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I've always loved Bonsai but I've never actually tried my hand at it. My girlfriend and I went to a local native nursery today and I saw some young Huon Pine cuttings for sale, and the tags said they're great for Bonsai (I loving LOVE Huon Pine / Lagarostrobos franklinii) I brought it home and transplanted/wired/pruned it according to a video I watched on youtube but I fear I may have hosed it. Before  After  Huon Pines take hundreds of years to grow, oldest living known specimen is about 10,500 years old. Self-propagates/clones itself in the high mountains of Tasmania. They're a favourable soft hardwood great for woodwork/boatbuilding etc with an incredibly unique and beautiful aroma from the oils in the wood. A bar I used to work in we pioneered a Huon Pine negroni by cryovaccing Campari in a bag with Huon Pine woodshavings, the Campari took on an incredibly strong Huon Pine flavour which needed to be diluted down somewhat so it didn't 'burn' your tongue when mxed into the cocktail, but once balanced right had an incredibly unique flavour that worked really well. I'm gonna go back and get some native Pencil Pines and other faster growing conifers and try my hand a little better. I've no doubt nuked this one but I don't really know what I'm doing  I just did this with some tools and wire laying around the house but I just ordered a nice bonsai toolkit and more appropriate wire and hope to make a more serious go of this next week. Sludge Tank fucked around with this message at 11:09 on Jul 17, 2020 |
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Jul 17, 2020 11:03
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Sludge Tank posted:I've always loved Bonsai but I've never actually tried my hand at it. 1) put it outside. It’s a pine. It needs to be outside. Also if it’s a native tree it’s going to do exponentially better outside. Indoor climate is much drier and darker than what it wants, and it’s going to need all the sunlight it can get. 2) the cuts don’t look too bad, but it’s going to need a lot of attention. That doesn’t mean fussing— in fact fussing is bad. But you’re gonna have to be 100% on top of making sure it’s got proper water, it’s getting adequate sun, it’s not getting scorched or burned, etc. A little tree like that with that much pruning, and in a small bonsai pot, is going to be at risk of dying in no time flat if it dries out too much. 3) get rid of the gravel for now (maybe not, but I see it getting in the way right now). This tree is in active training right now, and will be for the foreseeable future. “Finishing” the pot at this moment is like putting on a suit and tie to go to the gym. Also gravel is tacky mall-bonsai poo poo, and you’re much better than that. Gravel is for scrubs. It’s how posers get clocked from a mile away. Use moss as cover instead. 4) consider how you want the tree to look in the future. Do you want it to grow big? Do you want it to stay small? How big/small? Do you want lots of ramification and foliage and complex growth? For a sapling that small and pruned back I’d actually strongly consider a bigger pot in the future. Like a big ol’ “normal” round nursery pot. Right now it’s gonna be way overkill, but in a few months to a year you might want to actually let the plant grow its roots out a bit and grab a lot of soil’s worth of nutrients. You might even go as big as five gallons for a season or two. If you want to be a real champ, stick that sucker in the ground for a year or four and really watch it get thick and strong. But right now it’s way too small to benefit from or frankly survive something like that, so keeping it in its pot outdoors should suffice. Given the room, saplings tend to explode in growth for a couple of years, and you can either let them do that or prune them back/train them hard multiple times to get the desired effect. A lot of the most striking looking/classic tabletop trees started out as 6 foot tall trees that spent a decade maturing in the ground and were hard-chopped back. Just make sure the pot doesn’t dry out too much- you have to be an absolute fascist when it comes to making sure plants in bonsai pots don’t dry out too much. The pots are shallow and wide, which makes them excellent at evaporation and very poor at retention. trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Jul 17, 2020 |
