. I'm swinging by tonight to find out for certian.

And when I go I am taking my grape vine 'pre-bonsai' attempt with me.
The instructor from my class was intrested in seeing it because he
haden't seen one before.

Terror of Chipmunks!

So I have been battling the chipmunk apocalypse that is happening in my garden. Well yesterday I got a little revenge on one.

 

This particular chipmunk, that I have since named Bob, is extremely cocky and stubborn. Bob no longer runs away when I yell and open the gate. I can actually get within 3-4 feet of Bob before he runs away.

 

Now, I had been chasing Bob away from my plants and bird feeder of and on for about 30 minuets. Then I got the brilliant idea the bang on the back of an old pan as I chased him. So I waited and then I went on the other side of Bob and started chasing & banging the pan.

 

I ended up chasing Bob down the side of the house and back up it to his little hole. The whole time I was laughing. After that I didn't see him for a bit so I had assumed that I had one.

 

Cut to an hour after the chase and I am walking pas a row of hostas when a loud shriek comes from it. Needless to say I jumped. Then I heard a little barking. Bob apparently decided to get some revenge. So I yelled and shook the hosta leaves. I herd him ran back a little then charge at me while barking. I shook more leaves near were I thought he was and then I saw him zip around the side of the house.

 

Tonight I am going into the basement and finding my super soaker.

New Ficus Bonsai

I have another one! This one actuly looks like a bonsai!!

 

it... needs a lot of work and I have the new buds trimmed back to encourage growth on the lower branches. I also repotted it and that is an intresting little story. I am going to post pics soon of day one and day three.

 

the roots... have as much potential as they have failure. I'll see what they are like in 1-2yrs of growing.

 

Also the hidden wider base that I found when I repotted was a nice suprise! :3

 

Much more will be posted later.

A good ol' fashion post

Just making sure everything is in good working order.

Purple Gem Rhododendron Bonsai Experimentation

Because experimentation sounds better then 'brutalizing with no idea where to start'.

So, I picked up these little guys to experiment with. At $3 a pop from the post bloom rack I thought it could be fun to practice working on my re-poting techniques. Unfortunately the chipmunk apocalypse happened (everything was eaten or dug into) and everything was moved into the florida room until the end of the war. I also found that I have no more available pots and my in ground choice is is right at the chipmunks door stop.



I held off on doing anything and now they look like this because I got brave with a pair of nippers.

I hope they will back bud. i would like to make them as compact as possible or encourage them into something that looks like a bonsai. Their trunks are far too small to be a real bonsai. Aside from the fact that one looks like it lost a fight with a chainsaw... And if you ignore the paperclips pretending to be guide wires... they are kinda cute.

 

I have no idea what the root structure looks like. I plan to repot them next year into the same pots but better soil.

Black Fungus Gnats and Orchids

My family and I have been having some trouble with some little gnats. We never gave it much thought other then thinking that they were fruit flies because they showed up in the summer when we had fruit and veggies out.

Well apparently they originated from my orchids. specifically one that had very very bad drainage. Bad to the point of being full of water even thought there was a hole in the pot. One night I happened to re-decorate my room and had moved all the pot up but this one because I wanted to put it in a bigger pot.

Now, a little info on this gnat. Apparently they eat the roots of orchids and live in decaying plant matter. They can quickly spread to other orchids and plants that you have.  The larva are clear or white-ish and hide in day light and they hatch in three or so weeks. Because they damage the roots orchids can drop their blooms and possibly die if it gets really bad.

This is important because the pot I now held in my hands was heavy from all the water and hundreds of the little suckers were squiggling around in front of my nose. I am not good with bug. I find them insanely interesting but if they surprise me I will scream and freak out like a little girl. So while I did not throw the pot across the room I did flip out a bit and was swearing like a sailor.

This Particular orchid had bee doing very well but all of it's buds had died that week. I had just assumed that re-potting it would fix it. Because there wee so many bugs in it and the roots looked so bad I decided to toss it. It was a clearance plant that I got for maybe $3 bucks so no big loss.

Worried about my other cheap orchids I searched online for what the bugs were and how to kill them. I didn't want to deal with hunter bugs, poison or glue traps and fortunately someone said that you could wash the roots off and re-pot them. Which is what I ended up doing.

I took all my surviving orchids, including the ones in bloom, and took them out of their pots and washed the roots with warm-ish water. NO SOAP!! then i cleaned the pots out with near boiling water and still no soap. I then filled the pots half way with non-biodegradable packing peanuts and sphagnum moss. This keeps the pots insanely dry so I have to play around with the watering.

