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I trimmed my fig, I think I did a good job but this is definitely the most agressive trim I've given him He seems happy and healthy the day after.  
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Mar 29, 2019 00:09
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I won a couple shohin pots in a raffle that are signed "SR", anyone know if this is Sara Rayner's signature? I don't want to claim that's what they are if they aren't.  The detail is so beautiful:  There's a shohin show here in June so maybe I can find a little pine to put in here. This one has such cute detail on the feet. I put some little succulents and rocks in there for the moment to make a little landscape, but I'm slowly reducing a Japanese mapl to go in here eventually I think:  
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Mar 31, 2019 00:03
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Those are deffo Sara Rayner pots.
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Mar 31, 2019 13:30
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Crocoduck posted:Those are deffo Sara Rayner pots. Woo! Now I really have to find a nice enough tree to put in there.
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Mar 31, 2019 20:32
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I was hoping the sun had been soft enough to leave my tree in the sun all day yesterday but alas it just juuuust too strong and I lost two leaves. I have a bunch of new buds that are deciding to be little green nubs instead of wanting to be leaves  And a couple weeks until I take the wiring off Bonsai is truly an excersise in patience indeed
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Apr 1, 2019 23:28
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Ficus drop their leaves all the time just because they are assholes. I wouldn't worry about that, but dear god dude, your wiring is rough. I would remove all of it, purchase some proper aluminum bonsai wire, watch a few videos on wiring on youtube, then defoliate and wire your tree this summer in July. edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-6Le4n-uRI&t=6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQGzvxnA_Sk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n2MIkkUlSE
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Apr 2, 2019 03:42
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Crocoduck posted:Ficus drop their leaves all the time just because they are assholes. I wouldn't worry about that, but dear god dude, your wiring is rough. I would remove all of it, purchase some proper aluminum bonsai wire, watch a few videos on wiring on youtube, then defoliate and wire your tree this summer in July. Well aware the wiring is a poo poo show and I don't really know what I'm doing.  We are coming into "winter" here but my ficus lives his greenhouse most of the time and I'm mostly shaping and pruning so he can continue to fit in it more than anything. Thanks for the links.
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Apr 2, 2019 04:39
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welp I just spent like 3 hours watching Peter Chan just processing maples one after another. It's hypnotic. I think my wife picked up on it and her "this is going to become another expensive hobby, isn't it?" sense is already tingling.
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Apr 3, 2019 03:52
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Jestery posted:Well aware the wiring is a poo poo show and I don't really know what I'm doing. No worries, didn't realize you were S. hemisphere. Tropicals like to be worked on during the summer, ficus are so strong then that you can defoliate and wire them at the same time. Good wiring amounts to proper knowledge and practice, working with Mauro has really improved my game. Hubis posted:welp I just spent like 3 hours watching Peter Chan just processing maples one after another. It's hypnotic. Bro you have no idea.
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Apr 4, 2019 02:59
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Crocoduck posted:No worries, didn't realize you were S. hemisphere. Tropicals like to be worked on during the summer, ficus are so strong then that you can defoliate and wire them at the same time. Good wiring amounts to proper knowledge and practice, working with Mauro has really improved my game. At the moment I'm honestly using my bonsai as tool to help me organise myself. "Wake up, water, have coffee inspect new growth, go to work, get home , check bonsai etc etc" I'm happy to make little mistakes because my bonsai seems pretty hardy, he has a massive root rot I had to seal up because I over fertilized. A pet is a bit too demanding but a bonsai seems to be where I am at rn
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Apr 4, 2019 03:27
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Crocoduck posted:Bro you have no idea. dril posted:Food $200
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Apr 4, 2019 14:26
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I got a gardina for a bit of fun and a Jade from my mother. Next Sunday I'll be removing the wiring from my fig. Pruning the gardina down to something a bit more bonsai-esque once it is more established in its little pot And probably chopping the jade quite significantly in to a waterfall type thing. Any tips for pruning jade? It seems pretty hardy but I'm not sure if I'm missing anything obvious
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Apr 6, 2019 07:38
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Crocoduck I think your suggestion on the Amur was correct, I pruned a little over half the new growth 2 weeks ago and it's back budding like crazy. I also hit it with some chelated iron and the new leaves are much thicker and greener. The first flush was sort of yellow and thin like tissue paper, several people suggested it was chlorotic but it seems better now. Should I keep dosing it with iron or is fine for the season do you think? The chlorosis might be due to it's being potbound or I think maybe all the loving rain we had this winter just washed all the fertilizer out of the pot so it got nothing. I checked the pH and the tap water and they're fine but other people had lovely maples this year too.