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Jul 17, 2020 12:02
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Thanks for the advice. I will take that all into consideration. Huon Pine is actually a conifer, not a pine. It favours shade over sunlight and prefers Southern aspect (southern hemisphere) to avoid direct sunlight. But yes it should probably grow outside, my housemate received a sapling of Huon Pine for his birthday a few years ago and put it in the ground and it died pretty quickly. These are really tempramental which leads me to believe this needs a but more shelter than exposure, according to the lady in the nursery anyway. In the wild theyre generally sheltered by bigger, faster growing trees because these grow VERY slowly. I probably picked a silly breed of tree to start with. As far as the composition goes, given this is a first go I'd be happy for it to fill out a small shape and weep over the edges of the pot, given the foliage weeps considerably. My next plant i will pick something with a bit more hardwood structure to it to play with. I didnt realise the gravel was tacky. I honestly know nothing about bonsai "trend" or fashion etc. Thankyou! I should set up a little shadecloth bonsai garden outside for it? Im hesitant to repot or do any more trauma to it in the mean time but i will ditch the gravel and put some native moss there instead. Sludge Tank fucked around with this message at 12:23 on Jul 17, 2020 |
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Jul 17, 2020 12:13
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Sludge Tank posted:Thanks for the advice. I will take that all into consideration. Huon Pine is actually a conifer, not a pine.  you mean “it’s actually a podocarp, not a pine”. both are conifers. Edit: also my point about a bigger pot isn’t to give the foliage less area to weep over, or whatever. It’s to let the roots, and by extension the trunk, get big. But the pot you’ve got now is plenty big, and actually should be for a long time. I’d recommend finding a good shady spot outside and letting it live there for a while. And definitely get more trees, bonsai is all about having as many trees as you can afford/fit/manage, having too few trees leads to fussing over the few trees that you have which leads to dead trees. The more trees you have the more things you have to work on on a given day. trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Jul 17, 2020 |
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Jul 17, 2020 12:31
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Ok Comboomer posted:
Sorry, yes you are right. Pine is just a colonial name that was stuck to it. Wikipedia posted:Lagarostrobos franklinii is a species of conifer native to the wet southwestern corner of Tasmania, Australia. It is often known as the Huon pine or Macquarie pine, although it is actually a podocarp (Podocarpaceae), not a true pine (Pinaceae).[2][1] It is the sole species in the genus Lagarostrobos; one other species L. colensoi (endemic to New Zealand) formerly included has been transferred to a new genus Manoao. The genus was also formerly included in a broader circumscription of the genus Dacrydium.[3] Anyway, yes I will do those things. I will put it outside and fetch more plants to play with. I just bought a copy of Harry Tomlinson's book, it just seems like a deep wormhole of knowledge to go down.
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Jul 17, 2020 12:40
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Whoa are there more than one bonsai pros in this thread?? My friend dropped a log on my Rhododendron luteum, breaking off a couple branches and buds. I read these can root put in soil with a little scratch on the stem, any tips? I dont have rooting compound or whatever and have nothing to air later it to, or at least I've never tried I left a couple long and a couple short to try different techniques out but any tips are appreciated
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Jul 17, 2020 14:46
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:Whoa are there more than one bonsai pros in this thread?? From what I've read/tried, trim off the tear and lower leaves/branches, plant it in a tiny pot, wrap it in a clear plastic bag to preserve moisture, and leave it somewhere shady for a month or two.
