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The new additions: Pomegranate  Pyracantha  Fukien Tea  (All in pretty bad need of pruning)
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Aug 22, 2020 15:49
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I mean... nothing is going to develop its trunk in a bonsai pot? That's why people say "put it in the ground" when people ask how to thicken it up
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Aug 22, 2020 16:05
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:I mean... nothing is going to develop its trunk in a bonsai pot? That's why people say "put it in the ground" when people ask how to thicken it up Not true, it just takes a long fukken time.
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Aug 22, 2020 21:58
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Hey there bud
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Aug 23, 2020 03:23
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Crocoduck posted:Nothing wrong with dropping 2k on a tree, but that tree is not worth 2k. Jades aren't seen as trees commanding high prices, true, but that's gotta be one of the biggest, oldest specimens around. If I was in the position to spend that much on pre-bonsai I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'll stop talking about jades in the bonsai thread though  Hubis posted:Ok so I got myself a dwarf pomegranate because I'd always wanted one and now I'm wondering: did I screw myself? Temperate trees need ~1000 hours of less than 40F to satisfy dormancy requirements. That's the rule of thumb I've heard, so maybe your strategy would work. Unheated garage could work, you could see if local nurseries provide overwintering services OR even put it in a fridge. I'd call the nearest bonsai nursery and ask what they do tbh. This article has some good info: https://www.evergreengardenworks.com/dormancy.htm I gotta be honest - that pomegranate is beautiful but providing a dormancy period for trees that cant tolerate frost sounds difficult if that's not your native climate. Let us know what you do. As for trunk growth, up-pot by 2" diameter and 2" depth as soon as the roots grow to fill the pot (eg: you can remove the pot and the rootball remains in the shape of the pot). Weather permitting of course.
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Aug 23, 2020 16:01
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lil poopendorfer posted:Temperate trees need ~1000 hours of less than 40F to satisfy dormancy requirements. That's the rule of thumb I've heard, so maybe your strategy would work. Unheated garage could work, you could see if local nurseries provide overwintering services OR even put it in a fridge. I'd call the nearest bonsai nursery and ask what they do tbh. Awesome, thanks for the info. I'll give that article a read. Yeah, since it doesn't really dip below 30'F here until late December (if not more like January) I think my plan will be to set up some kind of tent outside (either a single pot or my whole bench) and maybe try the Christmas light trick for a few months, then bring it inside. I'm thinking mid-October thru December would give me 8-10 weeks, which will hopefully work out. Then I'll up-pot it just before the weather warms up enough to relocate it back outside. E: Fridge is actually a funny idea. I have a chest freezer converted into a kegerator that stays at a constant 37'F.... Hubis fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Aug 23, 2020 |
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Aug 23, 2020 18:39
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lil poopendorfer posted:Jades aren't seen as trees commanding high prices, true, but that's gotta be one of the biggest, oldest specimens around. If I was in the position to spend that much on pre-bonsai I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'll stop talking about jades in the bonsai thread though I mean, even besides the fact that it's a jade I'd just expect a lot more character, movement, and structure from a four figure tree. I'm not the biggest fan of jade, but they've definitely got their fans and appreciators - my buddy is apprenticing in Japan and he's still in love with them.
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Aug 23, 2020 21:23
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Nothing better than techno and working on a tree. 
Crocoduck fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Aug 25, 2020 |
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Aug 25, 2020 01:31
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Speaking of jade bonsai
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Aug 29, 2020 01:03
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Added another tall portulocaria, a wide pot with 4-5 short but fat portulocaria trunks, and a threefer of schefflera + a crop of other desired houseplants (a bunch of croton varietals that I didn’t have and a monstera adansonii, finally I can die on Instagram) I have a problem.
