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Thanks! I'm about to try using some bricks and fenceboards to create a lower shelf actually! I found some slugs and snails lurking underneath one of my ficus forests and feel that I need to elevate them a bit. Nice spot on the Peter Chan book! I will definitely purchase it. Have you ever read "Bonsai with Japanese Maples"? I'm considering purchasing it.
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May 25, 2013 04:47
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Yesterday I did my first trimming ever on a boxwood I bought back in April and I definitely went a little overboard with my clipping. So I'm trying to make real sure I don't stress the plant out. Today my father filled the water bottle I use for misting my plants with Pine Sol without telling me. I hope my tree is imbued with the power of Pine Sol.
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May 28, 2013 04:51
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Boxwoods are A-OK with being trimmed up harshly. They've been cultivated for it. Holy crap though with the water bottle. If you accidentally hit your plants with it, wash them with water A.S.A.P. to dilute the chemicals, as they can kill your plant. Rinse them off, and try and rub the branches and leaves with your fingers as you do so to help clean the Pine Sol off.
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May 28, 2013 05:24
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Yeah I tried my best to clean it up and flush out as much as I could from the soil (the water was foaming up a surprising amount considering I only gave it a few quick sprays). I got to say though, the plant already looks like it's losing a little color and some of the leaves have little spots that are worrying me. I'll see where we stand in a few days. I was planning on re-potting it next week but I think I'll hold out until September now that it's really being stress tested.
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May 28, 2013 21:12
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I accidentally poured dishsoap on an orchid once - no amount of washing it off saved it. Good luck.
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May 28, 2013 21:19
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AwwJeah posted:Yeah I tried my best to clean it up and flush out as much as I could from the soil (the water was foaming up a surprising amount considering I only gave it a few quick sprays). I got to say though, the plant already looks like it's losing a little color and some of the leaves have little spots that are worrying me. I'll see where we stand in a few days. I was planning on re-potting it next week but I think I'll hold out until September now that it's really being stress tested. Actually you might want to repot now if the soil is contaminated.
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May 28, 2013 21:42
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Hope your plant makes it, and you give your dad a stern talking-to for filling random bottles with cleaners, and not mentioning it or labeling it. That sort of behavior can be very hazardous. < >
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May 29, 2013 04:11
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Welp, I kept my fingers crossed all week but I can't touch a single leaf now without it instantly falling off. My first ever attempt at bonsai creation has turned into a failure. My father felt bad and purchased me a new boxwood to work with, so bless him. The water bottle is now labeled with my name. In permanent marker. Anyway, what do you guys do to clean and lubricate your shears? After trimming up my plant today, I washed it clean with some water and dishsoap then I sprayed the blades with some WD-40. Is this acceptable or did I just ruin a perfectly fine pair of shears?
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Jun 3, 2013 02:18
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I fried my avocado. Put it outside because hey, they grow in hot places (found out later, they grow in hot places in the shade), only to come home at the end of the day and all four leaves are shriveled up. Is it a goner? Anything I can do, pull the dead leaves off?
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Jun 6, 2013 21:31
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jackpot posted:I fried my avocado. Put it outside because hey, they grow in hot places (found out later, they grow in hot places in the shade), only to come home at the end of the day and all four leaves are shriveled up. Is it a goner? Anything I can do, pull the dead leaves off? Maybe... It depends if the roots and stem aren't fried as well. Even if the stem is crispy, it would be nice to put it out in a shaded place to see if anything might sprout from the bottom again. One of my Astilbe plants that got fried to the ground is slowly coming back after looking dead for two weeks. I hope your plant does the same thing as well. 
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Jun 6, 2013 22:01
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Spent all morning defoliating three of my ficuses. Grueling work, but it's made me appreciate the trees a lot more - the branch structure isn't that bad. Can't wait to see the new leaves in a few weeks. For those not in the know, defoliation is a very common, pretty much mandatory, process where you remove all leaves on the plant to increase ramification and reduce leaf size. Have a couple new (large) additions to the bonsai stable as well. Forest looks pretty nice without leaves!  Love the tree, hate the color of my pot. A tree raised for ten years by my teacher, I plan on putting it in a turquoise/lavender-ish pot. Ready for finishing.  I think this is becoming quite a nice tree. Next year I'll put it in a bonsai pot. The leaf in the pot was actually from this tree! Very out of scale.  New pot! Probably a bit too small, but whatever, I like the color.  Girlfriend bought me this as a birthday present. Can't wait until it blooms! Crocoduck fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Jun 9, 2013 |
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Jun 9, 2013 17:50
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Is that last one a wisteria?
