A little knowledge...

Beautiful picture? Sure is. First thought I had was must have taken a lot of skill and patience to carve that pumpkin.  Also a lot of imagination.
Take a good look at the design.  Those have got to be ginkgo leaves, but they sure don't grow on vines, don't have tendrils or little berries.

Artistically this is a great looking bit of art and craft.  But botanically, its gibberish.

I just wish that little voice in my head didn't pop an remind me of it.

Lucky find

Mother Nature can be a darned odd lady to hang around with.  Earlier in the year, I shared some photos with Facebook friends of some horticultural oddities that had me scratching my head. Things like a spaghetti squash vine that popped up in my tomato patch, or a geranium sprouting out of a pot that contained an Elm cutting.  I can only suspect that it was a seed from the compost, or from recycled potting mix, or both.  I have no real sports loyalty,so the buckeye I planted was more of a horticultural curiosity, but it is frustrating that it has put on so little growth-there is squirrel planted nut of some sort three feet from it that has topped it in a single season

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I have Irish moss (Sagina subulata) growing in almost every bonsai or bonsai in training I have. Keeping it under control is a never ending battle. Every spring I take the culls that grew like crazy in the bonsai stock and tuck them between the bricks of the backyard patio. That's when plants that seemed immortal wither and die with in the week, often much sooner.

Some times Mother Nature is on my side, but she's quiet about it.
This common Fig (Ficus carica) is one of several that live in the back yard most of the year, then bunk in the garage the rest of the time.  Last year's winter was pretty brutal, with temps in the garage getting close to zero. Two of the figs managed to leaf out in the spring, this one did not. Thinking it was a lost cause, the pot sat in a corner of the yard behind a fence waiting for a good time to recycle the pot.  Three months later, looking for something else, here was a fig tree, looking very much alive.

Recognize this plant? Take a look at the tubers growing underground. It's ginger, right from the grocery store. Well not right from the store, the knob of fresh ginger probably sat in a kitchen cabinet for several months, until it was a shrived up old bit of leather. It wasn't really planted as much as thrown away under some newly spread mulch. Five months later its a good looking plant, and looks like plenty of ginger to cook with.

The ginger is sprouting not far from a St John's Wort bush. I noticed a few seedlings popping up under the bush, thinking they may be root suckers.  On closer inspection, it was clear that though the little plants looked quite a bit like the St John's Wort, there were differences.  What they look like to me are pomegranate  seedlings. Where could those come from? Again the compost pile is the likely source. Last Christmas time, one of the items from a holiday fruit basket was big red pomegranate. As good as it looked, procrastination is easy with this fruit-they are labor intensive! Long story short, the pomegranate ended up in the compost bin. How the seeds themselves got out of the bin in into the mulch is a question. There were five seedlings working their way out of the mulch, the one that was getting the most sun was the tallest and thickest, no surprise there.   I cut back the top growth a good deal, but left the roots pretty much alone, just washing the heavy clay soil off and getting the little plants set up in proper bonsai soil.

The pomegranate leaves are shiny compared to the St. John's Wort they had been growing under.
Their roots had made a twisting path through the mulch, then once they hit the clay soil underneath kept going. I kept some of the top growth that I trimmed to see if they would root as cuttings.

Here are the seedlings potted up. The curves came from growing through some fairly large sized mulch nuggets.  Word to the wise: always handle collected plants carefully.  The nice thick specimen on the left had the start of a nice tripod root base already in place.  One misplaced tug and that tripod become a bipod.


Pomegranate are popular bonsai subjects. The dwarf for is most often used since the leaves are much smaller the the species,   Easy to grow and adaptable, they can be found in many nurseries, not just specialist bonsai suppliers

. They strike from cutting fairly well,m and obliviously are not hard to start from seed

Here's an example to aspire to: fullsize Punic grantaum styled by John Naka, now part of the collection at the National Bonsai & Penching museum.

You keep using that word...

There is an old saw that goes something like"repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth..." Does it really work like that? What is truth can be a murky topic. As with some many things that are subjective, people tend to disagree.

If the sun is high in the sky and shining brightly, no one would argue that it is night time. But flip the radio to a random station and ask a crowd if the music is good, and you just might get as many different answers as there are crowd members. Different strokes for different folks, as they say. It may depend whose clustered around the radio. If it were located, say in a retirement home with senior citizens, you may not have many positive responses to thrash metal or rap.  Conversely, school agers are likely not going to be very ecstatic about opera or big band. Lots of factors go into what we like.

Facing the question of "What is a bonsai/" can lead to some deep thinking, intense discussion and even some hurt feelings.  Some of that may come from bruised egos, along the line of "I have been doing bonsai for 7 month and I think I'm pretty good at it, what do you mean it is not a good bonsai?"

Now there I really complicated the question-not just what is a bonsai, but what is a good bonsai? Simple definition is that bonsai is a tree in a container. That's what the Japanese words bon and sai roughly translate to.  A fuller definition might be a container grown plant that give the impression of a tree, especially a tree of age or experience. Clearly simply putting a woody plant in a pot satisfies the letter of the law-but not the spirit. There is a whole set of artistic expectations that go along with bonsai. Learning them and following them can be the hard part of the hobby. To borrow that slogan of the board game Othello-"An hour to learn, a lifetime to master".

One defense of poorly executed bonsai, most often from a person new in the hobby, is that they are just starting and they only want to keep the plant alive. You know , the old "It's just for me" dodge.  I think that is false reasoning and not a good place to stand. It's an excuse, and a weak one, and admission that the artist can not-or will not put the effort into learning the basics of technique.

Good technique is import in any art, and learning it from the get go is the only way.  My son plays the cello and my daughter fences. In both these pursuits bad technique leads to failure, good technique to excellence.   My kid's teachers don't let them get away with substandard bowing or sloppy fingering, with slow foot work or imprecise point control.  This is part of what makes them good teachers.

