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Ok Comboomer posted:Goddamnit! I was watching this online shop to grab some conifer/maple saplings cheap. They were available up until like last week too. I'm looking at the little crop of volunteer elms in my garden and speculating if any of them have potential. I dug up one last spring and hacked it down a bit, recently re-potted into a training pot and it's actually looking something like a bonsai tree... although I'd just describe it as "a small tree" at this point:   It's potted a bit crooked right now but I'm not particularly bothered. Awfully bare on the one side near the bottom, though..
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Mar 19, 2020 19:07
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^^That's looking pretty nice. I'm doing my first ever repot tomorrow.
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Mar 19, 2020 21:08
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bessantj posted:^^That's looking pretty nice. what are you repotting?
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Mar 20, 2020 00:09
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Crocoduck posted:what are you repotting? My azalea.
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Mar 20, 2020 00:10
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bessantj posted:My azalea. Wait until after it flowers or don't let it flower this year.
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Mar 20, 2020 01:15
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Crocoduck posted:Wait until after it flowers or don't let it flower this year. I was thinking about that but in the 'Bonsai Bible' it suggests repotting in early spring before it flowers and I'm in the UK. EDIT: Bit more info on what I'm going by from The Bonsai Bible by Peter Chen quote:Repotting: Repot Satsuki every 3-4 years. Japanese growers do this immediately after flowering, at the start of the rainy season. In temperate countries, repotting in early spring, before flowering, is a better option. Always use Japanese Kanuma soil with 30% sphangnum moss peat. Do you still think waiting until after it flowers is a better bet? bessantj fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Mar 20, 2020 |
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Mar 20, 2020 10:09
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bessantj posted:I was thinking about that but in the 'Bonsai Bible' it suggests repotting in early spring before it flowers and I'm in the UK. Peter Chan is not my favorite source, but he is UK based, so there's that. I'm in Philadelphia and the Japanese trained folks I know say repot after flowering. YMMV v(o _ o)v
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Mar 20, 2020 19:56
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Crocoduck posted:Peter Chan is not my favorite source, but he is UK based, so there's that. Oh, I forgot about this, I was going to edit. I have asked a few people over here and they've also said to wait until June after flowering. So thanks for your info, I'm always glad to post here, plenty of good knowledge.
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Mar 20, 2020 20:04
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So on Friday I ended up spending three hours buying toilet paper at Costco, which turned into me having to Zoom into a remote meeting from the parking lot. Fortunately Costco is next to Home Depot and, welp, Home Depot got their first shipment of nursery stock in. Not like there’s a public health crisis forcing many of us to work from home kicking off or anything. Tldr- in the last 2 days between plants and tools/etc I dropped like $150 on bonsai poo poo. Picked up two 30” leyland cypresses that are actually groups (offshoots? I’m banking on being able to separate them, if they share a root it’s way deep down- I’m pretty sure they’re multiple trees sharing one pot), two 12” black pines, and an 8” juniper I’m absolutely in love with. Got some fresh pots, wire, and a few other things coming in the next few days. Can’t wait! Spent a good 3 hours yesterday cleaning up the juniper, one of the pines, and one of the cypress pots. Hopefully gonna get a few individual plantings and at least one forest out of the cypresses.
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Mar 22, 2020 12:46
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Took me around eight hours to carve a bit of this privet and restyle it. Fun way to spend a Saturday night, got my tunes going, got some gin, blah, blah, blah. Quite happy with it.
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Mar 22, 2020 19:43
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The trees have definitely been a bright spot in all this, weather has been beautiful, they're doing great. It's a nice few minutes to hang out with them every morning with coffee.
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Mar 22, 2020 23:45
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Crocoduck posted:Took me around eight hours to carve a bit of this privet and restyle it. That does look very nice.
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Mar 23, 2020 12:43
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bessantj posted:That does look very nice. It's coming together. It's been a hot second since I've styled a deciduous tree, or worked with aluminum wire and I think it shows. I was very proud of the apex and the little 'mini trees' that I put on the right side of the tree. I've gotten a couple universal notes from everyone I've talked to - the branches need even more movement, the cascading branches on the right need to go, and something about the left branch sucks. Still not sure what to do with it. Next up I have to wire a spruce and a yew. And a hornbeam. And a Lonicera. It never ends.
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Mar 23, 2020 19:15
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poo poo yeah! My wires and cutter arrived a day early
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Mar 24, 2020 19:06
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I clumped together some seedlings today. They're the big leaf maples I took from the forest floor a while ago. I'm surprised they've survived this long just in little tetra packs. I know with the variety that it won't be very pretty until the leaf size fits the tree better but it's still super neat manipulating something from nature in this way.