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Sep 1, 2020 00:05
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Jestery posted:Hey there bud this makes a great phone background, btw
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Sep 2, 2020 10:18
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Just getting into the hobby. I've been thinking about buying sever juniper procumbens to practice trimming and styling and to play around with on the cheap. I can't really find a good source for affordable pots, I was wondering if anyone had recommendations?
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Sep 7, 2020 16:39
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eSporks posted:Just getting into the hobby. I've been thinking about buying sever juniper procumbens to practice trimming and styling and to play around with on the cheap. I can't really find a good source for affordable pots, I was wondering if anyone had recommendations? Amazon, unfortunately. Unless you wanna go straight to BonsaiOutlet, etc. I have been told that you shouldn’t really prune junipers now. On that advice I, personally, have decided to wait until late Winter to buy new outdoor plants for 2021 rather than buy them now and require caring for a bunch of shrubby prebonsai through overwintering. I am happy that I followed people’s advice to take care of the outdoor bonsai I currently have for the year. For you that means more study on what you want to do in March. Watch and read as much as you can, it will make you more confident and decisive and you’ll waste less time. Learn about as many different basic species (get to know a few popular junipers, pines, larches, spruces, etc, and a few azaleas, boxwoods, maples, forsythia, etc.) as you can so that when you see something you’ve never heard of, but that looks potentially ‘bonsai-able’, for $5 at the garden center you can quickly figure out if it’s worth getting (usually yes, but also knowing poo poo will help you not waste $75 on bullshit Leyland Cypress like I did, that money could’ve gone into junipers  )Meanwhile, spend a bunch of that “I want juniper now” money on indoor bonsai like ficuses, Schhefflera, portulacaria, jade and start working on those now while you can still sun them outside/keep them by an open window. Plus, stores are gonna be rank with cheap conifers after the holidays. trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Sep 7, 2020 |
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Sep 7, 2020 16:48
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I'm styling juniper now, but removing a ton of foliage is never a great idea. Reducing in stages is usually what I go for, but I've seen Mauro go loving ham on some of my RMJ. The real key with juniper is good wiring, which takes some time to get good at. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctdNi_P7_co
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Sep 7, 2020 17:16
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Anyone have tips or videos for inspiration for a coral bark maple? I picked a tiny one out between some pavers a few years ago and its still going  I'm pretty sure I'm just going to plant it this year and get it thicker as its grown substantially in the big pot its in but looking at others I guess I have probably 3-4 years before I should start shaping it?
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Sep 7, 2020 17:55
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I'm not aware of anyone working with them or any really substantial bonsai being made with them. Still, doesn't mean it can't be done. If the tree is still young, you might try the tile method. http://bonsai4me.com/AdvTech/ATdevelopingclumpformbonsai.htm
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Sep 7, 2020 23:25
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Crocoduck posted:I'm not aware of anyone working with them or any really substantial bonsai being made with them. Still, doesn't mean it can't be done. If the tree is still young, you might try the tile method. This is phenomenal, thank you. It seemed like it doesnt really grow in a way beneficial for bonsai but it was a tree that needed to be moved from the pavers so I hoped to see if I could practice on it and keep it alive
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Sep 8, 2020 01:10