So should new bonsai growers be leaned on to improve their technique?  I think so, if the correction is done encouragingly.  Students in a class, or new growers at a club meeting are presumably there to learn.  One key to being a good student is casting ego aside-you may be told things that are unpleasant, will you absorb them and improve? Its easy to understand a C- on a math test-when the sums or dividends are incorrect, it's plain the math was wrong. But being told your English composition was stiff and hard to read?  That rankles. But will thinking about your work rationally help yo improve, if you take a teacher's/coach's/leader's suggestion? Most assuredly.

I got to do some thinking on this line after hearing someone mention the challenges they were facing with their bunjin style Bradford pear.  That's a tree that is sometime used as bonsai but not often in my experience, and that style seems to at odds with the tree's natural shape. Seeing photos of the tree in question, a primary question pops up-is it bonsai?

My thought is no. It is a tree in a pot, and from the leaf color and other signs it is doing well-this grower has the horticultural aspects of the hobby well in hand. But from a style perspective, what's going on here?

Consider what features make a good bonsai:

• Good root base. Roots on this tree are a twisted, tangled  mass.  Likely they were never combed out and organized at the initial styling. It may be too late to do it now-or take a lot of work.
• A trunk with taper. This is a broom handle-uniform thickness, and no real movement.  One or the other is vital, both would be ideal.
• No branching or indication of branching. One of those bonsai tricks-if the tree does not have ideal branching, fool the eye of the viewer and make it seem so. 

Right now this is a very appealing and great looking topiary. A pair of these at the head of a garden path or on either side of a door way would look super, especially when they were in bloom (though don't take a wiff, Bradford pears are not pleasant that way.) But as bonsai, not as successful.

How could a better result have been achieved-and is it still possible? If I had to guess, the style was chosen first, and then everything done to make that work. I would also bet that things were looked at top down, that is foliage trimmed, branches pruned,etc.  Good bonsai start from the roots up-literally. Choosing stock, or making design choices for a new tree have to start with the roots, then move upwards:trunk, branches, etc. Leaves are last.  Fixing this tree would entail removing roots from the bottom up, leaving only what would become the surface roots. The top of this tree has to go-an airlayer is possible to get two trees,  but the trunk needs to be shorter.  Pears usually grow in a sort of vase shape, so a sort of formal upright/broom style would be best.  Well placed branches will hide the fact that there is no taper.

A side bar discussion has to be What is a bunjin tree?  Also called literati, these tall, spare elegant trees are striking when done well-and hard to do well! As Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said when asked to define pornography-"I know it when I see it" explaining what a bunjin is and what makes a good one is far from easy-but you know it when you see it. 

 My guess is that this bonsai grower saw a long expanse of trunk and though of the tall bunjin style as the only alternative.  Arguing against that stand would be that branches are easy to encourage where you need them, and that the broom handle trunk on this tree just isnt compelling enough to be bunjin, since its a style that is really all about trunk

Fall collecting...the safe way.

My daughter is a Youtube fan and enjoys what are called 'haul videos' young women display for the cell phone cameras their 'haul' from a shopping expedition, showing of their latest purchases from the mall. I am not a fan of this sort of conspicuous consumption.

But can show you a successful haul of my own, some collecting that I did, picking up some potential bonsai material.

Collecting in the fall can be a tricky business. Plants are shutting down for the winter, so it is a poor time to be uprooting them and asking them to repair their damaged root systems. To assure future success, the most complete undamaged root system possible has to be attached to the collected plant. And the easy way to make that happen may be collecting with a credit card, not a shovel.

The plants in the photo are Contoneaster apiculatus. Cotoneaster are a popular genus for bonsai easy to find, hardy, readily accepting bonsai culture and readily flowering and fruiting and showing colorful fall foliage.  The plants are popular for regular landscape use as well, which means they are found almost everywhere. At this time of year, plant stock intending for spring or summer planting is being moved out to make way for fall merchandise.  This cycle especially prevalent in the big box stores, who are making space for fall plants and seasonal decorations. To make that room they mark down items they did to make sure are sold.  The big box stores as well as most nurseries are locked into this cycle, based on the cold fact that neither establishment wants to carry over stock through the winter.

To make sure that items fly off the shelves, the price is cut. The plants above were cheap to begin with, but at 75% off, the final cost was $1.00 each-almost free and far to reasonable to walk past. I bought every one the retailer had.  There is one Barberry mixed into the pack- $1.75.
I've clipped off any obviously dead wood, but figure this will just sleep through the winter and then start some real training next spring. I expect to pull them out of the posts, do some radical pruning and repot into bonsai soil.  My guess is that since these were started as cuttings there will be more than one actual plant in each pot, s a choice will have to be made if the plants can and should be separated. I'll be looking at root layout and trunks at that point-branches on these would be so easy to grow new that they wont even figure in the equation at that point.

But you say collecting has to involve digging? Maybe, but the danger of digging anything now is root damage.  Winter is on its way and even if we are not happy about it-I sure am not-the trees are getting ready.  The approach of cold weather means the trees have a short time to repair any root damage. Items collected now should take as much root as possible, even if it makes the process harder.

When plants are small getting an intact root system is much easier.  The Japanese maples and single crab apple shown in the photo ought to make it just fine.  They were carefully worked out of the mulch beneath their parent plants.  They have been  in these pots for almost three weeks and have been given light doses of 0-5-5 fertilizer. They have kept their leaves and all three have evident buds forming for next year. The maples especially have bedraggled leaves, but that's to be expected for Japanese maples. Next spring these little guys will look great.

Bonsai...MacGyver style

I may be dating myself with that title. Remember the MacGyver TV show? Richard Dean Anderson played a government agent type who seemed to solve problems in a nick of time by using ordinary objects in extraordinary ways. The spirit of MacGyver-using everyday items in a special way can certainly transfer to bonsai.

On the left duct sealant putty, $3.20 tax
included, on the left imported cut paste
$14.95 shipping extra.

There are many tools and supplies needed for the pursuit of bonsai. With some items, no ssubstituteis acceptable. Case in point: concave cutters. No western style pruning tool does quite what this one does.  Scissors are scissors and your bonsai wont know if what you are snipping with came from Kyoto or Kmart, but a real bonsai pruner cutting in a manner that other trimmers don't. You have to have one.

