bwaynef's brimming-backyard barrage of burgeoning bonsai

[bwaynef]

A little fall maintenance on my slow-grown Stewartia seedlings. Might be 3 years. Had a rough year with them as they missed being watered for a while so I took a few losses. These are 4 that had been wired previously. I might end up learning why stewartia aren’t seen as shohin often.

 

[bwaynef]

Here’s a corkbark elm after I finally cut off the parts that didn’t look right. It’ll need an angle change at repotting time, and I probably should wire these branches out before spring.

I’d wanted to airlayer the part I cut off but waiting on that was hindering progress.

 

[JudyB]

A little fall maintenance on my slow-grown Stewartia seedlings. Might be 3 years. Had a rough year with them as they missed being watered for a while so I took a few losses. These are 4 that had been wired previously. I might end up learning why stewartia aren’t seen as shohin often.

I can’t imagine them as shohin, the leaves don‘t seem to reduce well and the flowers will be huge if you can get them. That said, your shapes are very nice on these.

 

[bwaynef]

I sprayed everything. Junipers, pines, boxwoods, azaleas, and all my deciduous too. It ended up being a little later than I'd have liked, but... I went w/ the 5Tbsp/gal (or 2Tbsp/1500mL that my sprayer will hold) dilution as it was the lowest effective dilution for dormant plants. I read a few things about applying at >40ºF, but also that there's no documented proof that applying @ <40ºF causes any harm. I'd have preferred if we weren't going to dip below freezing overnight, but I also thought it better to get it done than put it off and not get around to it.

I wonder what my junipers are going to look like in the next little bit.

 

[bwaynef]

I repotted my new Murasaki Kiyohime acquisition today. Went from mucky wet clay into bonsai soil and an Anderson flat. Ended up using more of the soil than I thought it was going to. The back of the roots aren’t exactly pleasing but I will say I enjoy them after a friend pointed out they look like Thing. Probably still going to layer it.

 

[bwaynef]

As posted in the what’d you do today thread, I have a bunch of these pronanas. They’re completely uninteresting before I start and marginally more so when I’m finished. I’ve been leaving more low branches on most of them for the time being. This one’s a good example. The add’l foliage will help this tree recover but has no future. These have been fun wiring exercises I’ve got 5-6 done with 3 more when I have time.

 

[bwaynef]

One of my Ume cuttings flowered. I don’t know the cultivar. Peggy Clarke is the closest I found in my brief search.

 

[bwaynef]

I should’ve taken a before picture. I started this forest last year and all but 4 of the original trees didn't make it. Surprisingly, when I pulled it out of the pot, the rootball held together. I took off soil from the outsides, the top, and scraped a hole thru in one place. I think I have good distribution, but not completely sold on the varied distances between "trunks". I already see how I'm going to tweak it next year.

Yes, that's an Acer rubrum forest in a shohin pot.

 

[bwaynef]

I was hoping to take this airlayered Deahojo (I think) and secure it into that Koyo pot, but i didn't quite have the roots necessary. Turns out a good bit of the rootball was from roots too high to be a part of the nebari and a branch that took a nosedive and sprouted roots, so I removed those. When I airlayered this tree I deck-screwed it to a small slab of wood, then wired that wood to the bottom of a 4" pot. The root spread was pretty good, but not quite firm enough to support the tree, so I drilled a hole thru the bottom of the trunk (below the nebari) and cinched it down with that. Its about 98% secure, but not perfect. Hopefully next repot it'll go into that Koyo pot. (Anyone ever seen an oribe Koyo w/ subtle amount of crystals on a dark clay? Most are a light clay or have a lot more crystals.)

 

[bwaynef]

I recovered some tiles from experiments that'd failed last year. I may've mentioned this but my son had a self-directed study a few years back where he was going to try to help wildlife by providing habitat for them. He decided to grow oak trees and red maples to be given out for folks to plant. That was to be in the spring of 2020. The 'rona had other plans, so he was stuck with tons of seedlings he no longer had any interest in. I couldn't just toss 'em, so I'm working on getting creative in using what's left of them. (The single's a recently plucked white oakling.). They're planted in growbags and I'll hope for better results with these experiments.