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Apr 12, 2020 00:53
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Bi-la kaifa posted:I clumped together some seedlings today. I actually made a bunch of these from some trident maples. 
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Apr 13, 2020 21:15
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Crocoduck posted:I actually made a bunch of these from some trident maples. what's your advice on using sphagnum moss? Is that just a top-dressing to promote surface roots over conventional bonsai soil? Should I be mounding it on top of anything I have growing in "pre-bonsai" stage?
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Apr 14, 2020 13:54
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Hubis posted:what's your advice on using sphagnum moss? Is that just a top-dressing to promote surface roots over conventional bonsai soil? Should I be mounding it on top of anything I have growing in "pre-bonsai" stage? I put it on top of anything I've done root work on. I think it does help keep surface roots alive, it also locks in moisture from what I can tell. If you shred it finely enough, it's nice for moss to grow on top of. The goddamn birds are always stealing it for their nests though, so after a month or so these will basically be just bonsai soil.
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Apr 14, 2020 17:48
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Just wasted most of the day trying to turn a $24 Home Despot four-trunk Leyland cypress, that I bought back in March when I was a lot dumber about cypresses, into worthwhile stuff. Now I know why everybody’s like “don’t waste your time with Leyland cypress”. You start taking apart the solid wood chunk that forms the heart of the beastie (after watching a few YouTube rednecks show you how, including one dude who turns the top of a 30 foot tree into a five foot tree, which is admittedly pretty cool, and another cat who just goes to town ripping a shrub to literal pieces with his bare hands and then just like shoves them in some dirt swearing that they’ll grow like that). You get them apart and you collect the bigger bottom branches that have to come off for not-quite-air (ground?) layering. You bend them and notice that they have pleasing, willowy shapes. You become optimistic. You look at the now-solitary trunks. these will make killer uprights, you think as you spread the branches out to get a good look. And then you understand. This plant’s proportions are totally off and there’s not really any good way to compensate for it or trim the branches to a more acceptable size and induce budback. It just looks mawkish and gangly and weird. You bend them this way and that way. What do you even do with them? Well, nevermind. gently caress the haters. I’m gonna make something worthwhile here. Anything can bonsai with enough work.....since then I’ve made a teeny tiny forest out of a bunch of the harvested branches. Not sure that it’ll look great or even survive but whatever. I’m currently fiddling around with trying to wire up the smallest trunk into an interesting shape. The 3 larger ones are all separated and potted to allow rooting. Clearly not gonna return them. Hopefully they root and then....I guess I plant them in the yard? My landlord will probably like it. I still have another one, which also ain’t getting returned. For the $ I should’ve gotten another picea and juniper instead (I’ve been super happy with how the ones I got on the same trip have been turning out).
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Apr 21, 2020 21:49
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Two kind of contradictory pieces of advice. One skill in bonsai is just immediately and ruthlessly recognizing what you can accomplish with a plant. Another is realizing that it's all about your pleasure, and the tradition is more about appreciation of nature than it is about conforming to a set of rules or creating a green helmet juniper with badass deadwood.
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Apr 22, 2020 20:31
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Crocoduck posted:Two kind of contradictory pieces of advice. Ultimately, I’m running out of plants to work on and I sure as poo poo ain’t going back to Home Depot anytime soon. Well hello Mr Leyland Cypress what can I do with you...
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Apr 22, 2020 20:40
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I'm still overwhelmed. I've got three trees to style and I'm about to start pruning and wiring more of my deciduous. Then a few weeks after that I have to remove all the wire.
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Apr 22, 2020 21:22
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Crocoduck posted:I'm still overwhelmed. I've got three trees to style and I'm about to start pruning and wiring more of my deciduous. Then a few weeks after that I have to remove all the wire. Post pics! Sounds exciting
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Apr 22, 2020 21:43
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:Post pics! Sounds exciting
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Apr 23, 2020 01:30
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I ordered a starter kit from bonsai empire a bit ago and it should be here Saturday, I wil post pictures when I get it potted and wired so everyone here can eviscerate my technique
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Apr 23, 2020 22:04
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Ok, picture time, didn’t do great with the pruning as can be seen by the bald spot  I’m worried I did too much damage to the roots and while repotting it
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Apr 25, 2020 00:26
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I’m beginning to wonder if a leyland wouldn’t make a good tanuki candidate. They’re really short-lived trees, only 20-25 years so I can see why you might not want to even try when something like a juniper exists.Silver John posted:Ok, picture time, didn’t do great with the pruning as can be seen by the bald spot Looks nice!