We haven't had a gnat since.

Now, I manhandle my orchids a lot. This does not make them happy. two of the ones in bloom dropped their flowers because I know i smacked the blooms on the cabinets while working and not because of the root trimming. The cheap orchids that I got happen to be a hardy variety. The beginner variety as it happens to be.

Regardless, unless you have an orchid that dies at the thought of being unhappy, I highly recommend washing roots and getting new potting mix to get rid of the black fungus gnats.

Mulberry Progression

Mulberry Progression

2010 Of the then front. this is after I massively cut back the roots. The squirrels dug into this like little feinds. and since I forgot to drill holes into the little box it was filled with water most of the fall. My dad put it into another pot for the winter and it survived.

2011 Front view. The leaves are very small so far this year. I'm really hoping they stay this size.

Back view

Close up of the trunk. The little branches are now twice their size.

Top veiw

This is sorta a side view...

This is an insane plant. it is cold hardy and grows very, very fast. Training wires will leave marks in a weeks time or less. How ever I think they grow out almost as fast because I could not find the marks when I looked. Both a good and bad plant for a beginer I think.

Since I thought this had dies last winter... I have no idea how I want it to go right now. XD

Giant Sequoya Progression

Giant Sequoya Progression

Winter 2008 I think. This was taken shortly after I first purchased/potted it. It was thinner then a pencil.

2009 I was so happy that a new branch had started. It grew very little this year.

 2011

 Scarring from cutting a branch over the winter.

 More scarring. I was trying to avoid revers taper by removing the branch.

I don't think it worked. Also the trunk is so thin here because it grew flat from the rocks. The rocks are there to keep the squirls from digging in it's pot.

Right now the trunk is about three times thicker then it was when I first bought it. I have pinched the branches back but this is a very aggressive growing tree. The tap root is still intact because I want this to grow as large as possible before I cut it. But because I have to move it inside for the winter I will be using the 'escaping root' growing method.

Summer Bonsai Care

Summer seems to finally be here and now is the time to start moving all your bonsai outside.

So, everyone keeps telling you to put your bonsai & other trees outside. The reason is that the plants just grow better outside. You will have to watch them a little bit so that You can get used to them being out there.

Things to watch out for:
- Too much sunlight. Indoor plants can get sun-burnt.
- Too much water. You still have to watch out for this.
- Not little water. You can't just trust that it will rain when ever the plants need it.
- Squires, chipmunks, deer or other animals that might think your plants are toys.
- Small children. Sometimes they just want to help. Make sure they know when they can and can't help.
- Over feeding/fertilizing. This can burn the roots and cause a tree to grow really long and thin branches.

This is probably when you will be most tempted to over work your trees. You can cause a tree to burn itself out from having to keep re-growing leafs and branches. Some types of trees handle this better then others, but it's still not a good thing to do.

Also, watch out for wind storms. If you can't strap down your smaller trees then you will want to take them inside for a bit. Unless you would rather risk the tree blowing away or the pot getting smashed from falling off the work bench.

Happy working and don't forget the sunblock.

Ficus update

So... I forgot the stupid thing in a glass of water and it grew roots.

I had meant to put it in rooting hormone and starter soil... and I totally forgot about it. but this seems to have don it good and it is now in a pot of bonsai soil. so i don't know how much to water it nor when i should let it start to dry up. It is now hit or miss time again!

I also did an early re-potting of the larger ficus because I suspected the root were dead. It turned out that most of them were. Fortunately there looked to be a few living roots. At the end of an insanely long larger root that is. I had to coil it in the bottom of the pot. If I can't get more roots growing up higher then I will probably make this into a root over rock bonsai.

This is such a love hate hobby.

Willow Tree Bonsai

Or willow tree cuttings... Right now I have cuttings.

My dad went fishing and he brought them back. My mom had a fit but she got over it... kinda.

With a lot of luck they will grow roots and I can stick them into pots and everyone will be happy.

With luck that is.

Spring Bonsai Care

 Basic advice? Watch your watering, check for swelling or blooming buds and start planing how you are going to wire last years growth and what you might want to do with this years new growth potential.

So, this will be my second spring with trees in the works. This does not necessarily bode well for the trees.

I have gone through them and removed some of the obviously dead branches. I also trimmed back my mulberry bush a little. I also cut back the grapevine.I checked everything for swelling buds and they seem to be ready to put out leafs.