Duct sealant putty in the package,
according to the label the unit of sale is a 'pug'
this is a 1 pound pug.

But does every item you use for this Japanese hobby have to come from Japan. Obvious answer: NO! In fact a little imagination will help you find items that are easier to come by and cost less besides. A great example-cut paste.
  There is always lively debate about the ultimate need for cut paste-from a horticultural stand point, is it a must? Partisans can make their arguments for and against, but one thing is sure, and that is that imported from Japan cut paste is expensive.  If you are like me, the thought of how much this little jar cost inhibits using enough, my inner cheap skate makes me skimp!

My  solution is a cut paste substitute that is much less expensive and as easy to obtain as going to any hardware store.  It is called duct sealant and is used in construction and home repair. If you were to look around your home, the most likely place to see it 'in action' is where electrical lines or A/C lines enter the building. It is stiff, slightly tacky putty that never gets hard and lasts just as long as cut paste from Japan. Other cut paste subs as regular modeling clay, school glue and mud.

Bonsai tool or personal care
implement? You make the call.

Speaking of bonsai tools, have you ever been at work with the concave cutter on rather branch congested shohin or mame and found it hard to maneuver the full size tool in the tight confines of the tiny tree? If you are like me you want a shohin sized trimmer, but hesitated at paying the full size prize for a pee wee size tool, I mean how often will I really use it any way? You may already have an item that will do the job, and it is as close as the drawer  in the bathroom.  A nice set of toenail trimmers looks almost exactly like a tiny size bonsai tool, and even if the better half objects and make you buy a brand new one for yourself, they are at least half the price of the specialty tool.

Most of this copper wire was salvaged
when a new air conditioner was
installed at my home. After the plastic
insulation was peeled off, the fine strands of copper
could be separated.  It is amazing how much
holding power such thin bits of metal have-
aluminum wire would have to be much thicker to
do the same job.

Japanese apricot (Prunus mume)
wired with blue and yellow telephone
wire. This was a lucky snag at work.
A repair crew had a huge relay panel
and had a large bundle of this stuff
on the floor. Its what attorneys call an
attractive nuisance-it came home with me.

Never pass up free wire. You’ll have to buy some wire, of course. But keep your eyes open.  Wire is another item that does not have to be labeled “For bonsai use” to do the job.  Copper and aluminum are the materials in common use, and it is best to stick with them. Steel wire tends to rust. When appearance is not an issue there is no need to remove the insulation-consider it a form of padding for delicate bark. Side note-the wood surface the copper wire is photographed on is a bar stool, one of two that where trash picked  will driving home from some family errands. Bar stool height is ideal for a bonsai stylist seated in a folding type lawn chair. The other member of the pair as a spot at the potting bench. Very useful item-total cost-A few momets to toss them in the trunk, and 15 minutes listening to my wife fume about it the est of the way home.

I have been a Turface user from the start of my bonsai career. It was certainly a hard commodity to find in the early days, though even though it’s easier to locate now those big bags can add up cost wise, and lugging them around and storing them is a strain as well.  A very similar material that behaves in the same predictable manner when used in container growing mixes is a product called Floor Dry sold by the Napa autocare chain.  It is physically lighter than Turface-it was a surprise to me when I bought my first bags-and has a lighter color when dry that some may object to.  But in my tests it absorbs  somewhat more water and hold onto it longer than does Truface.  Poking around in online forums shows that container growers have been using the material for some time with good results. It retains its integrity and does not break down over time or when exposed to extremes of temperature.  Google ‘gritty mix’ if you want to jump down that particular rabbit hole. A word of warning-I buy and use part#8822 from Napa, not because I get a kick back from that store but because that’s the item that has been tested.  There are other products sold as absorbents/cleaning aids.  Their performance in a horticultural setting is unknown, at least to me.

Even Monkeys Fall Out Of Trees...the wit and wisdom of John Naka

Even Monkeys Fall Out Of Trees: John Naka’s collection of Japanese proverbs.

This is a book I’ve heard mentioned but never had the chance to read.  Out of curiosity, I was doing some online comparison shopping; see what the going price for John Naka’s seminal works on bonsai, Bonsai Techniques I and II were going for on the open market.  It was a figure I can’t even begin to afford.  I own volume I but have not read II in many years and would like to flip through at least, so searched my local libraries.  Imagine that –a highly specialized book that has been out of print for at least a decade-they didn’t have it.  It wasn’t even available through interlibrary loan!

What was available from a few places was this little volume.   Collected in one place are all the proverbs and bits of wisdom that Naka used so often in life and in teaching and just talking about bonsai. As author Nina Shire Ragle makes plain, life and bonsai were pretty much one the same for Naka.

Ragle uses a typical Naka incident to begin the book: Naka is on stage in front of a large crowd,  600 people crowded into a darkened auditorium, all eyes on the master as he considers how best to shape the tree he is working on.  He takes wire and wraps it around a branch, all the while narrating into a microphone hanging around his neck.  He gives the wired branch a few pushes and shoves, then steps back for a better view.  Deciding just  what adjustment needed made, he grasped the branch again and applied pressure…and the microphone sent the resulting loud  snap! as the branch separates from the tree.  The audience sits in stunned silence, and Naka says “Saru mo ki kara ochiru” Even monkeys fall out of trees!

The realization-and explanation that even the most knowledgeable person can make a mistake is indicative of the humble and self effacing  spirit that Naka would present through out life.  Ragle repeats a descriptive phrase that Naka used in reference to himself-a teacher and student of bonsai.  Naka considered that he was always improving his knowledge, and that the learning could  come from any place or source.  This was a man who never discouraged his grandchildren from playing among his trees, saying that any damage that might occur from youthful accident would be an improvement on the design.

Naka was born in the US, spent his boyhood in his ancestral homeland-where he learned bonsai first hand from his grandfather-and then returned to the US as a young  man ( his family essentially exiled him to avoid conscription into the Imperial military forces). Fluent in Japanese and English, fluent in American and Japanese culture, there could be no more effective bridge between the two lands and a sure and able teacher of the bonsai art

Bits of wisdom repeated over an over say something about the culture that creates them ,and the individual that uses them. A few samples of the wise words:

Raise grain instead of writing poetry 

A fish’s mind is water’ mind 

Better to walk in front of the hen than behind the ox.