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Apr 26, 2020 11:53
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I let my potbelly fig grow a whole bunch more leaves in preparation for the lessened sunlight of winter. And with letting him grow a little wild and moving his locale to a slightly more cool and moist one, he has started growing aerial root every where. Which is rad You can sort of see them, and where he clearly want to grow them here  And a lot more prominently here 
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Apr 26, 2020 12:00
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Silver John posted:Ok, picture time, didn’t do great with the pruning as can be seen by the bald spot Jestery posted:I let my potbelly fig grow a whole bunch more leaves in preparation for the lessened sunlight of winter. And with letting him grow a little wild and moving his locale to a slightly more cool and moist one, he has started growing aerial root every where. Which is rad Those are some good looking trees. Makes me bummed that I don't have any idea with what to do with mine.
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Apr 26, 2020 12:03
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Jestery posted:I let my potbelly fig grow a whole bunch more leaves in preparation for the lessened sunlight of winter. And with letting him grow a little wild and moving his locale to a slightly more cool and moist one, he has started growing aerial root every where. Which is rad  hell yeah
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Apr 26, 2020 12:08
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Seasonal/workflow question for you older hands- how late in the season can I reasonably do a bunch of serious repotting/pruning/wiring (ie start a “fresh” plant) before it becomes risky or you get less than optimal results? I’ve got a couple more conifers that I haven’t started working on yet, and I have my eye on a flowering forsythia stump that a previous tenant left randomly planted in the back yard. The juniper and dwarf spruces I took from nursery stock and set up back in March are looking fantastic and the first one I worked on is starting to get a lot of budback in the places I pruned. It’s been raining heavily this whole month (raining a bunch today, otherwise I’d have posted pics) and I’ve only had to water like three times. Everybody looks super happy and healthy and I hope to god I didn’t just loving jinx this whole deal. So anyway, how long in the season can I keep doing this? I’m assuming that by mid to late summer it’s definitely too late if you expect the plant to still grow.
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Apr 26, 2020 23:33
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I'm repotting a san jose and an itoigawa juniper this weekend. My spruce and maples have already passed the window. I'm in PA, zone 7a I think - if you live south of me you're further along in the season, if you live further north you're a little behind. What you want to look for in the spruce is bud swell - if they'rve started looking like little popcorn balls you're too late.
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Apr 26, 2020 23:58
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Crocoduck posted:I'm repotting a san jose and an itoigawa juniper this weekend. My spruce and maples have already passed the window. I'm in PA, zone 7a I think - if you live south of me you're further along in the season, if you live further north you're a little behind. What you want to look for in the spruce is bud swell - if they'rve started looking like little popcorn balls you're too late. Define “little popcorn balls” pls  (I’m in MA, btw, so north of you)
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Apr 27, 2020 00:38
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https://imgur.com/a/ey888nv First pic is the popcorn stage, second pic is the extension. https://imgur.com/a/wNxRH8g This picture shows where you want your buds for repotting.
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Apr 27, 2020 02:46
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What is the window for maples? Same idea just earlier?
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Apr 27, 2020 03:02
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:What is the window for maples? Same idea just earlier? I don't know about earlier, it seems to hit around the same days for me most years. You're just looking for a window - after the last frost, before the buds begin to move. This is where a greenhouse buys you a bit more flexibility - if you can confidently assume that your tree won't be exposed to frost, you can start your repotting a bit earlier.
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Apr 27, 2020 15:15
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 I kind of forgot about this guy over the winter. I repotted it about a week ago and have been giving it full sun and watering every day. Is there any hope? My plan is to continue to try until the pandemic is over at least.
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May 7, 2020 22:07
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Big Dick Cheney posted:
I hope there is hope because it looks really nice and would be a shame to see it go, how is it doing? Bad images incoming, my crabapple is having a blooming good year this year  
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May 11, 2020 15:12
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Big Dick Cheney posted:
Dead.
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May 11, 2020 20:37
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When's a good time for me to defoliate/do some pruning on my trident maple? I've let it do its own thing for the past several years because I was trying to thicken up its trunk, but I think it's time for me to improve its canopy a bit. It's just about fully in leaf, should I give it a bit of springtime to store up some energy before I do anything?
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May 11, 2020 22:28
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