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Gnome
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Re: My Bonsai wannabe collection -- seeking advice

A.S.

I've been leaving my Pomegranates in the garage all winter recently as well. One failed to leaf out this year but three others are OK. Not sure if it was a bit too cold or I was careless in watering this winter.

While at the feed store there are a few other items you can inquire about. My local Agway can order (did not have them in stock) A Pumice product that looks similar to perlite, it is called Dry Stall. Do not accept Stall Dry as the texture is apparently inadequate for our purposes.

The second is Turface MVP (specify the MVP grade) This is clay that has been fired at a high enough temperature that it is stable. This is the only clay type product that I have found suitable. This year I was surprised to see a different package. It was not labeled as Turface but was in fact from the same parent Company, Profile. Tom is right to warn of kitty litter or (clay type) Oil-Dry, I have not found one that was stable.

NAPA does carry a product that is marketed as an absorbent that I have found suitable as it is Diatomaceous Earth not clay. I sift/grade all three of these materials but the 'fines' do have other uses.

Norm

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applestar
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I'm going to be posting in this thread again in spring. :D

...in the mean time, I noticed while looking out the window today, that one of the juniper volunteers I dug up and potted last spring (Untrimmed, approximately 28" tall as of last fall) is laying on its side in the frozen snow out there by the picnic table. :shock: -- I have no idea how long it's been laying like that, and I haven't had the chance to go out to take stock of the situation. I might leave it like that at this point, and see if it will have the potential to become a wind-swept style or some other interesting shape. 8)

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Some bonsai artists go out hiking and when they find a plant that has some nice features they dig it up and pot it and start the top work. After it bulks up, they start reducing the roots. They like to start with 40 year old specimens because they usually have a lot of character.

Beginners usually start with year old seedlings. I started with ficus because they are very hardy and the branches stay supple a very long time. I just had to watch anytime it looked especially vigorous, it was trying to send the root into the ground. Junipers were the next easiest as they naturally trained well into a cascade form. Geometry trees should have been easy but I killed every one. Jade was also easy to pinch into shape.

I had the basic tools, copper wire of different sizes, fishing weights to hold the branches down, concave cutters, turntable, and Japanese pruning scissors. Pots are available, but since I do not display them I use concrete pots. I had a set of gravel sorting trays, but I rarely used them. My mix worked well enough and concrete unlike glazed pots breathe better. I had a hard time growing moss on the bonsai pots but they grew in pots I didn't want them in.

I avoided topping the bonsai because it takes a lot of filing and rounding to hide the cut and I always killed my bonsai when I tried to strip the bark to mimic the lightening strike.

tomc
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AS,

When spring finally does get there, try and foreshorten the ugliest duckling of each type you have in training.

At some point in time you are going to have to prune out (or reduce) your well fed trees tendency to make water shoots. I wouldn't behead your best, but it might feel a little bit like a beheading the first go.

Just the proccess of creating a hierachy of your trees is gonna make you think.

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applestar
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Confession -- I really didn't get to do much last spring despite the wonderful advices I received, so I have to re-read this thread and do all my homework assignments :oops:

But I did add a new -- er -- "victim" to the line up :()
Volunteer crabapple I had been training into a stepover
Volunteer crabapple I had been training into a stepover
...the other one is one of the two red junipers. I dug up last year. I think I mentioned it?

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applestar
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Gnome wrote:A.S.

I've been leaving my Pomegranates in the garage all winter recently as well. One failed to leaf out this year but three others are OK. Not sure if it was a bit too cold or I was careless in watering this winter.
Gnome, how did your pomegranates fare this winter? I absolutely had no room to bring my three plants inside this winter, so left them out there despite the extreme temp drops this winter. I put them in an IKEA plastic drawer/tub to keep up from the floor, loosely surrounded them with a plywood and large collapsed corrugated cardboard and placed a t-12 shoplight over them 24/7 and loosely blocked the garage door side of the set up with giant shipping bubble sheets and covered the entire set up with a nylon shower liner with an old beech towel on top for good measure. I watered them occasionally (maybe once a month). When I pulled the pomegranates out a couple of days ago, they were leafing out at the top where the branches were touching or close to the lights.