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Jun 9, 2013 18:01
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Yes it is. Amazingly easy to grow, mine has put on 3 feet of growth in as many weeks. The wood is very soft though, and I will have to seal it somehow to protect it.
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Jun 9, 2013 18:27
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When is it considered appropriate to completely defoliate your plant? I learned about doing this just the other day but as far as I can tell people tend to do it on plants that are nearing a decade old. Also, all those bonsai look great crocoduck!
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Jun 10, 2013 02:58
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Thanks Jeah! I've been told that defoliation helps increase ramification and shrink the size of leaves. I know it's done very often with ficuses and tropicals in general, and semi-often with maples, such as japanese and trident maples. Maples might be where you got your impression of defoliation being practiced on decade old trees. Tropicals seem to recover very quickly from such treatment, and can be defoliated any year you haven't repotted your tree. Defoliation significantly slows growth though, so don't defoliate a tree if you're looking to thicken its branches or trunk. This is my first time defoliating, and I have done it because most of the branches on my trees have reached the desired thickness. http://www.bonsaihunk.us/Defoliatingfigs.html Crocoduck fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Jun 10, 2013 |
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Jun 10, 2013 03:36
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AwwJeah posted:When is it considered appropriate to completely defoliate your plant? I learned about doing this just the other day but as far as I can tell people tend to do it on plants that are nearing a decade old. Defoliating is quite stressful so you probably want to limit it to established, healthy plants. Unless you've got an established plant there's probably not much point in doing anyway, since you don't really want to start reducing leaf size until you've got the general shape and ramification of the plant down.
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Jun 10, 2013 06:52
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A human heart posted:Defoliating is quite stressful so you probably want to limit it to established, healthy plants. Unless you've got an established plant there's probably not much point in doing anyway, since you don't really want to start reducing leaf size until you've got the general shape and ramification of the plant down. I would say that you want to start defoliating after you've established your primary branch structure and it has grown to the desired thickness, but also that defoliation helps establish shape and ramification. It took me two years of working with these trees to get them to that point, so they're not necessarily all that old.  drat I love this tree. Crocoduck fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Jun 11, 2013 |
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Jun 10, 2013 21:02
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I need some help with a piece of nursery stock I got from Wee Tree bonsai nursery. Juniperus procumbens 'nana'. I picked it because it has fairly well defined foliage pads, but the trunk curves back on itself. Can anyone give me ideas what to do with it, style-wise? I'm very new and can't see the tree here.  
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Jun 11, 2013 04:29
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Quick and dirty virtual image: I like this angle as the front, but would shorten the tree down considerably with the addition of a jin. The trunk is thin enough that you could add some wriggle and movement to it. Branch structure can come later. This is only a first step though, you could refine it into quite a nice tree at some point. Make sure it is healthy before doing any work.
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Jun 11, 2013 19:07
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Crocoduck posted:Quick and dirty virtual image: Looks great, I like this a lot. The tree needs to be shorter anyway, I think. It appears to be quite root-bound as well. Would it be a good idea to repot it into a larger pot without trimming the roots as well, or would it be too much stress on the plant?
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Jun 11, 2013 20:32
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Economic Sinkhole posted:Looks great, I like this a lot. The tree needs to be shorter anyway, I think. It appears to be quite root-bound as well. Would it be a good idea to repot it into a larger pot without trimming the roots as well, or would it be too much stress on the plant? I'm not great with junipers (I've managed to kill pretty much every single one I get my hands on - I blame my climate), so I'll defer to Mr. Soop if he chimes in, but I think that slip potting is always ok. Be careful what sort of soil you put it into. Edit: A thought.  (Clear away all non paint foliage) Crocoduck fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Jun 12, 2013 |
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Jun 11, 2013 20:46
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Hello everyone! Just finished reading through the thread and am happy to find so much great info for taking care of bonsai's. I haven't done much gardening before, but this thread caught my eye and these miniature trees look amazing so I thought I'd give it a go. So I went out and picked up this guy at my local nursery.  It's a Juniper (Procumbens Nana) which I selected due to the OP saying it should be a great starter tree. I have a few concerns about this one however. 1) The trunk of it seems very thin and it really moves around a lot, I'm worried it's not rooted in well or just isn't strong enough to hold up its weight 2) The way it's leaning right now doesn't look to great from an aesthetic viewpoint. Is there someway I can get it to sit upright more? if not I'd at least want it to lean less to the back which you can see in the second picture. 3) I have no idea what kind of soil mixture it has right now and aside from it looking nice and green I have no idea how healthy it is 4) I've read in the thread that you can use either a general all purpose fertilizer or some bonsai specific type. However, we didn't have either of those readily on hand (not really). In the mean time that blue stick you see in the dirt is actually some sort of all purpose slow release fertilizer, which I cut in half because I figured the full stick might be too much for it. I guess my question is here will this be ok for it? In the long run I'd really like to try to get a willow bonsai, as they're my favorite trees. Possibly some sort of forest type as well, although my current goal is definitely just to make sure I won't kill this one.