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Apr 13, 2019 00:28
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What's your preventative routine like? You should either go the neotraditional route of spraying all the loving time, or the organic hippy Ryan Neil route and go organic... There haven't been a lot of adopters of the Ryan Neil method yet, but he's loving Ryan Neil. That said I'm constantly spraying my garden. Make sure you get a balanced, high quality fertilizer. I use biogold and my garden has never looked better. Green dream, sumo cakes, and superflybonsai all have good, cheaper alternatives. Hit it a couple more times with chelated iron because it can't hurt. Edit: It takes a really, really long loving time for a tree to become pot bound. Crocoduck fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Apr 13, 2019 |
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Apr 13, 2019 07:02
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I had a fun day off dicking about and neatening. My plant stand became unusable overnight and I decided to just use some bricks as I am moving soon  I chopped the jade a little while ago and he is holding up well And I buried the brick bound fig to encourage better root growth around said brick. Being his usual self there are no complaints The gardina is very much shocked from my frankly stupid loving around but parts of him are waking up
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Apr 13, 2019 07:50
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Crocoduck posted:What's your preventative routine like? You should either go the neotraditional route of spraying all the loving time, or the organic hippy Ryan Neil route and go organic... There haven't been a lot of adopters of the Ryan Neil method yet, but he's loving Ryan Neil. I don't spray with anything, my rationale is usually that a vigorous tree will fight off a lot of stuff on its own. I do an inspection every weekend and remove any scale or whatever manually. I do need to start spraying my pines with antifungal in winter though, they look lovely this year. Fertilizer-wise, the conifers get Superfly Bonsai pellets that are like, 5-7-3 I think, and then every 2 weeks or so everybody gets MaxSea 15-15-15 liquid fertilizer. My house plants get that year round but the bonsai only when they're growing. The thing with the Amur is it was sitting waiting for the auction over winter and I don't think anyone expected it to leaf out in January so it maybe didn't get all the stuff it needed. So I'm playing catch up. The good news is one of Michael Hagedorn's apprentices is coming in July for a deciduous talk and it says it'll include a critique. I'm hoping that means I can bring my maple to show him and he can give me some guidance on how to move forward with it, I've been too intimidated to do much other than clean up new growth and wire all of 2 branches.
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Apr 14, 2019 00:27
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Considering getting into the bonsai hobby because my parents have a big rear end cherry tree in the backyard, and I want a miniature version, because cherry blossoms are super pretty, y'know? Dunno the first thing about bonsai stuff though, so I figured I should ask - how forgiving are cherry trees/is it easy to make them take root?
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Apr 17, 2019 22:06
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Morning photo cos I think it's looking very healthy rn I don't know the technical term but branches are starting to grow off of branches and that just seems right and healthy 
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Apr 18, 2019 00:24
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 Made a little rock planting for my birthday.
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Apr 18, 2019 03:28
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fuzzy_logic posted:I don't spray with anything, my rationale is usually that a vigorous tree will fight off a lot of stuff on its own. I do an inspection every weekend and remove any scale or whatever manually. I do need to start spraying my pines with antifungal in winter though, they look lovely this year. Fertilizer-wise, the conifers get Superfly Bonsai pellets that are like, 5-7-3 I think, and then every 2 weeks or so everybody gets MaxSea 15-15-15 liquid fertilizer. My house plants get that year round but the bonsai only when they're growing. The thing with the Amur is it was sitting waiting for the auction over winter and I don't think anyone expected it to leaf out in January so it maybe didn't get all the stuff it needed. So I'm playing catch up. The good news is one of Michael Hagedorn's apprentices is coming in July for a deciduous talk and it says it'll include a critique. I'm hoping that means I can bring my maple to show him and he can give me some guidance on how to move forward with it, I've been too intimidated to do much other than clean up new growth and wire all of 2 branches. I'd advise you to move into using preventative sprays, but that's my method. Fertilizer regime sounds good. Hagedorn is a really supreme resource, I'm sure his apprentice is as well. Blaziken386 posted:Considering getting into the bonsai hobby because my parents have a big rear end cherry tree in the backyard, and I want a miniature version, because cherry blossoms are super pretty, y'know? No idea, give it a shot, take about 50 and give them bottom heat. In the meantime, pick up some garden stock and start trying out some of the techniques in creating bonsai.