If a student wanted to do something foolish-or impossible, Naka’s response was usually “That’s trying to graft bamboo to tree” in other words, impossible. A related phrase that describer wasted effort-like wiring spruce was “pounding a nail in a cup of rice”.

Better the head of a chicken than the tail of a tiger-better to be the best humble thing than a second rate great thing.  Naka used this phrase often to describe what he called chicken bonsai-Elm, Maple or other deciduous tree and tiger bonsai Juniper, Black pine or other conifers.

Many of the proverbs contained in this witty book are of ancient origin, going make years or sometimes centuries. Some of these ancient pearls of wisdom would be ‘tweaked’ by Naka to align more closely with a bonsai lesson. Here’s how he adapted an old Chinese phrase “If you want to be happy for an hour, get drunk. To be happy for a day, get married. To be happy for a week, kill a pig and eat it. To be happy forever, grow bonsai”.

A Naka self portrait.

Better red...

Amur maples (Acer ginnala)  these were sitting around waiting for a purpose when they got put in this nice forest pot.  No ramification and need branch work, but the color is sure nice.

Pot culture

A graphic example of just how pot culture-and even pot size can make a real impact on plant growth. These two elm seedlings that were collected in May of 2013.  I was in front of COSI-the old Central High School waiting for my daughter to participate in a Girls on the Run event, and since I don't do standing around killing time very well, started to pace a bit.  The landscape plantings in the park area in front of COSI are not that well tended, which means that volunteer seedlings have a great chance to get started.  There were elms of various sizes all around, some of which I was bummed to miss out on but since I had no tools, they had to be left behind.

These two trees were growing right next to each other and came out of the ground with a good firm tub, bringing enough root to survive.  I scrounged a fast food cup out of a handy trash can and tucked the trees in the back of the car.
And yes, the other members of my family did grumble and roll their eyes and say things like"oh there goes dad again...'

The trees were potted in a terra cotta pot and watered but basically ignored. They grew somewhat and in the spring of 2014, still alive were potted up in the containers seen in the photo.  The tree in the big pot has a great natural curve ( unfortunately hidden by the pot) so more attention was given to it-big pot for fast growth and a big chunky bonsai soil mix. The other tree looked like it may be deciding to croak, so it was stuffed in what ever pot was close to hand.  Both trees sit next to each other, in group of other potted elm seedlings and cutting in a spot that gets all days sun. They are watered and fertilized liberally.

Both have grown very well, but with a big difference.  The smaller tree has smaller leaves and just a few branches.  By contrast the larger tree is nearly 2.5 feet tall and has larger branches, longer internodal spaces(the space between each growth node) and larger, more coarse leaves.

As different as these two trees look-and my assumption is that they are the same species or hybrid, compared to elm cutting developing in a growing bed, there there is in fact no comparison The trees growing in the ground are enormous!  In bonsai terms, it emphasizes that fact that putting a plant into a pot really slows down development.  A stock plant that needs to grow some truck or better branches will take forever to do it in a bonsai pot. Growing on in a larger container would be a better option, and unrestricted growth in the ground best of all!

Art and Nature thus allied...

An image that weds two long enduring interests of mine-musical theatre, specifically Gilbert & Sullivan's THE MIKADO and the art and craft of Bonsai.

The operetta is set in a far away, long ago Japan that never really was ( though it bears more than a passing resemblance to Victorian Britain.) This photo was of a supremely handsome production done at Canada's Stratford Festival.
The tree is pure bonsai, even if it lacks a pot!  It is hard to see in the photo but is a pine, though not the modern, dense foliage pad pine, put the lanky more open vision of the pine seen in old Japanese prints.

Another image-a screen cap so the quality is poor, but you can see the pine foliage.

Naki-poo and Yum Yum, in front of what looks
alot like Ume.

The Nine Bonsai Commandments

I had included this inside one of my earlier posts...here it is on its own, with an added 'commandment'.

Steps to Bonsai Success
1. Books and tutorial videos are great ways to begin, but consider the source. Real experienced practitioners in your immediate locality are even better.
2. Having more than one bonsai means you can share the love and won't kill a single tree with kindness. But it is possible to have too many.
3.See as much real, in person bonsai as you can. Look at it from all angles. The design principles of what is pleasing and what is not will penetrate.
4. Use plants that are native to your area when possible, or proven hardy. Save the challenge for exotic or 'oddball' stock for later.
5. Fertilize more often than you think you need to, fertilize less strongly than you think you need to.
6.Never trust Mother Nature to water for you.
7. Use of good cultural practices, sanitation and hygiene will prevent many disease and pest problems.
8.Accepting that there are no hard and fast schedules, and that bonsai success depends on actions and decisions based on observation, experience and knowledge means that you are beginning the transition from novice to practitioner.
9. Learn as much as you can about general botany and horticulture...in the end, bonsai are still plants.

Finding your own vision...

I got involved in two fairly concurrent online discussions recently, both about what's appropriate for bonsai and what 'looks' good. In both cases, the original poster put up a picture of a stock tree they had, and solicited advise. One tree was a variegated Ficus benjimina that had been brutally trunk chopped and was sending up a shaving brush of new branches. It's owner was thinking about what might be the next step. The other tree was a Sea Grape (Coccoloba uviferia) whose leaves had all turned yellow due to poor soil. The owner had repotted it out of season.

As usually happens in these online discussions, plenty of people chimed in with advise of varying helpfulness. Some had as little experience as the folks posting the originals

A collected Sea Grape. Handled with artistry, this
species can make compelling bonsai...

. Others gave more detailed help.  The Ficus needed some design  direction-that is what the poster really wanted-and got it.  The sea grape owner was hoping for some horticultural advice, since for all appearances the tree was almost dead, if not there already. Along the way several folks questioned just how suitable this plant is for bonsai-since it has fairly large leaves.

...but not always.  This is anti-bonsai, a plant rudely shoved in
shoved in a pot. Believe it or not, this commercially
produced 'bonsai' will cost you 49.95 plus shipping.