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Jun 17, 2013 16:56
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dragoat posted:Hello everyone! Just finished reading through the thread and am happy to find so much great info for taking care of bonsai's. I haven't done much gardening before, but this thread caught my eye and these miniature trees look amazing so I thought I'd give it a go. So I went out and picked up this guy at my local nursery. Cute little guy! quote:1) The trunk of it seems very thin and it really moves around a lot, I'm worried it's not rooted in well or just isn't strong enough to hold up its weight 1) Trunk would need to thicken to make a really nice tree. I'd plant it in the ground to do this. 2) Could certainly wire some movement into it. Too many straight lines looks unnatural and uninteresting. 3) Yeah, problem is that it could certainly be a recently rooted cutting, so you don't know if the soil is good. I'd encourage putting it into a high quality bonsai soil asap. 4) I would use a different fertilizer instead of the stick. I'm still trying to get the hang of fertilizing conifers, but I like having a small collection of brands I can rotate through. quote:In the long run I'd really like to try to get a willow bonsai, as they're my favorite trees. Possibly some sort of forest type as well, although my current goal is definitely just to make sure I won't kill this one. Willow bonsai are difficult to get looking good, because of their growth habits. If you like weeping trees, it's easier to start with some other species, such as wisteria. Forest plantings are very easy to put together and can look very good in only a year or two, with inferior trees. Set one up this summer!
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Jun 20, 2013 14:42
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I used to be into Bonsai, though never proper. I'd just buy cool looking ones and keep them alive as long as I could. I got back into my gardening love the other day when I was working on my yard, after I paid a guy to pull all the millions of weeds (which is a lot considering I live in a city with a smallish "yard"). But I'm going balls out because I need a hobby like this. I had grabbed a cheap Ikea Ficus Ginseng bonsai for my office a while back, mostly just to have something alive in my office, before I re-found my love for gardening last weekend:  (crazy colored light is an LED grow light, I used to sell them and use them for a certain magical plant until I got busted, and then lost my love for gardening). It's actually two of them, and one appears to be dead. So I'm going to re-pot it and remove the dead one tomorrow. I also ordered 3 pre-bonsai trees. Parrots beak/Gmelina philippensis, a Dwarf African Strangler Fig, and a Brazilian Rain Tree - Chloroleucon tortum. I'm pretty stoked to get those in and start working with them.
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Jun 27, 2013 17:46
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While looking up pictures to use as a model while creating my own artificial bonsai, I stumbled upon this person: http://fusionbonsai.com/fusion-project-2/ Basically this person is taking 150 Japanese Maple seedlings and trying to fuse them into a single bonsai tree. Has anyone heard of something like this before? It seems interesting but a little unethical to me, but I'd like to see if his experiments pan out to anything. Also to add to the the mad sciencist feel I get from his blog, his avatar is pretty creepy.
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Jun 28, 2013 19:14
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RizieN posted:It's actually two of them, and one appears to be dead. So I'm going to re-pot it and remove the dead one tomorrow. I also ordered 3 pre-bonsai trees. Parrots beak/Gmelina philippensis, a Dwarf African Strangler Fig, and a Brazilian Rain Tree - Chloroleucon tortum. I'm pretty stoked to get those in and start working with them. Nice picks! Ficus and Gmelina are really insanely easy to work with. EagerSleeper posted:While looking up pictures to use as a model while creating my own artificial bonsai, I stumbled upon this person: Doug Phillips pioneered this technique with trident maples if I remember correctly, I suspect that it would work better with them because of their stronger growth habits. He managed to get some nice trees out of it. I don't think there's anything unethical about it, the plants don't suffer anymore than they do in normal bonsai training. Ficus are also often fused. Good way to get a strong tree from young stock.
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Jun 29, 2013 15:02
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The idea of the metasequoia fusion is fantastic.