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Apr 18, 2019 03:30
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Crocoduck, is this by you? I didn't know you guys had such a huge range of species available to you! https://bonsaitonight.com/2019/04/16/prize-winning-bonsai-at-bonsai-on-the-bayou-an-american-bonsai-summit/ https://bonsaitonight.com/2019/04/19/a-closer-look-at-the-bonsai-on-the-bayou-exhibit/ Blaziken from what I know cherry are tricky but I find people tend to be willing to put in the time and effort for whatever particular species they're most fond of. For propogation you don't need any special bonsai-specific texts, start with regular horticulture on how to get cuttings and go from there  good luck!
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Apr 21, 2019 03:00
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fuzzy_logic posted:Crocoduck, is this by you? I didn't know you guys had such a huge range of species available to you! God those are beautiful
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Apr 21, 2019 03:31
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Doubleposting but the flaky outer bark has started sloughing off my yew in sheets which is great for multiple reasons. First, I assume that outer bark breaking up --> trunk is swelling rapidly which is great. Also, if you look up any taxus in a show environment, they're never displayed with the outer bark, it's always removed to expose the red under layer. The contrast between that and the white deadwood is *the* big feature of any taxus bonsai, and also is good for their health because the flaked outer layer can shelter bugs and hold moisture and infection. I've been removing anything I can easily lever off with my fingernail: This part of the nebari is going to look really nice once it's cleaned up:  And the Amur says hi, it's backbudding like mad. In the bottom right you can see one of the old chlorotic leaves from the first flush compared to the new, darker and shinier ones after applying iron chelate. Huge difference! The iron won't fix any of the old foliage, just new leaves, so I removed most of the yellow ones so it can focus on healthy leaves. 
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Apr 21, 2019 22:38
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fuzzy_logic posted:Crocoduck, is this by you? I didn't know you guys had such a huge range of species available to you! Yoooo no, I didn't have anything to do with this, I've been living in Pennsylvania for the past... gently caress, 5 years? 5+? I started bonsai in Houston and know some of the folks who own those trees, but none are mine and I have never worked on any.
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Apr 22, 2019 03:40
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I have taken the jade my mother gave me and finished sculpting it. The wires came off today and so far so good, I may need to wire it a little again later but it's looking grouse for now Re: my fig He continues to grow in leaps and bounds. Slightly slower than in summer but still steady 
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Apr 25, 2019 13:51
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Jestery posted:I have taken the jade my mother gave me and finished sculpting it. The wires came off today and so far so good, I may need to wire it a little again later but it's looking grouse for now 'sup cheap terracotta bulb bowl buddy  Daddy and baby. Some kind of land-race red maple. This guy I found sitting in the middle of an unused 3' tall planter that had about 2' of dirt in it in a shady spot of the garden. He survived two years of relative neglect so I figured I'd pull him out and make him my first bonsai experiment. First task was going to be repotting, so I pulled him out and he was pot-bound to all hell. I tried to comb the roots out, pruned the bent ones and the very deep, very thick tap-root (which was a bit stressful). Then I tried to get everything into a shallow layer and trimmed to just short of the size of the pot I was going into. I didn't have any "real" bonsai soil at the time so I used a combination of pro-mix and some aeration stones I had. The bottom 2" of that bowl are actually spherical clay pebbles (like those used for hydroponics) -- I figured if I was using potting mix then I wanted to make sure I had good open drainage out the bottom. Since I didn't have any wire (or really a pot made for wiring in place) I used a set of three stainless landscape staples carefully placed over the major roots to anchor it. I pruned back a lot of the twiggy growth, with a vague idea of balance and final shaping. I've actually gone a bit more aggressive than what was pictured here, as well. Since maples don't really have small leaves (at least not native ones) it's my understanding that they work better on the larger scale of bonsai, so I think I will try and grow the trunk a good bit thicker and sacrifice one of those two branches to establish a final split a bit further up. This photo was from probably a month ago -- since then it has leafed out very nicely and doesn't seem negatively impacted from my root butchering. I really have no idea what I'm doing regarding watering and fertilizing. I figure a smaller soil mass is going to need more