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Jul 17, 2020 16:55
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OK, here's a partial seasonal update Garden-Center Juniper  Video Jan. 2020 I've tried to wire this guy pretty thoroughly this time. This is the one I was talking about splitting -- I feel like the left half could be a decent tree on its own, while the right could be trained to be a good looking cascade. However, after wiring I do kind of like the twin-trunk look. I'm just hesitant of making the novice mistake of being too afraid to cut anything off, so I am curious for feedback on whether people think it would be better if I just lost the right fork altogether (keeping it as a sacrifice for a while at least). Plan is to just let it grow in this pot for at least another year or two. I'm wondering if I should move it to a net pot and plant it in the ground to bulk it up, though? Volunteer red maple  Video Jan 2020 This was my first baby tree so I'm kind of partial to it, even if it's not super suitable. I really dig the curves I've got with it now, and I think it'll look really good once expose the rock underneath. I got brave and just hacked off both main stems after re-potting it, and I think it's developed nicely since then. Moreover it had a kind of weird root structure so I tried planting it over a rock in this large pot (of course like an idiot I didn't take any progress-shots, so you'll just have to be in suspense for what is underneath). I position the roots and tied the root ball arond the rock with some sisal twine then placed a black nursery pot with the bottom cut out around it. The roots are all long enough that they go down into the larger pot under the nursery pot, so my plan is to let it grow for a little while then remove the nursery pot, then repot the whole thing with more rock exposed after another year or two. I wired the branches partially just to spread them out, although there are one or two which seem like they might be good permanent branch candidates. Home Depot Rescue Ficus  Video Got this one as a Home Depot "bonsai" -- removed the glued on rocks and put it in a small terracotta pot for a while. Having a bunch of good looking candidate rocks, I decided to do this guy as a root-over-rock as well when I repotted him. Like the previous tree I tied the roots in place with a few wraps of sisal twine; however, I also used a homemade "muck" based on a recipe I found on the internet: http://www.fukubonsai.com/5a18b.html quote:"Stir constantly while cooking a mixture of 1 part cornstarch with 3 parts of water until the "pudding" is clear and thick. Cool. Mix equal parts (by volume) of fine granular soil, damp long-strand spaghnum moss, and the starch "pudding." Use more pudding if you want a softer stickier muck and more media for a stiffer muck. I used some leftover Turface fines as the "fine granular soil", although in retrospect I'd probably use some of the vermiculite I have sitting round instead next time. This "muck" (the dark stuff above the fresh spaghnum moss) made a really good glue for holding the roots to the rock as well. I've seen some advice suggest applying the muck only in the recesses of the rock where you want roots to go to control growth, so I will probably do that when I repot it again. I think the root part is going to look really good. I'm honestly not sure what to do with the branches, but I felt like I had to wire it because I planted the tree at an angle along the rock and so all the branches would have looked weird otherwise. Advice here appreciated. Quince   New acquisition. This seems has some really great branch structure, but is obviously really leggy as well. I repotted it this spring and I had to really brutalize the roots -- it had some nasty girdling root situation that didn't leave much behind when I was done cleaning it up. As a result I've been really ginger with it, just planning on leaving be until next spring and pruning it back then. That's I think 1/3 of my projects, but probably the most interesting. I'll follow up with some more when I have the time.
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Jul 17, 2020 22:35
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Thuja Standishii (Home Depot, $8) Video Pre-wiring Got this as part of a "leftover holiday greens" sale. It had fallen over in the pot and was growing on its side, giving it that nice bow at the bottom. I repotted it into this large tray in late winter and left all the foliage, and then wired it not too long ago. I haven't been able to find a whole lot about Thuja Standishii (Japanese Arborvitae). I've heard they can be hard to work with (vigorous growth, springy branches can be hard to train,, hard to back-bud) but can turn out very nicely and are extremely hearty. Since they don't back bud easily I'm trying to preserve as much growth as I can for now. It's buried a little deep in the pot with some moss to help develop some surface roots. I wired it mostly just to spread out the growth and get a feel for styling, but once I'm happy with the trunk development I will thin the branches down a fair bit. I wasn't sure what to do styling-wise, so I kind of just went for a standard "weeping" look. I think it's nice, but I'd be curious if anyone has any other Thuja I could look at for reference, or any suggestions on care and styling
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Jul 18, 2020 18:29
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Whats up bonsai thread!! Just got settled into my new apartment and I am determined to cram as much plant matter onto my 8x6 balcony as I can. Here's a few shots of my trees  
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Jul 18, 2020 19:07
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Stealin' that layout
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Jul 18, 2020 20:24
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lil poopendorfer posted:Whats up bonsai thread!! Just got settled into my new apartment and I am determined to cram as much plant matter onto my 8x6 balcony as I can. Here's a few shots of my trees This looks great, did you burn and brush that yourself? Slick Hubis posted:From what I've read/tried, trim off the tear and lower leaves/branches, plant it in a tiny pot, wrap it in a clear plastic bag to preserve moisture, and leave it somewhere shady for a month or two. Great this is what I was on the path of doing. Thoughts on the soak in a bleach mixture and then washing it off first?
