Small Trident Maple Forest on Slab

[cheap_walmart_art]

Hey all, thought some might be interested in seeing this little forest I made last year. Went and did a slab workshop with John Geanangel and used those techniques to make and muck in these little guys.


I didn’t have a ton of material to start with, a small clump in a 4” pot and some raw seedlings. Fortunately, the rock isn’t that big.


From all the mess in the photo above, I managed to come up with the composition below:


Here were are today on the workbench showing off fall colors. We get to see the back today because the front has a mess of roots coming off of it I’m waiting until spring to prune.

 

[MHBonsai]

Awesome fall color and I like the composition!

How often do you think you will have to repot/root prune this one?

 

[cheap_walmart_art]

Awesome fall color and I like the composition!

How often do you think you will have to repot/root prune this one?

Weirdly enough the roots grow very well in the muck and they also kind of “air prune” on the dry parts, only reason the other side has so many overhanging is because I’ve kept this in a boot tray filled with water all summer and the front edge sat ever so slightly in the water. So I figure will be less repotting and more pruning back roots and packing on more muck and moss as need be.

 

[queenofsheba52]

Sweet!!

 

[johng]

nice work!!

 

[Michael P]

Looks so much better than my first forest on a slab! Please share your muck recipe.

 

[cheap_walmart_art]

My muck recipe is chopped up potters clay, akadama fines, and shreded sphagnum moss. I start mixing them roughly evenly and then add more clay to smooth it out and make it a bit more mucky and sculpt able.