As conversations that include many individuals with a mix of attitudes and experiences go, these both took directions the original posters had not expected. Both got downright upset about and didn't take it well.  What both have in common was a similar attitude: "I am just starting, I am really just trying to keep these things alive, and what I do with them only has to please me". I am paraphrasing, but that's the gist.  Boiled down, both of these growers did not react well to something that every beginner will hear: You did something wrong". It's not easy to hear, but we have all been there, whether growing bonsai, learning a job or finding out how to relate to friends. Sometime those strong words can convey a message much more effectively and be better teaching, even if they do not go down like a spoonful of sugar.

One of the posters made a comment-a defense-that really stuck with me.  "Isnt bonsai all about your own vision?" Id respond to that Yes...sort of.   Bonsai is an art form and like every creative and expressive art, the ultimate goal of the artist is to express themselves with a unique voice.  In the true definition of unique, that is like no other, one of a kind. Many newcomers to any art struggle to find their voice.  Some copy established examples and never speak in their own voice. Some become over confident and think they have mastered something after only the briefest of experience. Other wave the banner of doing it their very own way as a cover for not having a mastery of their form.

Producing poor art, and excusing it as "My own vision"is a cop out.  It's a fall back position that many use to cover that fact that they have not taken the time and effort to learn the nuts and bolts of their chosen art form.  Michael Jordan wasn't born with the mastery of the ball he displayed during his professional career. It took work, hours and hours of boring drills and repetitive practice. Any player who thinks they can skip the work to get to the glory is fooling themselves.

Consider a more artistic example.   When I read that defense "Isnt bonsai all about your own vision/" I heard someone wanted to be later period Picasso with out being early period Picasso,  In other words, an artist who wanted to go wild and suit themselves without mastering the rudiments of their art.

 Consider the picture above.  Even folks with
no real knowledge of art might know its a Picasso.  The bold images, the playfulness in
taking apart a familiar form, the bold colors-these are the hallmarks of 'modern art'.

Now consider the image to the left. Who is the artist? Again, it is Picasso. It is actually a self portrait from early in his career.  It might be hard to tell that painting from many other paintings produced at that time. Before Picasso was "Picasso" he was just a painter, like so many others, who was learning the fine points of his art.


A painter is concerned with technical things like brush handling and mixing paints, as well as the design basics like balance and composition. A bonsai grower has the technical, horticultural aspects to master, as well as the concepts of form, balance and symmetry.  There is no short cut to learning these things except to put in the time.  That means more than a few ugly or misshapen, out of balance bonsai.  Your early examples will follow all the rules and can even be slavish imitation of the established style models. Having learned the rules, and developed experience and a design vocabulary of your own, you will be able to  know when it is appropriate to 'bend' a rule-or ignore it totally.

Catching up with an old frenimy

A Friend? an Enemy? At various times in my bonsai career, Serissa was one or the other.  It seems to be that way for many growers, there is no middle ground with this plant.  Some love it, some hate it, but few can just take it or leave it.
 For reasons I can’t exactly remember now, when I first began the bonsai hobby, I was afraid to attempt anything that needed winter care. Reading in books made the process seem complicated, and photographs of   extensive cold frames or deluxe over wintering shed made the task seem daunting. Better to avoid that expense and hassle, I thought, and just grow indoor bonsai  this seems like a quaint notion now, but at that time two and a half decades ago, ‘indoor bonsai’ was still a very new idea. That line of thinking is basically gone from the hobby now, and it is an accepted fact by most that great looking bonsai can be created from 
all kinds of plants regardless of their zone of origin.

As I sought out my first plants for bonsai culture, I followed the advice to be found in many publications available at the time as far as best plants for indoor bonsai cultivation. Then as now Ficus was king, bit a species was that old favorite the Serissa ( Serissa fotieda) sometimes called Snowrose, Tree of a Thousand Stars or Chinese Serissa. Ubiquitous a subject for pen’ching, the Serissa is undeniably appealing, with its ready flowers and small neat leaves. It has also developed a reputation for being fussy.

After growing with no trimming or really training for awhile, this
young Serissa was pruned hard, had a bit if wire applied and
will be allowed to grow  out.  Pinching of all growing tips
will result in the quick development of a rounded shape and compact
foliage.

Miss a watering, or water too much, and it dies. Move it and the leaves fall off. Repot and it dies-or all the leaves fall off-or both!. Sound familiar? I didn’t  get to make lasting emotional connections with that first Serissa I had. It didn't last too long. I moved on to killing other species of plants and after a while, didn't seem to kill all that many.

I am not sure when Serissa made its way back into my collection, but it did come. And what a change was here. I wasn’t afraid  of this little bush any more. And it grew! I have often said that our trees don’t read the bonsai books. This means they often will not cooperate with our design plans, but also that plants that are supposed to be fussy or hard to manage my not be so.

These two plants are of the same age and size. The one on the
right had a better basic shape and was placed directly into
a bonsai pot. With stock this small refinement work can happen
in a finished pot. The plant on the left will be grown out
for another year or two, with an emphasis on growing an even
bigger root base as a design feature.

I am still not sure that I would tell a person with no experience to try a Serissa.  For someone with no background dealing with plants in pots, who has never really flexed their greenthumb, I’d say start somewhere else. But I would also hasten to add that the Serissa should not terrify you either. In my experience  soil mix is the key to success.  I am sure, with the wisdom of hindsight, that that first Serissa of mine bite the dust because of wet feet.  The growing mix was mainly peat with a bit of vermiculite and it just didn’t drain well. Coupled with a too shady location ( I had been told the plant could not take sun) and too much TLC, the plant just gave up the ghost.

Cuttings on the right are from this season and have
set some roots. In year or two they will look like the rough
stock at the center. 

Serissa don’t like to stand in water, but need good drainage. A chunky  potting mix suits them best.  Small size bark or coir nuggets combined with an absorbent inorganic like Turface is a good formula. Add some mason’s sand if you prefer, but especially in small sized pots, I  avoid sand simply because I want as much moisture reservoir as possible.  They can put up with growing in shade but my current inventory of Serissa-cuttings being grown on, rough stock and a few finished bonsai all get several hours of full sun.