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Jun 29, 2013 18:44
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unprofessional posted:The idea of the metasequoia fusion is fantastic. Maybe a dumb question, but can metasequoia be bonsaied? e. wait. Google says yes.
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Jun 29, 2013 18:48
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I actually had one that I bought at a bonsai nursery, but the intense heatwave (a couple weeks of 100+ degree temperatures) here outright cooked it. Didn't pay much for it, but it's still a loss.  How is everyone else doing with their bonsai during these warm months?
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Jul 24, 2013 09:30
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I never got around to purchasing my metasequoia. Maybe I should, while I have the money for it. Meanwhile, I have an avocado growing out of a pot that I might try to bonsai. Anyone ever tried this, or had any luck with it? Right now it's only about 6" tall, but it looks really healthy and I have a nice place for it outside.
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Jul 25, 2013 01:56
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I'm considering an indoor bonsai to keep in my apartment, but temperature can fluctuate as low as 30 and as high as 90 throughout the year. Is there any indoor bonsai that can handle that?
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Jul 27, 2013 05:21
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So long as the temp doesn't dip or rise rapidly, and you keep it in a warmer place during the colder months, a Ficus would be ideal.
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Jul 28, 2013 02:14
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Mr. Soop posted:So long as the temp doesn't dip or rise rapidly, and you keep it in a warmer place during the colder months, a Ficus would be ideal. I don't think a ficus would tolerate a dip into the thirties very well, but I could be wrong. Mine have dropped leaves from temps in the 40s.
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Jul 30, 2013 17:52
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There's this one person who makes amazing artificial bonsai trees on a miniature scale that I'm a fan of. Thought that you guys might enjoy! http://kentoart.deviantart.com/
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Aug 4, 2013 03:50
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That's pretty darn cool! If I had some disposable income these days, I wouldn't mind dropping a few bucks on that cool decor. As for a Ficus in the cold, I've seen it done with one outside. However, it WAS a fairly large, well established one that was protected from a majority of cold wind. Indoors, you'd have to give a Ficus some good old TLC by keeping it in the warmest part of the house during cold months. If it drops just a few leaves, that's alright. If it starts dropping a whole bunch of leaves, consult your bonsai physician.
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Aug 13, 2013 08:04
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Can a Walnut be cut for a bonsai? I have a HUGE walnut tree in my yard and could probably take a cutting off it if they will grow from a cutting.
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Aug 19, 2013 21:50
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I saw this thread and immediately thought of the tons of sugar maple and trident maple seedlings all around the yard. (I'm not joking when I say there are at least 50 little guys that are 4-6" in the yard.) Then I read through the thread and got some ideas. Mostly the idea of trying my hand at making them into bonsai. Most of these seedlings are only around 6" tall as of now. From what I've read, it'd be a bad idea to put them in some sort of pot right now, yeah? Anyway, mine and my neighbors' trees will provide a steady number of seedlings for a while, I do believe. Cool thread, and some really nice pictures in here. E: In the meantime, I will probably take a trip to Home Depot and find a bonsai of some sort to do some actual bonsai-ing and jump right to it. Banzai! Rotten Cookies fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Aug 24, 2013 |
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Aug 24, 2013 06:58
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With those seedlings, I'd let them grow for a few years in the ground, then make a forest out of them. Now is not a good time for heavy pruning if you are in the northern hemisphere. I'd pick out a few plants and leave them alone until the proper time for pruning (which will depend upon the species you select).
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Aug 25, 2013 14:20
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Crocoduck posted:I don't think a ficus would tolerate a dip into the thirties very well, but I could be wrong. Mine have dropped leaves from temps in the 40s. Yeah, this past year I had a ficus right next to a very large window over the summer, as my condo only has the one large window. I live in Boston and most of the winter it was fine... until we had a very bitter cold snap in the dead of winter, it must have been 20 below at one point. The temps immediately by the window were at freezing temps. My ficus drat near died - pretty much all the leaves dropped. I had to do intense rehab on it for a month to bring it back to life. Lesson learned!
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Sep 10, 2013 16:56
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I got a question for all you maple owners. I've had my tree for a few years now and I always watch its leaves burn like hell in the late summer regardless of watering/shade. This year I've been bringing the little guy inside during the hotter days and have noticed a resurgence of growth, luckily my reef tanks light lends some sun for it while inside that does not burn. How do you feel about this method of controlling the leaf burn? Would you have any tips (other than early morning sun and direct shade otherwise) in keeping Seigen maple from burning in the late-summer southern California sun?
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Sep 10, 2013 18:23
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