constant, light watering -- thus the preference for quick-draining soils in bonsai -- so that's what I've been doing. I've been applying a half-rate of good ol' 20-20-20 miracle-gro mixed with some seaweed extract on a weekly basis. I've got some proper bonsai soil now (as well as a proper training pot -- though I kind of like the look of the clay) so I am deciding if I should try and repot it now, or just let it weather the season and not stress it out. It's not overly hot now and I shouldn't need to do any root pruning so I may just go for it. Anyways I have no idea what I'm doing but this has already been a fun learning experience! I always have about a dozen or so saplings pop up across my yard every spring so I may go through and try potting them as practice material instead of just yanking them out like I usually do. The previous owner seemed to have a thing for Asian-style gardening; however, this is not really our "thing" (a lot more maintenance than we have time for right now, plus a personal preference for "native" species in-ground) so I am looking to re-design a lot of it. The upshot is that I've got a bunch of otherwise interesting plants that are just sitting there in the ground because I don't feel like throwing them out or because I don't know what to replace them with. Some interesting bits: - Some old, stunted dwarf (?) boxwoods that need to be removed. I've already dug up, pruned, and potted one, and I'm excited about how it's going already - A ton of Sky Pencil Holly bushes. The compact leaves, flexible branches, and rapid growth strikes me as being amenable to bonsai as well, but I'm not quite sure how to go about it - Some very grim looking Azaleas that have gotten overgrown by surrounding plantings. I dug one very sad looking one up last year and it's a lot healthier already. I may try cutting and propagating some of the others this year after they finish flowering - A very mature Japanese Wisteria that was probably quite beautiful when it went in, but was installed without any kind of support and so collapsed into a roiling briar of invasive species after a wind storm last year. As beautiful as it is I'd rather it be gone; however, I am fairly confident that I can propagate the shoots that are still constantly emerging into a basically endless stream of source material. Giving that a try this spring. Then I'll have to figure out what to do with them... - Some neighbors have some nice, deep-red Japanese maples that are dropping seeds right now. I snagged a few and am going to try sowing them in pots and add them to my seedling collection Anyways, I'll post some pictures once I have some new work to share. All the stuff I am trying to grow/transplant I have in small fabric pots (since I figure the goal is to produce a dense, airy root mass which I can then easily prune when I actually pot it). I figure everything will have to grow for a couple years before I even begin thinking about that, though -- I might even move my maple back into a larger pot so he can bulk up some before training.
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Apr 25, 2019 14:56
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Hey resident expert, nothing to do with this quoted post but I snagged a coral bark maple volunteer from a big one in my yard. Its the only one I've seen in years, I didn't grab it the first year because it was so tiny but I had to grab it this year before it got destroyed. Any tips for this specific species? Also, there is no reason I should keep it in a pot rather than getting it back into the ground for girth right? From my limited understanding there is no comparison for getting mass going. I'll post a pic later. Does yamadori cover all plants found in "the wild" including my yard?
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Apr 29, 2019 17:08
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:Hey resident expert, nothing to do with this quoted post but I snagged a coral bark maple volunteer from a big one in my yard. Its the only one I've seen in years, I didn't grab it the first year because it was so tiny but I had to grab it this year before it got destroyed. Any tips for this specific species? Also, there is no reason I should keep it in a pot rather than getting it back into the ground for girth right? From my limited understanding there is no comparison for getting mass going. I'll post a pic later. Does yamadori cover all plants found in "the wild" including my yard? I'd treat it like a delicate Japanese maple - no defoliations, only partial defoliations in late spring. How much girth are you looking to add? Getting it going in a pot isn't a bad idea if you can get its root system nice and lateral. If it's already an inch or thick so, getting it to a state where you can use the ebihara method is pretty badass.  Then plant it in soil for a few years. Another way of getting this sort of root swell on smaller trees is to drill a hole in a tile and just stick your seedling on through that. Eventually it will naturally air layer and send some roots out above the tile, leading to a nice lateral root base as well. I've got no idea about Japanese language and vocab. Not sure if they would apply it to urban and suburban finds, but I've heard it used that way. Also 'urbanadori' and things of that nature.