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Jul 18, 2020 20:34
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:This looks great, did you burn and brush that yourself? Slick  Harry Potter on Ice posted:Great this is what I was on the path of doing. Thoughts on the soak in a bleach mixture and then washing it off first? To what end?
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Jul 19, 2020 00:25
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Jul 19, 2020 00:40
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Hubis posted:OK, here's a partial seasonal update I like the twin trunk myself. It looks interesting. Different from a lot of junipers, but each seems to have its own potential and character. You could always decide to turn one into a jin or sacrifice it, or split it away and turn it into its own separate tree (a cascade?) down the road. ......To be honest, the more I look at it the more I think you’d regret splitting the trunks. As they grow out you’ll be happy to have the one on the right stretch horizontally and the one on the left add balance and verticality. You can always bring branches from any of the big sections around and fold them into a very attractive layered look by closing the gap between them a little bit. But the negative space and visible trunks will look cool if they thicken up and grow new branches and foliage in the future. The tree looks very balanced with the two trunks and has a lot of potential. Another idea is to bring the rightward section down into a cascade and use the other trunk to balance it up top. Lots of options, lots of potential. trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Jul 19, 2020 |
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Jul 19, 2020 00:54
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Ok Comboomer posted:t Yeah, to be honest I'm a lot more happy with it after having wired it. It's hard to tell, but the wire is doing a hell of a bend on that top-right branch (as well as putting in some horizontal arc in the lower-right branch to make it more interesting) and I think that really salvages a good bit of it. If it were just the left side I think it could be a very nice tree, but it would be very *different* and as you said the right side balances it well at the moment. I thought about doing a jin with it down the road as well, but really with all the options (including keeping it, using it as a sacrificial branch, or splitting/jinning it) there's not really any reason to cut it right now to be sure. I'm just coming at it from the perspective of still working on bonsai aesthetics (in addition to technique) and I know there's a tendency to not be willing to cut enough so I want to make sure the structural decisions I am making are part of an affirmative plan rather than me just being afraid to cut things  Ok Comboomer posted:But the negative space and visible trunks will look cool if they thicken up and grow new branches and foliage in the future. The tree looks very balanced with the two trunks and has a lot of potential. Making it into a cascade (I assume you mean kind of just tilting everything to the right and bending accordingly) is an interesting idea I hadn't considered. One thing I had thought about was sweeping the left-most branches across the front and back towards the right and stretching the right-most branches for a kind of wind-swept look. That was going to require more aggressive bending than I was comfortable with though, and since this is "babby's first conifer" I figured I might as well just keep it basic and focus on learning how to wire fine foliage for now. Speaking of which, that was a real pain in the rear end but I think I am getting the hang of it. I'm very glad I don't have a larger juniper, that's for drat sure. Anyways, sounds like I didn't make a total hash of it!
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Jul 19, 2020 01:24
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:This looks great, did you burn and brush that yourself? Slick Thank you all  This was my first time trying anything like this so I did a faux Shou Sugi Ban .. I just used a blowtorch and passed it back and forth over pressed pine 2"x8" boards until I got the desired level of darkening. No brushing. Really easy and not much mess, I could have done it on my balcony tbh. The downside is that it ends up a little uneven this way. Next time I'm gonna do it the real way, charring the whole top layer and then brushing/sanding the char down. That's how to ensure an even level of darkening I believe.
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Jul 19, 2020 01:45
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lil poopendorfer posted:Thank you all Where did you get it?