 

[bwaynef]

JBP ‘Banshosho’ I bought a couple years ago. I have shared a picture or two from when it was repotted a few years ago but it’s mostly been sitting since then. I selected branches and kept a few extras …& left a couple long. Also found that Banshosho are pretty snappy. Someone pretty well-respected on this board suggested against this variety and that is probably one reason why. I plan to attend to new growth a bit more quickly to alleviate the worry of having to move thick branches.

 

[bwaynef]

One of the benefits of Banshosho is that it buds pretty well. Still, I didn’t want to wait and risk it to luck so figured I’d go ahead and try to graft in places I need buds.

I did a “warm-up” graft to get the process straight.

1. Choose a good scion. Not too thick/thin. Go ahead and pluck needles. The one I used for my practice graft I wouldn’t ordinarily use with the opposite buds. Sometimes it might be called for though.
2. Make a long cut on the side that will face the branch. Short cut will face out. They should meet so that the line they make at the bottom of the scion is perfect 90 degrees. Everybody I’ve been taught by them holds it in their mouth …for no particular reason.
3. The next part I’m not sure I have a picture of. It’s so hard because you have to move so quickly. Make a shallow cut closer into the trunk/branch than you intend to insert the scion. Pull it out and slide a bit further back the trunk and do it against, going a little deeper. Pull out, go back, and make the final cut into the branch that you intend to insert the scion into. This series’s of cuts serves to keep the branch from pushing the scion out after inserting it.
4. Move quickly to insert the scion. Long-cut side away from you, and match the cambium of the scion with the cambium of the receiving tree. A bit of an angle across the cut can ensure that some portion of the two cambiums align.
5. At this point it becomes imperative you support the scion. Wrapping too tightly can cause the scion to slide out or shift. Be careful and don’t use too much pressure. Goldilocks!
6. Pre-stretch the splicing tape. First pull it until it breaks. Then don’t break it again because now you know how much pressure it takes to break it. After it’s prestretched, wrap it tight around the base of the scion. A wrap or two around it, one in front of it, and another around the base and your scion is watertight and held pretty firmly. Use putty if there are gaps for water to get in.
7. For additional support and strength I added a small ziptie over the base of the scion. Remember not to let the graft shift or all the hard work is for naught.

I finished everything up by covering the grafts loosely with painters tape just to hopefully slow things and keep them from overheating.

 

[bwaynef]

The J Maple in post 20 got repotted again. I somehow managed to not get a full shot of it, but here it is before I filled in new soil.

Also, one of the guys at our study group is a sushi chef. At last month’s meeting he was just stopping in before going to work. I asked what he recommends for folks that don’t eat sushi. He remembered and brought this for me Saturday. Shrimp Tempura and California rolls. Not exactly my backyard, but it was bonsai-related.

 

[bwaynef]

This one’s close to peak bloom, so I thought I’d share.

 

[Carol 83]

This one’s close to peak bloom, so I thought I’d share.

Beautiful tree.

 

[LeatherTree23]

This one’s close to peak bloom, so I thought I’d share.

That does it. I’m getting an azalea. That is gorgeous.

 

[bwaynef]

Here’s an overgrown Japanese maple. It’s got some subtle movement that I think eventually might make a decent natural-looking tree. I just cut it back to the first node, then cut off 1leaf of the pair. I left a couple branches longer than that, but not many. Tweaked a couple branch angles after removing wire from some others. I’ll probably do this sort of work two more times this year.

 

[bwaynef]

The azalea above bloomer a bit more so I took another picture before going all Morticia on it. Never would’ve guessed that azalea had nearly 2.5 Gallons of flowers on it.

 

[bwaynef]

I tend to repot azaleas in the early spring but wanted to give a shot at post-flowering repotting. There were areas of the rootball that were dry, which explains why it’d curl leaves in the heat of the summer sometimes these past few years. Hopefully the fresh soil and lots of holes in the rootball will help with that for the next few years. It’s probably been 4-5 years since I’d repotted it too, so that wasn’t helping.

Azalea repotting is unlike any other for lots of reasons, but I’ve never heard anyone talk about the smell. It’s not bad. Earthy maybe. But it lingers even when you’re done. Anybody else? Just me?

(And a scrub Satsuki out of a gallon plastic container.)

 

[nuttiest]

Do you keep these in all peat surrounded by kanuma, or just on top?