I had a good amount of frost damage. By keeping things in my Florida room I had hopped to avoid this, but because of the "freeze, thaw and oh look it's below zero again" weather we had I am not surprised. What did surprise me was how many things I didn't get to prepare that survived.

The junipers I'm not too sure about because they can be dead/dieing and not show it. Two look purple so they are the ones i think might have died. the third is a different variety and looks like it is alive. so it's a toss up with them.

I have a few seedlings that look like they survived the winter. Some are the last ones I have of one plant variety.... I might try looking in Lowes for another one because they look nice and grow fast. but I don't want to spend a lot, or any, money.

Ficus pt2

So the little ficus that I was afraid of loosing... is doing better-ish. I say ish because I am not sure if it will continue to do so.

In my mad dash to try and save the tree I cut it back. Trimmed the hell out of the leafs and stuck it in water until I could get the supplies to root it. Cue a visit from my sister, family stuff and work stress... And it was still in the glass of water.

Upon checking it last night it has some roots starting to grow.

All of the new roots are on only one side of the tree. Which I'm not worried about. I just want the thing to live. I am going to wait until the roots actually look like roots before I put it into real soil. No it won't be the right soil. Yes, I'm a sinner.

So, providing it lives I at least know I can root branches I trim and maybe sell the babies later on.

Bum Bum Bum Another One Bites the Dust

It is not suposed to look like this. I'm checking with my favorite bonsai forum to look for advice. :-(

My Stupid Beech Bonsai

And it really is stupid. We had on day last week of 50 degree weather and The tree opened up the a few buds. Then we were back down to 22 degrees and the newly opened buds look bad.

The good news is I know it survived the winter.
The bad news is the tree is stupid.

Over all this shouldn't do anything harmful to the tree. Beeches are very strong growers and it should bounce back. I was constantly cutting back new growth that was longer then what I was looking for. Plus I defoliated the hell out of it and it was still growing fine.

If I was smart I would try and make this into a large bonsai. However I attempting to make this into a small to medium sized bonsai in the root over rock style.

I think If I happen to find another beech that I can easily pull out of the ground then I will try for a large bonsai. But for now I wait for spring.

What is a Pre-Bonsai

What is a pre-bonsai? (or prebonsai or pre bonsai. However you want to spell it.)

A pre-bonsai is a tree that you are working on and trying to turn into a bonsai. They can be the ugliest of ugly duckling of trees or almost a bonsai but not quite. It is a stage that most tree's are in when you are working on them. This stage can and does take years.

But! It is very different then the growing stage. Potential bonsai (potensai) are found/bought and then grown for god knows how long to get a good trunk going. When the trunk is as big as they are looking for it is chopped down to a certian point and then left to grow again. This is repeated a few times to form taper. (Kinda like making a pyrimad) and this step can take very long. When you feel that you have gotten the taper & main branches your are looking for then you have entered the pre-bonsai phase.

Determining when your bonsai is no longer a pre-bonsai is very hard to know for a beginner. Bonsai are usually the 'finished product'. Since the goal is to keep them alive and growing this stage generally consists of upkeep more then training and styling. Comparatively. So if you are just doing minor touch ups then you have a bonsai!

If you are stuck your best bet would be to head over to a bonsai forum and get some advice. Take a picture of the front, back, looking down on it, trunk & how the tree is growing into the soil (aka nabari). Then figure out what you are trying to ask. If you also have progression shots of your tree add 1-3 to your post for reference. Either make your post in the newbi section or a section dedicated to bonsai progression.

I recomend going to The BonsaiSite Forums because they have a lot of knowlege to share. Be warrned that they can be a little snooty if you ask the wrong thing.

Bonsai Soil Substitute

So i found out about a bonsai soil substitute that can be used that I never thought about.

With all the hype about using 'non-organic' soil's you would think that anything could be used. Especially when some sites recommend a very specific kind of kitty little that is not found in the USA. However, once you really get into reading posts on forums & message boards you find that there is a little organin stuff mixed in.

I will tell you that the people on the forums & message boards think top soil is one of the bigger sins you can commit when getting into the art of bonsai. Just making sure you know this little tidbit.

So! The substitute that I found out about is none other then cactus soil. There are organic and inorganic variaties avalable. Personaly Unlees you want your bonsai to get all scraggly I would not recomend the Mirical-Grow cactus soil. But tomato tamato.














Considering I have only one place locally that I can get real bonsai soil at and it is $7 for a tinny little bag, I am totally going to be using cactus soil. Especially with the 'pre-bonsai' that I am starting. I have no intention of blowing a ton of cash on this hobby.