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It's been a little while, so I decided to sit down with my little baby junipers and just give them a once over and make sure everything was looking... normal? And it seems like perhaps they might be having some issues.  Basically, a large part of the needles at the end of the branches are ..dying? They're brown and crispy, basically dead. Some are only like that on half the needles. I suspect it might be because I wasn't super careful when I did the first pruning and might have somehow knicked needles that didn't come off, but I thought I was more careful than this. We've been having a lot of rain lately, but the soil feels damp-but=dryish pretty much the day after it rains.  My other little juniper, who I've wiggled around a little since I first wired him, which is why the wire looks so loose at the top there. I wasn't sure if it was worth redoing it since it still holds it in place just fine. This guy is hanging on great, no sign of any yellow/brown needles and I can definitely tell it's grown a little in just the small amount of time I've had it. Then there's my eternal anxiety, my jade.  Looking much different after a heavy pruning, and already getting a ton of new growth. I'm still really torn about taking the last few "big" leaves off, so I've just left them for now. Maybe in the spring, I suppose. The last time I posted it, I had it in a 8 inch plastic pot kind of hanging over the edge and was still not 100% sure if it was going to be ok. I finally bit the bullet and pulled it out of that pot (probably way earlier than I should have...but, plant anxiety? If that's a thing, I definitely have it.) The good news is it's definitely already started pushing out roots, despite the fact that I basically cut the entire root ball/nodes off of it due to rot. Now he's in a nice little red pot my mom gave me that feels much more fitting, so.. hooray, all around. The bad news is there's something really funny going on with this spot on its main trunk, and I have no clue what it is, what it means, or what to do about it. Basically like.. the "bark" of the plant is starting to be peeled away from the node where I guess a leaf or branch once was. It doesn't SEEM to be exposing any part of the internal bit of the plant's fibrous bits at the moment. Should I just do my best to gently trim that away with like a hobby knife or something, or just leave it and hope it recovers on its own? My fear is that somehow it'll rip more bark off if I leave it as it is.  To add to my "UGH" about problems with this dumb plant, I guess in my mind I equated "better draining soil" with "Needs to be watered way more", and now I've given the drat thing edema. I'm going to hold on watering it for at least the next two weeks and hope that the blisters on the leaves go away.   Last but not least, I found this little holly on the back side of our property and decided that it was going to be a sacrifice to my hobby because it looked neat.  I trimmed most of it's leaves off so it could just concentrate on being a good plant for a while. I'm honestly still not 100% sure if it's going to live or not but... I guess that's plants? Also a tiny square of moss that I liberated from a pot at my mom's house, that I've just stuck in here for the time being because I have no idea how to make it grow bigger/more. 
That Damn Satyr fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Sep 14, 2020 |
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Sep 14, 2020 19:03
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A juniper's strength is in its foliage - these will probably die. They really weren't quite ready to be wired yet, you'll need to start with specimens that are a bit more vigorous next time.
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Sep 15, 2020 10:52
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Me, a year ago: "Ok bonsai is pretty cool, but it seems like all the specialty pots are just a huge waste of money when any old pot will do." Me, now:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRbaRHT_W5I Hubis fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Sep 15, 2020 |
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Sep 15, 2020 13:08
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Hubis posted:Me, a year ago: The pain is real - I just spent a little bit too much getting some Chinese production pots coming up my way. I've got one nice Japanese pot and I swear to god the thing feels like silk.
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Sep 15, 2020 17:13
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Why don’t I ever see twin-trunk cascades (or I guess twin-cascade, if you’re thinking about two-line trees where the primary branch hangs down and forms the cascade portion while the rest of the tree stays up top)? What I mean is why are cascades with two or more big swoops so rare, as to almost be nonexistent? Is it a “looking too shrubby and small” thing? Certainly a lot of junipers and portulacaria have the starting branches and mass to do it. Is it tradition?
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Sep 16, 2020 08:05
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Ok Comboomer posted:Why don’t I ever see twin-trunk cascades (or I guess twin-cascade, if you’re thinking about two-line trees where the primary branch hangs down and forms the cascade portion while the rest of the tree stays up top)? You'll see them occasionally. In general the thought is if environmental pressures were enough to bring one trunk down, the other would generally follow. Still, yamadori are weird, so sometimes you have to work with what you've got. Here's one of mine. 