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Jul 19, 2020 01:52
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lil poopendorfer posted:Thank you all Can't believe you missed "faux-Sugi Ban" :facepalm: For what it's worth, I did something similar for an old piece of leftover 2"x12" fir board that I turned into a makeshift bridge for the kids in the backyard. I toasted it with a propane torch until it was all a consistent black (supposedly you do this until it actually starts cracking a little) then hit it with a grill brush. What happens is the denser grain (which is richer in resin and structurally stronger) won't char as much, and when you wire brush it the denser grain will stay darker while the wider grain areas will get scrubbed away, leaving a similar looking pattern but with a very nice textured relief. After I did that I did a natural color wipe-on oil finish, which really looked great.
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Jul 19, 2020 15:06
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Hubis posted:Can't believe you missed "faux-Sugi Ban" :facepalm: Lmfao whoops. Yah that's exactly what i wanted to do next time, that's the authentic technique p much I believe. They used cedar traditionally I believe. The deep char ensures an even finish, which is hard to get if you're just toasting it like I did. Still turned out well though and gives me the confidence to do it on a nicer wood board. Anybody that thinks it looks cool, try it out if you have access to a torch! This is like $24 worth of pine from Home Depot. I bought the shelving used from someone in my local bonsai club, it's Shirley's Simple Shelving Big Easy I believe. Bricks and 2x8 boards could work just as well though and would look really cool
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Jul 19, 2020 19:29
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Anyone growing anything with NAPA #8822 - calcinated diatomaceous earth, aka Oil-Dry? Tried it on the recommendation of a few locals, supposed to be comparable to akadama in water retention and CEC. So far, everything is doing well but it just feels weird LOL. I would be super glad if it's a viable alternative, it's like $10 for a huge bag.
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Jul 19, 2020 19:36
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lil poopendorfer posted:Anyone growing anything with NAPA #8822 - calcinated diatomaceous earth, aka Oil-Dry? Tried it on the recommendation of a few locals, supposed to be comparable to akadama in water retention and CEC. So far, everything is doing well but it just feels weird LOL. I would be super glad if it's a viable alternative, it's like $10 for a huge bag. Get yourself a stack of soil seives -- I found a full stack somewhere from 1/2" to 1/32", but you really only need a 1/4" one and a 1/8" one. Stack those two together and sift the stuff over a 5-gallon bucket. Keep whatever fits between the two seives to use for bonsai and scatter the rest over your lawn.
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Jul 19, 2020 19:59
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dog I literally mix $5 sphagnum moss with $5 nursery pot soil and occasionally $5 cactus/palm/citrus media and I think for a couple nice ($6-7?) potting soil and I think everybody's pulling through ok
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Jul 19, 2020 20:06
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In fact I'm so fuckin pleased as punch with my conicas. Apparently everybody but peter chan (and apparently NEBonsai, who occasionally sell specimen conicas for hundreds) thinks they're heretical anyway so I might as well go like 65% sphagnum right into a training pot. I might as well leave these suckers in big tupperwares of water in full summer sun all day long. I might as well clip the apical buds in june. Might as well name them things like Bake-kujira. tbh, I hewed pretty close to peter's late winter (march, early april...so "mud season" in NE) timing and "heavy style/clip/wire and right into a training pot" style of not loving around or dawdling too much, and then I babied them and watched them closely for the next two months. I would've clipped them in May/first week of June but America happened. They seem fine, climate change makes fools of us and our tree calendars anyway. But it seems like most people who hate them approach them like a pine and/or juniper and/or dry them the gently caress out. They also really benefit/suffer from "instant bonsai" syndrome, where you can take a really nice source specimen and turn it into a really good looking bonsai in a comparatively short amount of time, but that also means that the final product is really sensitive to the quality of your source. You can take a juniper or a pine or a ficus, decide that you hate everything about them, cut them down to virtually a stump (or in the ficus' case, literally) and start the tree over. The sky's the limit. A picea "conica" won't do that for you, so you really have to pay attention to stuff like interesting trunks, multiple heads, cool roots, neat branches, etc from the beginning. You can't take a random conica and make it into whatever you want with work the way you can a juniper. You have to commit to spending 3 hours at the garden center rifling through all 100 trees to find the most interesting two, but I think it's worth it if you can keep 'em alive. And maybe keep them in deeper training pots rather than the thinnest bonsai pot that a pine can take. IDK. Pride cometh before the fall, all these trees could be dead next week
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Jul 19, 2020 20:26
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Hubis posted:OK, here's a partial seasonal update I do like that Juniper. lil poopendorfer posted:Whats up bonsai thread!! Just got settled into my new apartment and I am determined to cram as much plant matter onto my 8x6 balcony as I can. Here's a few shots of my trees That looks great!