*I have a shopping list based on suggestions made here that I emailed to my iPhone 8) Hopefully getting them this weekend. :-()

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applestar
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Oh yeah -- there used to be a Japanese maple seedling in this pot but it disappeared -- died? Got dug up? But I have a lovely moss bed growing here.... :|
image.jpg

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Gnome
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A.S.
Gnome, how did your pomegranates fare this winter?
The Poms stayed in the garage again this year. Not yet leafed out but the branches appear limber and hydrated so I expect they will be OK.
*I have a shopping list based on suggestions made here
The NAPA product I mentioned bears the part #8822

Norm

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applestar
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Oh! Thanks Gnome (adding notation to my list :D )

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applestar wrote:More pics of the elm:

I want to carefully cut off the stub of the trunk and then maybe use a scoop chisel to gouge out which hopefully will turn into an interesting trunk scar. ...but am also thinking if left alone to deteriorate more naturally, may form an aged-looking hollowed trunk, which would be even more interesting....

Image
This series of elms show there are cuts that need be hidden A good pair of concave cutters will allow you to sculpt the beheading wounds down.

Next I might chop each branch, leaving two leaves on each stump. The resulting second growth of leaves (and twigs) is probably as far as I'd take this tree this year. You could also stir in a few timed release fertilizer pellets into top of soil.

Ideally an elm grows a vase shape. You want tighter spaced, smaller leaves. Your gonna get there from here by on alternate years cutting off twigs (like you already did at my behest). On even years your going to put on your Morticia Addams, and cut off most of the surface of each leaf and the terminal leaf-branch.

Both of these steps will make over a half dozen years or so your elm to look like a poodle after a hair dryer.

Its now April 2014. April 2015 you are also going to comb out soil and chops stick (by poking) in fresh bonsai soil. Not floor sweepings and left over "dirt". But real bonsai soil. Your tree will thank me for it...

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applestar wrote:Confession -- I really didn't get to do much last spring despite the wonderful advices I received, so I have to re-read this thread and do all my homework assignments :oops:

But I did add a new -- er -- "victim" to the line up :()
image.jpg
...the other one is one of the two red junipers. I dug up last year. I think I mentioned it?

Oo oo, every once inna while nature does for you what you may struggle with for years (to get a) tree to do.

The crab applish lookin' tree with a trailing branch is a dandy place to start from. hereinafter that trailing branch shall be called (by me) the sacrifice branch.

I would prune the rising branch to a third or fourth leaf. Leave the 'sacrifice branch' on and intact.

Because your not going to repot this year, here is a tree where you should get your Morticia Addams on with.

There are two distinct ways to reduce leaf size and shorten internode length. Twigg pruning can help some but the most effective is to force a second growth of leaves, is to leaf prune. I cut off 50 to 85% percent of the surface of each leaf. A second smaller set of leaves will grow out and the original set of foreshortened leaves will often drop off. Just like Morticia cut off her roses, you're gonna cut leaves.

No your not far enough along to much in the way of styling. Beyond cutting out watershoots. You want a full bushy wide tree. not a tall one.

tomc
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applestar wrote:Oh yeah -- there used to be a Japanese maple seedling in this pot but it disappeared -- died? Got dug up? But I have a lovely moss bed growing here.... :|
image.jpg

Young Japan maples have lots sugar in them. It rises in the spring. Alvin and his buddies cut the stem to drink the sugar water...

A stout cage or some kind of infernal poison was part of my solution to this. I ultimately gave up on organic composts or organic fertilizers.

Mickey, Alvin and all their relations don't seem to stalk bark mulch, but a whiff of cotton meal get them going.

YMMV

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applestar
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Thanks, tomc! I am going to do everything you suggested! :D

:evil: about the J. Maple. I will have to take steps. No wonder none of my volunteer seedlings seem to make it. :x

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I have bumped into sacrifice branches ten feet long. I'll grant you it looks goofy, but the ends justifies the means..

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One has to go to the cold house only once and find a Japan maple chewed off that was twice as thick as your thumb, to go jihad on all critters small & furry.

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applestar
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I have another wannabe. This is a vine -- I think maybe campsis (trumpet vine)? I can't tell because it hasn't bloomed. I've been keeping it trimmed but it's still growing in the ground. (That's a 24" diameter lid)

In terms of styling for eventual final form, should I chop it down shorter now or later after it has been lifted and potted? When should I dig it up? Should I start root pruning for excavation?
image.jpg

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applestar
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Yay! This is the first time a potted Japanese Maple seedling has survived for two winters in a row :-()
This is just a baby :wink:
image.jpg

tomc
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Yea, japan maples. better than a strong cuppa coffee.

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applestar
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I'll be posting pictures of my bonsai wannabes again this year. Many of them need to be repotted and others will need a review of their (amateur) styling.