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Sep 16, 2020 11:33
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Fall is finally showing up here, and we are hitting night time lows in the upper 40s this week so I decided it's as good a time as any to start migrating things inside. I'm pretty proud of my work on the fukien Tea (it was basically one big topiary when I got it). Honestly not quite sure what to do with the raintree yet.  Chop, defoliate, chop, defoliate... Really not certain what my plan is for the styling here, but right now I think I just need to build up some branches and see if inspiration takes. Starting to reveal more of the rock here -- it goes all the way to the bottom of the pot. In retrospect, maybe I should have placed the tree further down along the rock?. I brushed back some of the moss to look at the roots -- in general doing well, but not all of them are developing where I would have wanted them, but I think I need to just let them go for a while to mass up, then try and rearrange some of them after they've developed..  Pretty happy with the styling here, too. Trying to get a low pad on the right, then a little negative space between that and the apex. Another pad on the back to frame the trunk, and one on the far left. Not sure if should keep the branch in the front center of not... It seems to me like it could use some leaf size reduction, too. Can I defoliate a geranium? I'm worried the robustness of ficuses and maples has me over-confident. Speaking of which: for any of the lurkers out there, get a Ficus if you want a literally infinite supply of bonsai material  Those are just sticks I cut off and jammed into some damp potting mix.
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Sep 16, 2020 14:33
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Hubis posted:Speaking of which: for any of the lurkers out there, get a Ficus if you want a literally infinite supply of bonsai material Would you possibly be open to selling or some sort of baby plant trade for one of those? I have PMs if you are, please let me know! I have exactly 90000 baby jades from pruning down my big baby that I've no clue what to do with that I'm happy to offer up.
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Sep 17, 2020 00:31
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That drat Satyr posted:Would you possibly be open to selling or some sort of baby plant trade for one of those? I have PMs if you are, please let me know! I have exactly 90000 baby jades from pruning down my big baby that I've no clue what to do with that I'm happy to offer up. I'd be happy to, but I'm not sure it would even be worth the cost of shipping. I'm serious when I say they are brain-dead to propogate. Here:  So that is a leaf I cut off of a $10 "born-to-die" bonsai from Home Depot. 1) jam the leaf in moist potting mix 2) leave it in part sun for 2-3 weeks 3) literally ignore it No messing with wrapping it in plastic, no rooting hormone, no worrying about heel vs bud cuttings, etc. Just "green stuff in dirt maek grow". The parent plant has been pruned really heavily and grown back vigorously several times over the summer. The branches are super flexible and so easy to shape. It has to come inside in the winter, but while it likes sun and humidity it will do just fine in drier air and less light. It's been a really great plant for me to experiment on. I feel like (in my EXTREMELY limited experience) if you are just looking to get into bonsai, my recommendation would be to get: - some kind of maple for outdoors/deciduous experience - a ficus for tropical/indoors - and maybe a quince if you want something flowering? They are all quick go grow, easy to work with, hard to kill, and can still give some really great results.
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Sep 17, 2020 22:00
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Before: After:  Another tree of my friend's. Crocoduck fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Sep 20, 2020 |
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Sep 20, 2020 23:18
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DIY Secret Santa signups are now open! Also I love your trees. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3941260
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Sep 22, 2020 19:33
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Before/after on a client's juniper. I'm semi happy about how it turned out, the rear branches are a mess and the apex could use work, but it might just need growth. 
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Sep 23, 2020 03:00
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Crocoduck posted:Before/after on a client's juniper. I'm semi happy about how it turned out, the rear branches are a mess and the apex could use work, but it might just need growth. I assume repotting in the spring at that angle? What do you do with the roots with a dramatic shift like that? It seems like they will be really low with few surface roots on one side, and the opposite on the other? Are they generally pliable enough to rearrange, or do you have to do significant root pruning?
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Sep 23, 2020 15:58
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Hubis posted:I assume repotting in the spring at that angle? That's my suggestion, yeah. With roots like that you just nibble a bit off at a time. You can cover exposed roots in a poultice of muck and sphagnum moss and that will also protect them. After 3 years or so you should have nice root growth under there and during a subsequent repot you can trim them flush.
