Florida Bonsai

[applestar]

Keep us updated!
I can't wait to see how you decide to style "Juni"

[DDMcKenna]

Juni's house is about to fall down!

It was purely by accident or good fortune that I discovered the perfect little "cottage" for Juni to live in. A simple cheap two-shelf stand with the upper shelf removed. So it was just a one-foot by one-foot table that stood about thirty inches high and Juni could live on the lower shelf, about ten inches from the ground. She is sitting right outside my glass sliding doors so I can keep a constant eye on her and play with her everyday when I get home from work.

But, her cheap little house was made of a vinyl covered particle board and I knew it wouldn't last outside. I figured I could get a few months at best but her house is already leaning to one side a bit as the particle board has soaked up so much rain that it is disintegrating.

But, all is GOOD! The design of the little table was perfect to allow her to get good morning sun while the table sides blocked the afternoon and evening sun. And the table top protected her from the Florida downpours. The table design was so perfect and I spent hours, days searching stores and online trying to find a plastic or some kind of replacement in a similar design. I finally gave up.

I went to Lowes and bought pressure treated lumber and I built Juni a new house! I built it out of one-by-sixes, paired to make it twelve inches deep and wide and she has a new tile roof. I just put my third and final coat of white paint on it and it's drying in my utility room. Tomorrow morning, I'll use clear silicone sealer to fill in all the joints and cracks so by tomorrow evening, I can move it out on the deck and Juni will move into her new house.

You'll have to wait until she's moved in to get pictures because it will be better when I have the sun on her. The last ordeal I have is the watering issue. I've found it so darn difficult to deal with the watering in this funky Florida weather. We've had a few cold nights but cold to us is when it drops to the forties overnight and the fifties in the daytime. I feel bad for the rest of the country that has been dealing with early deep-freezes. But I know these cooler nights makes it extra difficult to determine when Juni is thirsty because I try to stick my pinky all the way to the bottom of her pot to feel the dirt and how moist it is. The glazed pot seems to hold a lot of moisture and it "feels" wet even when it's not.

So I'm struggling with making sure I don't over-water her and I'm also thinking about giving up on trying to artificially create this period of dormancy. Like others have said, the weather just never cooperates. Instead, I'm hoping to treat her just like a healthy young baby tree that would be living out in the woods and just happened to always get the right amount of water and not have to deal with animals or debris that might hurt her. A normal tree would experience all the odd temperature swings and climate that a lot of trees in Florida do so I'm hoping that if I just make sure the pot doesn't freeze and crack, she'll do fine. I thought about draping a cloth over the table to make it a little darker but I don't know if that sounds "natural". Seems to me that real trees in the forest don't get that. So I'm still pondering that.

I'm thinking this coming spring, if she is still as healthy as she is now, it will be time to trim her into some cool shape. But I've also read that spring might be the time to repot her. I don't know if doing both would be to traumatic for a baby tree. I thought if this watering thing turns out to be too much of a pain, she might go back into her original clay pot. I still have that available and may consider it if the glazed pot makes watering a pain. But I don't know if I can repot her and trim her both.

I guess I should start a new thread when I take pictures of Juni's new house. This one is getting kind of long. I'll try to do that by next weekend if the weather cooperates. We've had some terrible rainy weeks here lately. I still have water in my back yard. But Juni doesn't seem to mind, she seems to love her little house even if it is falling down around her.

[imafan26]

When you repot and root trim you would need to also reduce the canopy so as long as the plant is healthy before you repot it should take to pruning well.

I prefer to do my shaping gradually. I don't like branches getting too large since they leave a bigger scar and wiring should be done while the branches are still supple. I would think about the final shape you want and start taking out the branches you won't need. Don't do too much, you can always cut more off, but you can't put them back. "Nana" Junipers make good cascades and semi cascading bonsai.

[DDMcKenna]

I like the "Cascading" idea and was thinking about that. I figured doing a little at a time would be less traumatic.

When you cut away a limb, do you put anything on the cut tip or leave it open and exposed?

I've seen larger trees trimmed and seen people use some kind of sealant on the stump left behind.

[rainbowgardener]

Sealing tree wounds is in general controversial. I think the modern trend is not to do it. Here's a thread where it was discussed, in regard to (non-bonsai) fruit trees:

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/vi ... ds#p345913

Here's a nice discussion of it with regard to bonsai:

https://walter-pall-bonsai.blogspot.com/ ... trees.html

(It does read like it was typed on a cell phone with automatic correction. "Conifers in general will not rot easily because they have the best protestant already, which is raisin" it means best protection, which is resin. ) He has an interesting take, that sometimes he uses wound sealant because he WANTS the wound to rot and hollow out, and the sealant promotes that.

Bonsai experts around here, what do you do?

[imafan26]

If you pinch off the branches you don't need when they are small you won't have much of a scar. Otherwise, concave cutters are used to trim off nubs. There are several tools for bonsai. You may be able to find those at a bonsai club. Concave cutters, copper wire of various thickness, scissors, turntable, a set of screens, tweezers, root rakes ( I use an old fork with the tines bent into a slight curve), wire cutters are some of the tools in the bonsai tool bag. Some of them like the rake and the pruners you can find substitutes, but concave cutters come in different sizes for different sized trees are not so easy to find. You can find mini tools at the hardware or medical supply houses are a great place for large tweezers and scalpels from either medical or art stores.

I don't like to trim off main branches, it is hard to make a tree look natural after that, so I like to identify my main branches early. Sometimes things happen and you have to or want to change the shape, but I have killed more trees attempting a lightening strike than I want to admit to. And filing the stump takes a lot of time and patience.

There is no rush to start trimming since the plant is still very young. But, you should start to really look at the tree and decide what direction you want it to go. When a bonsai is trimmed, it isn't chopped willy nilly. The artist spends a lot of time looking at the tree and what effect each branch contributes and which do not. Also what direction the growth will take after the branches are removed. If you want to make the trunk more interesting it should be wired while the branches are still supple using an appropriate gauge of wire and carefully bending the branches. If you study bonsai there are patterns to the placement and angle of the branches. The trunk is actually one of the most interesting aspects of bonsai and a lot of attention is paid to showing off the branches and trunk. Wires should be removed before they cut into the trunk.

[DDMcKenna]

Thank you both for the great information and resources to additional information.

@imafan26, I really appreciate the approach you suggest. It gives me a lot of confidence that I don't have to make an absolute decision immediately. I do want to be gradual with any approach. And I like the idea of making the trunk a distinctive part of the overall sculpture.

@rainbowgardener, thank you, those are great links and I'll take plenty of time to read them all. But please, I know it's just a friggin' tree and a million of them succumb to weed-whackers. It's not like my kids or anything, but it is "alive" and I have a healthy respect for anything God gives life to. It's just my nature to put my heart and soul into anything I do. And, I think I mentioned it before, it's the first thing I ever tried to grow.

Anyway, the silicone is curing rapidly so it won't be long now. I have a couple appointments and after that, I plan on moving Juni into her new home. I'm really excited about that.