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Apr 30, 2019 03:22
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Latest photo of the crew. I'm still not sure what to call this type of gardening, but im calling it feature planting, it doesnt seem like traditional bonsai, but I'm having fun  I've got some rosemary in the front now that I am letting establish and a little vegetables/herb garden in the back where I'm trying to grow some penis chili's I have a persistent problem with scrub turkeys in my area so I'm barricading the herbs 
Jestery fucked around with this message at 22:47 on May 3, 2019 |
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May 3, 2019 10:58
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Well I spoke too soon I've been the victim of an attack  Edit Friendship with turkey is over Chicken wire is my new friend 
Jestery fucked around with this message at 01:26 on May 6, 2019 |
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May 6, 2019 01:02
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I know the answer is probably no, but is there a way to differentiate between sub-species of trees before they start producing leaves or no? I want to go into the woods and grab a sugar maple sapling.
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May 6, 2019 20:59
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So my thought of having roots grow in an around a brick is working We are coming into winter here and my fig is growing somewhat dormant, I'm going to green house him over the winter and see what happens. 
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May 14, 2019 04:45
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Had no more attacks on your bonsais?
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May 14, 2019 11:14
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bessantj posted:Had no more attacks on your bonsais? Luckily nothing severe, the Turks nipped at a Small jade I have. But that's all I'm hoping the ad hoc greenhouse will do the job until I move addresses soon 
Jestery fucked around with this message at 13:15 on May 14, 2019 |
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May 14, 2019 13:12
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Jestery posted:Luckily nothing severe, the Turks nipped at a Small jade I have. But that's all That's good. Your figs looking cool, do you give it any plant food?
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May 14, 2019 19:43
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bessantj posted:That's good. Your figs looking cool, do you give it any plant food? I put a very watered down (½ to¼) liquid fertilizer and alternate it for watering days , I'm of the mind set that constantly keeping fresh water and mild fertilizer flushing though is good. Sort of is hydroponic. adjacent I guess Edit:fixing grammar Jestery fucked around with this message at 23:52 on May 14, 2019 |
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May 14, 2019 23:27
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I do have some liquid fertilizer and should start doing that. I thought one of my trees had died but recently two new leaves grew on it and it has had one flower recently so I'm hoping that it's going to come back strong.
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May 14, 2019 23:58
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bessantj posted:I do have some liquid fertilizer and should start doing that. I thought one of my trees had died but recently two new leaves grew on it and it has had one flower recently so I'm hoping that it's going to come back strong. That's great to hear man, always good when something comes out of dormancy. I assume you are coming into spring so that's exciting for you
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May 15, 2019 00:08
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Jestery posted:That's great to hear man, always good when something comes out of dormancy. Yeah, I'm in the UK and the weather is starting to turn warm (well warm for here) and between the veg and the flowers I've been neglecting the bonsais a bit so I'm hoping they forgive me if I start giving them more attention.
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May 15, 2019 00:21
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So does anyone mess around with blending their own soils? For various reasons I've been looking into this, and it seems like "pine bark fines" are basically just regular pine bark mulch screened through a coarse filter. Is this right? I happened to have some bags of pine bark mulch -- mini nuggets and shredded -- so I figured I'd give it a try by sifting it through a roughly 1/4" basket: - Sifting the "Mini Nuggets" I ended up with pretty much what you'd expect: uniform "micro nuggets" roughly 1/4" in size - Sifting the shredded mulch, on the other hand, I ended up with a very fine weave reminiscent of coir that I'd characterize as being almost closer to compost than mulch I've seen people refer separately to both "pine bark fines" and "composted pine bark". If I had to guess, I'd say the former seems very similar to what I get from sifting the mini nuggets, while the latter seems like it would be more like what I get from the shredded mulch. The fines I got from BonsaiJack seem close to what I'd get from sifting the mini-nuggets as well, while the material I've seen people use for getting propagated branches to root is more like the bark compost. Of course, a bag of mini nuggets seems to be about 20-30% "fines" by volume whereas a bag of shredded bark is more like 70-80% so I'd rather use the latter if I can from a cost/effort perspective. So, does anyone have any thoughts on this? For newly dug up plants that I want to get acclimated to a pot I was thinking of mixing up a blend of about 40% Turface, 40% Pine Bark, and 20% Granite (Poultry Grit). Does this seem reasonable for an affordable, fast-draining mix? Should I swap the granite out for Pumice?
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May 15, 2019 19:26
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