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Sep 23, 2020 17:03
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Are bonsai hard to grow? I've always wanted 1
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Sep 25, 2020 22:18
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twine.amber posted:Are bonsai hard to grow? I've always wanted 1 No, they're just hard to grow well. What part of the country are you in? How much time (and money), realistically, do you want to devote to it? How far do you really want to take this?
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Sep 26, 2020 00:10
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Crocoduck posted:No, they're just hard to grow well. What part of the country are you in? How much time (and money), realistically, do you want to devote to it? How far do you really want to take this? Zone 9b : 25 to 30 (F) Plenty of time. Money, prefer to do things on the cheap. ~$100 for a current budget is say. I've dabbled enough to feel like I want to take it seriously. I've got plenty of regular plants, some tools. And a couple small trees I bought foolishly that I want to learn what to do before I ruin them, they are just growing out in pots right now. I want some good starter reqs to get going with.
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Sep 26, 2020 01:13
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eSporks posted:Not OP, but I'm wanting to get into it more with a better idea of what time doing. Are you in the humid part of 9b or the dry part of 9b? Otherwise you've got it really easy as far as growing tropicals. You need ~90 days of sub-40'F temperatures (rough estimate) to do deciduous bonsai, but you could go hog wild with some Ficus, Brazillian Rain Tree, or Gardenia (as a quick example of things I got because they are supposed to be easy).
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Sep 26, 2020 02:58
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Dry. Just outside of sacramento. I'd say we get 90 days of sub 40. The two trees Im growing out are a bald cypress and a maple, and they handle the weather great. I also have a few tiny jades I'm growing from clippings and a shrub that I think I killed. I was thinking about a ficus.
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Sep 26, 2020 03:13
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Ficus are good starter plants. At $100 you've got fairly limited options, but you could get a ginseng ficus and a pair of clippers or something. I'd start setting money aside for some of the recurring maintenance costs (wire, fertilizer, soil, maybe a nice pot), but that could get you started.
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Sep 26, 2020 14:49
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I’d get a couple of ficus, maybe some spekboom if you can find it large enough, and schefflera. Ideally you’re gonna want to spend more than $100 to start tho. $16-30 will get you 1-2 cheap ceramic pots or a set of 3-9 (depending on size) plastic trainers on Amazon. Personally I’d start with the latter. Wire- $15-30 will get you enough wire in enough sizes to start. Wire cutters- $10 Plant cutters- 2-3 sizes @ Home Depot/Amazon, nothing fancy, no “real” bonsai tools- at min you want a set of fine/precision pruning shears and a branch lopper which will run you about $12-$20 total. This will get you up and running but eventually you’ll want to start amassing a set of decent tools. My first pruning shears were $6 at Home Depot and they worked decently enough but I more-or less killed them for their intended purpose after about 3 months. Soil- somebody gave me an easy soil mix a few weeks back, expect to spend $30-40 on it. So that’s already at least $100 on gear and I haven’t budgeted in any plants yet. You could go all-in, plants and gear for like $150-$200. Maybe $125 if you were really thrifty/smart about getting plants (a lot of tropicals like schefflera are sold potted in groups, so like a $15 6” pot might have 3-4 individual plants in it, also lots of people have neglected ficus/etc they don’t want which can often make decent starter material). That would set you up with the basics and give you the option to add a bunch more plants and/or gear (lights, etc) over the course of the following year. Edit: you want gloves? You probably want gloves. Home Depot has them surprisingly cheap but I’d still probs expect to spend $5-$20 on a set. trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Sep 26, 2020 |
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Sep 26, 2020 15:08
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In terms of tools, if you can only have one and you're on a strict budget I'd buy a pair of these: https://www.superflybonsai.com/collections/other-tools/products/kiku-8-long-handle-bonsai-shears I use them to cut small branches, large branches and small - medium gauge wire. Have to replace them after a while, but at that price who cares.
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Sep 26, 2020 15:43
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I've got tools and soil. The $100 was for plants and pots.
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Sep 26, 2020 16:04
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