I hear some bonsai growers say the name Serissa with a note of disgust in their voice, and despair that they can’t grow it. Other call it a weed and  seem unable to kill it. I myself have moved from one extreme to the other.  That switch is motivated by increased knowledge of bonsai horticulture, confidence it what it takes to keep a plant alive, and also an acceptance of what I call benign neglect.

Bonsai can require a lot of time and effort.  But one of the key skills a bonsai grower will develop is the knack of knowing when to do nothing.  There is only so much pruning and fertilizing and general messing with that any plant can take. Even with the best of intentions,  too much care can doom a plant-or a whole collection of plants. Left alone when it is appropriate, plants are more likely to thrive.

Best tree for indoor? Best Tree for Beginners? Here's my vote

An old collected trunk adds an ancient appearance to this Myrtle
bonsai. All the branches are new, developed during bonsai
training. The foliage masses are coming along well.

A plant with a long history in cultivation, the Myrtle has much to recommend it as a bonsai subject. Hardy, readily available, forgiving of imperfect care, and adaptable to most all styles of bonsai, it seems unfairly ignored. As one German website charmingly renders it into translated English: "As Bonsai it to see is rare and it is hardly offered in the specialized trade. This is somewhat incomprehensible, since it is by its small (leaves) and beautiful blooms an attractive plant for the organization as Bonsai". Once when I brought a Myrtle to enter in the club show, and experience bonsai grower didn't recognize the species and asked if it was Kyoto Serissa.

Image from www.myrtus-communis.de

Native Habitat: Originating in the Mediterranean and Near East, the plant's long association with humans shows in its multiple common names: Greek myrtle, sweet myrtle, foxtail myrtle and many more. It has been used as a curative and restorative in herbal medicines, and also in tanning leather, imparting a lovely warm brown sheen and distinctive aroma. The environment is sunny ,tends to the dry side and the soil is not rich. All these factors helped a tough, adaptable plant evolve. It is grown both as a pot plant and in the ground. Where the climate is favorable-zones 7,8 and 9 in this country-it can grow to a height of about 10 feet or more and tends to be rather shrubby.

Growth Habits and Appearance. New shoots are a light green that matures into a deeper, emerald green color. Leaves are lanceolate( botanist talk for lance-shaped) and opposite. New shoots lignify fairly quickly and are brittle. Bark is a tan color and slightly shaggy. The plant blossoms fairly easily when allowed to grow freely, producing small white flowers that are very fuzzy, looking almost like tassels. Bonsai trimming usually limits the amount of flowering.

There are many named cultivars available, including variegated forms, but the type most often seen in the trade is a dwarf or compact form.

A large collected Myrtle, originally used as
a specimen plant in a public garden. Cut back'
very hard, the plant is budding back on old
wood along its entire length-plenty
of design options,be sure to remove
unwanted buds quickly to avoid
unsightly knobs developing.

When growing the plant prefers as much sunshine as possible. Large bonsai and plants in training pots can certainly tolerate and even enjoy all day sun, smaller trees will benefit from some noon time shade simply to keep them from drying out. Use a standard bonsai growing medium for tropical plants, being sure that it will drain well. Keep the soil moist but don't allow to sit in water. Myrtle can take a dry living condition and I have had plants that were wilted from a missed watering come right back with no ill effects. Fertilize lightly during the growing season outdoors. Myrtle is not winter hardy, and leaves will turn bronze color in light frosts. Bring it indoors when night time temperatures fall below 45 degrees. It is a good candidate for indoor culture because it comes from a dry environment.

Bonsai Culture: The small leaves and hardy nature of the plant make it an excellent choice for bonsai of all sizes and styles. It would likely not make a convincing broom of literati, but would be suited for most any other style. When seeking out this plant be sure you are getting Myrtus communis-many plants are referred to as "myrtle" but not all are as suitable for bonsai culture as this one is! Most garden centers and general market nurseries carry young stock that will need to grow a season or two to have a worthwhile trunk. This is easily accomplished with some with some thoughtful pruning. Just clip the terminal leader short and trim off extra branches to concentrate vigor in a few well chosen shoots. Shoppers at specialized nurseries may be lucky enough to find larger specimens available. The price difference between general market plant stock and items specifically identified as bonsai can be remarkable, so the low price may be a surprise. Myrtle is one of those plants to keep an eye out for if you happen to be traveling in the South. It is used as hedging and topiary subject in Southern California, South West and in Florida. In these areas sizable plants may be found.

Myrtle responds well to regular clipping by forming nice tight foliage pads
Image from www.myrtus-communis.de

Nice looking mame or shohin can be created in a short span of time. Growing a larger tree may take some time but can be worth the effort since the bark will take on a rough and shaggy look.  It is possible to style simply with a grow and clip approach, though careful wiring of young wood is easy to accomplish. Old wood is brittle.

Design Chauvinism

Are some trees just not suited to bonsai culture? The axiom that you can make anything that develops a woody trunk into a bonsai is essentially true. But if a plant won't live in a pot, or won't put up with constant pruning, or the leaves wont reduce it may not me  a great choice for bonsai. But can a plant be rejected for bonsai culture because it will "never make a good specimen"?

There is a strain of prejudice, thankfully getting rarer but still to be found, that holds that only plant material traditionally used in Japan is suitable or 'best' for bonsai.  A related train of thought holds that only the Japanese style models are to be used for bonsai

Short answer, to borrow a phrase from General Norman Schwarzkopf  is that those ideas are "bovine scatology". The photo in the upper left shows a standard issue, commercially produce Fukien Tea tree.  These are cranked out the same way that chain restaurants produce hamburgers, and conforms to the image of a bonsai for many. It roughly follows some of the design rules we'd like to see in a bonsai and would provide great potential for further refinement.


The photo to the right is the same type of plant.  From a design stand point
this example is much less appealing. The design concepts of pleasing bonsai
are essentially missing.