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Jul 20, 2020 11:13
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Ok, so I got a proper Satsuki Azalea from Brussels Bonsai to compare against the Home Depot ones I was working with before. Here's what I've got: Looks like lots of spent flowers in the canopy, lots of twiggy growth. So how do I proceed? Do I do anything with it right now? I'll repot it sometime next spring, but as far as shaping goes: - for azaleas (and all basally dominant plants?) I need to aggressively remove low/interior growth so it doesn't sap energy from the upper/outer branches, right? - I'll remove all the spent flowers. Should I also prune back their stem ends? - There are a lot of crotch/spar branches, including some of the most major ones. Do I need to do an aggressive culling /selection there to prevent reverse taper? - it feels like there is in general a lot of interior "congestion" -- overlapping/interpenetrating branches, especially among the twiggy growth. I am assuming I can thin that out pretty aggressively? - Any advice on what to look at for potential long term styling? Right now it seems to be kind of a generic "broom", but that feels like more of a result of its default shrubby growth habit than an aesthetic choice.
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Jul 26, 2020 17:00
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What region do you live in Hubis?
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Jul 26, 2020 22:38
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Crocoduck posted:What region do you live in Hubis? Northern Virginia (7b)
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Jul 27, 2020 01:10
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I'd go on and do branch selection pruning now - trim every multitude of branches to two joints, trim away branches that obviously conflict with the design (eg heading back into the canopy).
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Jul 27, 2020 05:24
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Crocoduck posted:I'd go on and do branch selection pruning now - trim every multitude of branches to two joints, trim away branches that obviously conflict with the design (eg heading back into the canopy).  I started on that already. It actually looks like the spent flowers had set seed, so I picked all that out. There was also a fair bit of deadwood in there (including a branch I initially thought would be the apex :shep: ) so I cleared that up. The pruning looks like it'll be a bit brutal, but I know azalea respond well to hard pruning. Just to recap, things I'm looking for: -Low/Rootline branches very important for basally dominant or suckering trees, but for others I could leave these as sacrifices, right? - Branches too thick relative to the main trunk (unless I am going for a multi-trunk look) - Spur branches - Bar Branches - Eye-Pokers - Parallel Branches - Pocket Branches - Overlapping branches how close so they have to be here? I have some interesting branches that kind of swoop past one another verrically, but are fairly separated in the structure - Long, straight branches (where more interesting alternatives exist) - Downward branches - Branches growing back opposite their parent - Vertical upward branches For these two it seems like I'll want to allow more of that near the branch ends/canopy to fill things in, right? Does this sound right? I'll post some update pictures in a bit.
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Jul 27, 2020 14:46
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Oh, also I found what seems like a good series of posts from Longwood Gardens (isn't this your neck of the woods, Crockoduck?) specifically about developing an azalea albeit a very mature one: 1. Birth of a Bonsai 2. Character Development of a Bonsai 3. Giving Our Azalea Bonsai a New Home Might be an interesting read to anyone else with azaleas they are trying to shape.