This is my other Sweetgum bonsai wannabe. It's still in the ground but I've been leaf pruning it just about every year as an experiment of the technique for reducing leaf size.
image.jpg
I've also root pruned it (simply cutting off big roots coming off of it with my garden shove) from time to time

For comparison, here is another Sweet Gum volunteer which has not been leaf pruned:
image.jpg

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I pruned/trimmed it some more....
image.jpg
...that stump naturally creates the "back" to this tree because I can't really see what it looks like from that angle, and it isn't realiy growing in that direction much. So hopefully it looks presentable from these angles.

I was thinking this will be its canopy and I won't let it grow any taller... But would it be better to shorten it even more?

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Here are some of my bonsai wannabe's again. These are most of the ones in pots. I think there are two or three missing from this collage (a juniper, a Rose of Sharon, and oh, TWO other pomegranates). I bought a concave cutter and will be going over all of these. I also want to take a wood carving tool and work at the big cut in the sweet gum trunks to hopefully turn them into a sunken hollow....
image.jpeg
  • seed grown pomegranate...dead sweet gum with I think crabapple...Mulberry
    Juniper...crabapple...trumpet vine in green bowl and hmm, can't remember what's in the white
    Mulberry...volunteer Japanese maple...sweet gum
-- I need to repot and re-seat most of these --

Here are some that are still in the ground. I also have two oaks and a couple of mulberries that are not pictured.
image.jpeg
  • sweet gum...Callery pear
    Volunteer (seed or root sucker) plums...sweet gum
-- I'm going to root prune these --

...obviously, I'm going to have to start labeling them... :oops:

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Here's my Bonsai Wannabe oak in one of my vegetable garden beds:
Image
-- I've been casually root pruning it all around, but I think I'll take out the leader again and dig it out to pot up this year.

The leaves are just leafing out and will get bigger, but it looks good right now doesn't it? :D

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When I select a plant for bonsai, I kinda let it tell me what it wants to be.
I look for plants with small leaves. It is easier to keep them in scale if the leaves are small
I also look for plants that have interesting trunks, shapes or branching. It is actually hard to make a common looking tree interesting, but a tree that already has character built in, already has a head start.
I don't have the skill or the space to cut down a large tree and I have had zero success with bark stripping so
I usually start with smaller trees and if I grow them out, I pinch them more to promote branching sooner and besides it does not look very natural when you have to cut the lead and takes some skill (which I don't have) to shave it down to make it look like it broke off naturally.
Look for trees with branches that stay supple for a long time and the plants need to be long lived.

Tools
A good sheer
small leaf scissors
a fork (cheaper than a rake and it works)
a good saw
long tweezers
a brush
concave cutters different sizes if you have different size branches.
files
wire of different guages. Copper is best and reusable but very expensive. Aluminum will work.
wire cutters
turn table

Jade is an easy and forgiving plant and easy to prune, you litterally can use your fingers to break a branch or leaf off
Geometry tree - Should be easy shapes itself as long as you have full sun or even light all around
Juniper for me is an easy bonsai because it lends itself to cascade style and I can grow it outdoors all year. It is also easy to get so cheap starter.
Rhapsiolepsis indica Indian Hawthorne grows very slowly. Need to be careful about pruning, you have to live with the mistakes a long time. But because it grows so slow there is less maintenance
Ficus because they are forgiving of light and will grow the leaves back so they are resilient and long lived
Fukien tea makes a good bonsai, just don't let it go to seed.
Panax is a small shrub that does well with shaping.
Dwarf Schefflera
Desert rose ( I put it in a pot and let it do its thing.)
camelia
boxwood
bougainvillea
cypress
dogwood
pine
Chinese Elm

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Bumping this as reminder to myself that I want to put this project back on the front burner this year :oops:

...Just uppotted my Bonsai Wannabe Japanese Maple seedlings since they started to wake up from their winter sleep:
Image
...don’t worry, the potting mix is only on the top 1/2 inch or so... rest is gravelly mix of orchid bark, charcoal, DE, and calcined clay.

Took a pic of one of my Bonsai Wannabe citruses with an interesting trunk base — that happened on its own. It’s still in the scaffold/architectural branch structures developing phase. Also trying to induce additional interest higher up on the trunk:
Image

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More Bonsai wannabe pics

Japanese Maple seedlings
Image

Pomegranate grown from store-bought fruit seed (not the typically used for Bonsai “Nana dwarf”)
Image

Latest addition — wisteria grown from seeds from my mom’s wisteria. Going to twine the three together.
Image



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