The third example is again the same type of tree, but here obviously guided by a skilled and experienced hand. These examples were chosen because Fukien Tea is widely used as a bonsai/penjing subject in China and many other places. It is not a traditional subject in Japan however. Does that mean it is somehow 'lesser' in some way?  I'd say no.  It is not a Japanese Black Pine or Japanese Maple. It is wisely not styled in the traditional styles associated with pines or maples.  That is the key to success here, the tree has been styled in an appropriate way for the growth pattern and natural
tendencies of the tree.

Imposing what the stylist wants on a tree rather than observing what
nature has already formed and what is with in the specie's natural capacity is the first step to bonsai failure.  A prostrate juniper would never make an upright bonsai. The natural tendency to curve and bend would be a handicap for a style that is all about angles and straight lines. Trying to impose an upright style on that tree would be a long,hard and likely frustrating fight. Choosing a plant with upright habit built into its gene's would be the better choice. That prostrate juniper would be better utilized as a cascade. But with clever management, the prostrate juniper could also be a great informal upright

Every tree has the potential to become that 'great specimen' if its natural potential and capabilities are utilized.

Species for bonsai...and commercially produced 'bonsai'

I got involved with an online discussion via Facebook about Fukien Tea (Ehretia micropylla).
The original poster had bought a Fukien bonsai at the Minnesota
State Fair last year and it died within two weeks. Postmortem
examination showed badly compacted soil and few roots.
Flash forward to this year's Fair, when the poster had the chance to speak to the dealer and tell this sad tale.Good news is the dealer gave him a replacement plant, pictured at right in the lower photo-the corpse of the original tree is the subject of the upper image.

First, that's a stand up kind of vendor to provide a total replacement in that way. The OP wanted to know where and how he may have gone wrong with the first plant, and his reason for starting the thread on Facebook was to get some advice on better care for the replacement plant.  As so often happens on the interwebs, helpful advice was interspersed with some snarky comments. While several responders like the plant and thought it grew well for them, a nay sayer called it a horrible subject and where but the tropics...a 'shit species'.

Harsh words, right?  The conundrum may be that both sides are right. What owrks in my back yard may not work in yours and all that. It is not common for a bonsai grower
have hard feelings or even bitterness over a plant that
they don't have success with. I think it's partly about bruised
egos. Say the word Serissa to a group of bonsai growers and see how they react-this is a plant I have noticed is very polarizing: some folks can't seem to keep it alive while others call it a weed an seemingly need to resort to Roundup to get rid of it.

There are several points to be teased out of this mess. Is Fukien
Tea a 'shit species'? As we so often hear in bonsai, It Depends. The individual who made the statement listed the plant's draw backs this way:
 "They hate under watering, drop leaves and sometimes die, hate over watering, same deal. Movement can equal death, as can substrate change. Shit species."  

Like most sweeping statements, there is an implied "in my experience" tacked on the end.  Fukien is a very popular bonsai subject in China, where they are native and lots of folks in the warmer parts of the US have great success with them.  Because you can not or will not provide the needed cultural conditions for a plant to thrive does not mean the plant is at fault (usually). This is part of the challenge not just with bonsai but horticulture in general.  We have a sort of chauvinism that the living organisms we want to surround ourselves with ought to like our human-centric  environments as much as we do.  Clearly some people can get worked up when our pets or our plants object to the living conditions we provide them.  As plant care takers we need to be alert and observe, so we can be assured our plants do well.

On a more practical level, what happened to the first now deceased plant (nonsai? This is an ex-bonsai?) It is very hard to say after the passage of time and with out more information.  My guess is wet feet-too wet inside the pot.  That may have come from over watering, a very common fault in new bonsai growers. Also this bonsai has all the hallmarks of mass produced bonsai.  These are cranked out on a massive scale, assembly line fashion and good design and good horticulture take a back seat to getting produced delivered to market at an acceptable price point.  Prime example: these so called "bonsai" are rarely potted in what you would consider real bonsai soil.  Typical house plant soil is easier to get, far cheaper (price point!) and does not need watered as often.   The sin is compounded by the lack of knowledge that sellers of this grade of bonsai are able to provide.  No personal insult intended, but they are business people selling a commodity. They don't grow the bonsai they sell, often don't know about the care of individual species beyond what is printed on the photo-copied care sheets they pass out with each victim.  Most of these bonsai are headed for the same fate that carnival goldfish have to look forward to: a short period of uncertain and uncomfortable existence.

Does this mean that commercial quality should be avoided? That is an individual choice. To muddle a metaphor they should be taken with a grain of salt.  It may be that given certain financial and geographic circumstances, this is the only sort of bonsai stock available.  With some experience, such a misbegotten bonsai might be rescued, repotted with good soil, given adequate light and water, given a design upgrade-there may be a good bonsai lurking there after all.

Are little trees all you think about?

You may have an obsession with bonsai if…

• ·         The Wedgewood china willed to your wife by her great grandmother is in cardboard boxes in the basement, because the china cabinet in the dining room is filled with bonsai pots.
• ·         Your front yard is always the last to be mowed and has more dandelions than any other house on the block because you refuse to spend time and money spraying it “it’s just grass”.
• ·          You plan vacation routes and timing based on bonsai events,  nurseries and seasonal sales. You’re really obsessed if you refuse to take vacations because you can’t get a reliable plant sitter.
• ·         You keep a shovel, soil and plastic bags in your trunk, and family members cringe when you drive past a construction site or landscape job, since they know you are likely to stop and poke around.
• ·         You have stopped to investigate seedlings in a highway median, ramp turn off or ‘devil strip’-bonus points if a uniformed officer has asked you firmly to move along, its public property and unsafe.
• ·         You told your kids there was no room in the back yard for a swing set, dog run or play house, but you managed to work in a new grow bed this year.
• ·         Your family, friends and neighbors are tired of being reminded to save such useful items as kitty litter buckets, margarine tubs and coffee cans.
• ·         When you walk the dog, you find yourself having to make awkward decisions: use the plastic bag to take home the moss and/or accent plant you found, or dump it out and clean up after the dog.
• ·         You have offered to help a neighbor redo their landscaping simply to get your hands on the plants that get pulled out.  Bonus points if you initiated the redo, bonus bonus points if you approached a total stranger for the same purpose.
• ·         You have bought exotic fruit with no real intention of eating it, and patronized ethnic markets simply to collect new seeds to sprout.
• ·         At every Asian restaurant you ask for chopsticks-even if only ordering soup.
• ·         Any trip to the hardware store, home improvement center or retail establishment of any kind has the secondary goal of “Which items or merchandise sold here, though not meant for a horticultural purpose, can be used for bonsai in someway?”
• ·         You bought tickets when the community theatre announced a musical comedy about tiny sized bonsai trees, and were disappointed to sit through nearly three hours of singing and dancing about an eccentric old maiden aunt, with not a ‘little bean’ in sight.