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Jul 27, 2020 14:51
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Hubis posted:Oh, also I found what seems like a good series of posts from Longwood Gardens (isn't this your neck of the woods, Crockoduck?) specifically about developing an azalea albeit a very mature one: Who isnt at least fantasizing about that?? Good stuff thanks
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Jul 27, 2020 16:42
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Ok, here's what I've got. Feels like I murdered it  I decided to slip pot from the nursery container into an air-pot I had sitting around. I figure with as much pruning as I needed to do I will need to let it grow out for a while, and I don't really have any suitable bonsai pots for it anyways so I'll just leave it in there to develop for a year or two and see how it goes. Three angles: 1.  2.  3.  Angle 1 was my "front" for the initial branch selection, although I'm starting to like 3 more now that I look at it. Anyways, I know I need to prune that central spur, but I haven't yet because I feel like there are a few different ways I could go in terms of shaping. Feedback welcome. Looking at image 1, from the front-left branch clockwise around the back I have branches A/B/C/D. I feel like C is the obvious main trunk, so if I wanted to keep that then I'd have to select one of the other three. In that case, B has a lot of overlap, and D goes in sort of the same direction so maybe I'd keep A? I think AC also looks good from angle 3. Alternatively, I could cut C and maybe keep D. I was kind of assuming I'd keep C so I cut an overlapping branch on D that would have been nice to have otherwise, but oh well. Maybe I'd keep A? On the other hand, those branches are really long, so maybe I need to do a hard prune to like 2-3" on whatever I keep, meaning the upper portions won't really matter anyways and I should just focus on the angles coming out of the spur?
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Jul 27, 2020 17:28
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Hubis posted:
When you're starting an azalea off with such young material, you're looking to establish a trunk line first. Next year after flowering pick a single line and trim off everything besides that. I know the guides that you're looking at and the information isn't wrong so much as it is outdated a bit. You're looking for nice flowing fan like branches. Everything moving outwards away from the trunk, with enough branches that you wind up forming a nice, globular canopy. Noobs often cut of all the forward facing eye branches out of good intent, but this leaves a two dimensional design with no depth and an overly exposed trunk. For now just keep it healthy, next year select a trunk line, then start building your branches.
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Jul 28, 2020 05:29
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Hubis posted:Oh, also I found what seems like a good series of posts from Longwood Gardens (isn't this your neck of the woods, Crockoduck?) specifically about developing an azalea albeit a very mature one: Yup, Kevin's a friend, we worked together at a bonsai garden for a summer a few years ago. The garden owner supplies Longwood with all its trees and bonsai collections. Kevin's worked there for a decade or so, he really knows his way around trees. Didn't realize he had moved to Longwood proper though. Probably the best place for azalea information is Peter Warren's youtube stuff - I got to watch him work at the same garden over the summer and the guy is probably one of the foremost Western authorities on the shrub. Crocoduck fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jul 28, 2020 |
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Jul 28, 2020 05:30
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Hubis posted:Ok, here's what I've got. Feels like I murdered it Right now I'd just focus on getting movement. Much of what you're eventually going to wind up with isn't a twinkle in your tree's eye yet so to speak. You're already developing some inverse taper - I had some satsuki cuttings that I kinda wanted to experiment with and took them over to Bob Mahler's place. With stuff like this he advised me to just use it in rock plantings (which are their own cool kinda art). With the ones we did wind up making into pre bonsai, we just trimmed everything to a single line then let it grow. You might be alright doing that now honestly, thinking about it. Crocoduck fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Jul 28, 2020 |
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Jul 28, 2020 05:35
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Crocoduck posted:Right now I'd just focus on getting movement. Much of what you're eventually going to wind up with isn't a twinkle in your tree's eye yet so to speak. You're already developing some inverse taper - I had some satsuki cuttings that I kinda wanted to experiment with and took them over to Bob Mahler's place. With stuff like this he advised me to just use it in rock plantings (which are their own cool kinda art). With the ones we did wind up making into pre bonsai, we just trimmed everything to a single line then let it grow. You might be alright doing that now honestly, thinking about it. Ok, great. That kind of confirms my instinct that I was getting too far ahead of myself with shaping, etc. I guess what I really need to do is decide how big I actually want the final tree to be, then just focus on growing a good, interesting trunk up to wherever I want the first branch to actually be? E: which sounds kind of like what you said in your first reply. Hubis fucked around with this message at 12:28 on Jul 28, 2020 |
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Jul 28, 2020 12:11
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Crocoduck posted:Probably the best place for azalea information is Peter Warren's youtube stuff - I got to watch him work at the same garden over the summer and the guy is probably one of the foremost Western authorities on the shrub. Saving this name for later thanks
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Jul 28, 2020 16:41
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Hubis posted:Ok, here's what I've got. Feels like I murdered it Dont know enough to critique your pruning but I commend you for getting in there and cutting away. It's always nervewracking for me to prune on a "real" tree that I special ordered and paid money for. How do you like the Air Pots? I'm a total believer in the mechanism but there's a few options. Air Pots seem awesome but they look kinda like idk Tinker Toys LOL. Was eyeing the Rootmaker pots just because they look, well, normal. I've heard good things about the grow bags too. Anyone else with any experience, I'd love to hear from you too
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Jul 28, 2020 16:59
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lil poopendorfer posted:Dont know enough to critique your pruning but I commend you for getting in there and cutting away. It's always nervewracking for me to prune on a "real" tree that I special ordered and paid money for. I have to say that as much as it's been commented that Peter Chan isn't ideal as your only source of bonsai learning, one thing he's really drilled into me is that you aren't going to make much of a bonsai if you aren't willing to cut. Doing all my practicing on red maple sapling that popped up in my yard has also engendered a (possibly foolish) confidence that plants are tougher than it seems so long as you provide appropriate after-care. Anyways, I took this discussion and pruned my other azaleas as well. I will try and post pictures later. lil poopendorfer posted:How do you like the Air Pots? I'm a total believer in the mechanism but there's a few options. Air Pots seem awesome but they look kinda like idk Tinker Toys LOL. Was eyeing the Rootmaker pots just because they look, well, normal. I've heard good things about the grow bags too. Anyone else with any experience, I'd love to hear from you too This is my first year with them so I don't have nearly enough experience to say; however, so far I'm a pretty big fan. Previously I'd been using various fabric pots for similar purposes and while those have a great price point (which is nice because it means I can keep a bunch of sizes around for whatever I need) they definitely don't seem to do the "air prune" thing quite as well. Meanwhile I have a few that have rotted out after ~2 years, so they definitely have a limited lifespan. Meanwhile, the air pots feel extremely rock solid -- I suspect they are much more of a reusable tool. Also while the fabric pots are cheaper, it seems like there is a lot more variety in size to the air pots (probably because making a new size is simply a matter of combining a base diameter with an arbitrary wall height). I found some advertised as "propagation pots" and "salad trays" that are like 4" deep and 8" or 16" diameter (respectively) which seem like they would be perfect for grow/training pots. Also, the "tinker toy" aspect is kind of brilliant: - They ship flat-packed in unfolded form, so they are pretty affordable shipping wise (if you buy enough of them at a time) - When you want to re-pot, you can just unroll the pot rather than having to slip it out (probably critical if they really do generate root mass as well as claimed) - If you want to store them you can just flat-pack them again - And if you have enough parts you can recombine the bases and sides to make the dimensions you want on demand. Anyways, I have some 3gal and 5gal pots (as well as some skinny "starter" pots) and my plan is to do 2-3 year stints in each for things I am trying to grow out. My hope is that it'll give results competitive with planting the trees in the ground (which I don't really have the space for) while also giving me more control over the root structure in the process. The real question for me is how well the air pots are going to perform compared to the various net pots I was using previously. For larger sizes (2-5 gal) net pots aren't really an option, but it'll be interesting to see how they compare at the 6"-8" range. I feel like air pots may perform slightly better, but given the price difference it might not be worth the cost at that range?
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Jul 28, 2020 18:26
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