Thoughts on Rain Barrels

While the sun shines, make your hay. Or if it is raining cats and dogs, don't let that water go to waste.A rain barrel is also a great way of saving a valuable resource-and saving some real money as well.

I do most of my watering with a hose.  That means water that has been mechanically and chemically processed to be safe enough to drink is being used on those who really can’t appreciate that level of purity, and frankly don’t need it-my bonsai. That clean water comes from my utility provider at a price, and though it is a pretty fair price, the cost, over a summer of using this premium product can add up.  For a household like mine, which pays several utilities in one aggregate billing, the summer’s double whammy of air conditioning and plant watering adds up.

For me collecting rain water could never replace the municipal water source, because I am not willing to make the investment in the  large scale tanks it would require to switch totally over to rain water.  I have noticed several of the large size reservoirs in yards not far from me, and a quick internet price comparison has shown that such equipment is well out of my budget, and I am not sure how long it would take to pay for itself.
But free, healthy water as a supplement to what comes out of the faucet appeals to me, and not just to help shave a bit off my utility bill. Municipal water has chemicals added to maintain  purity and these don’t have a big impact on plants, in my view. But the water that comes out of my faucets is fairly hard, and the crusty lime scale that builds up on those plants that get watered with what comes out of the tap over the course of the winter proves that there is more to water than just hydrogen and oxygen.

Rain water is a lot “softer”-it has a much lower level of dissolved solids and minerals. Since I use chemical fertilizers as part of my feeding routine, some mineral salts tend to build up in the potting mix.  Given the construction of bonsai soil, and the watering schedule such trees need, the exact level of ‘salts’ is not high, but it must be considered.  I also use Turface as a component of most of my growing mixes.  This calcined clay product can absorb and hold on to mineral salts in the right conditions, releasing them in toxic amounts in a worst case scenario, but I think that it’s uniformity, moisture retention properties and longevity make it worth dealing with.  Some distilled water through the winter-or rain water during the summer gives good results in my experience.

So where does the rain water come from? I have used a rain barrel for several years and  liked the results.  The first  rain barrel I was familiar with was a 55 gallon steel drum that stood under a neighbor’s downspout in the 'hood where I grew up.  It was impossible to see the bottom, and we kids used to have some fun catching the “Sea Monkeys” that lived in it. My mother was never willing to let my new pets stay in the house, since she wasn’t keen on having mosquitoes indoors.

I set myself up a real rain barrel a few years back almost on a whim.  I had been considering getting one, and one spring I walked out of the local Kroger’s location to find that not only did they have a wide variety of flowers and shrubs set up on their sidewalk in an impromptu garden shop, they also had among their pots and urns some barrels and half barrels.

The half barrel looked like just the thing for a miniature water lily and some gold fish, and the full barrel was a rain catcher ready made. Or so I thought. The barrel was a retired whiskey barrel, with both heads intact. One had to be removed to make an opening to let the water in, and to dip water out.  Since I was feeling inspired, I went to the hardware store and got some fittings to create both an overflow and a hose bib. These where installed by drilling right into the sturdy oak of the barrel.

The wooden barrel looked picturesque in the back yard, and the overflow seemed to work well, though the hose bib never seemed to build up enough pressure, though a watering can placed under the spout could be filled by someone with a bit of patience.  But performance issues soon made themselves obvious. The wide open mouth of the barrel admitted rain but also leaves, assorted debris and mosquitoes-the Sea Monkeys where back. Netting them out made our aquarium fish happy , but was not a real solution.  Winter was also hard on the wooden barrel. It was too heavy to drain, which meat it froze when temperatures got low enough. The first winter didn’t seem to do much to it, probably because I floated a few empty milk jugs in it. The second winter the jugs proved less effective, and the barrel developed some integrity issues-the bottom dropped clean out of it come spring.

Never one to admit that an item may be past it’s useful life, I got not one but two more seasons of use by improvising a plastic liner that was both ugly and only partly effective.  This spring, I was tired of the old thing and resolved that it was time for a new rain barrel. The old oaken skeleton was rolled aside, and I went hunting for a new, modern replacement.

I was immediately put off by the high price of ready to use, off the self rain collection apparatus.  Internet research provided plenty of do-it-your-self options, but there where drawbacks there, as well,  Several sources suggested using a food grade plastic barrel, and for some reason I couldn’t come up with a local source for such an item. One article I found was titled “A home made rain barrel for $35” that sounded interesting. Using their instructions as my guide, I purchased a 35 gallon heavy duty trash drum, a few plumbing parts, some vinyl screening and some silicone caulk and went to work.

This was not a complex procedure.  A hole was cut in the lid of the can, and the caulking spread around the hole on the interior side. A properly sized piece of screen was pressed into the silicone, and the lid of the barrel was done.  A spade type drill bit was used to make a hole in the side of the barrel for the hose fitting, then it was brought up to proper size with sandpaper.  For a faucet, I used a plastic boiler fitting simply because the cost was about half of what a bronze fitting would have been.  The particular fitting I bought had female threading, meaning it was meant to be screwed onto a  pipe. To give it reach through the wall of the barrel, I used a short length of threaded plastic pipe fitting.  A large metal washer and two rubber washers where slipped over the pipe once it was screwed on, the whole assembly was inserted through the hole drilled in the barrel then two rubber washers and a metal washer  were put over the pipe from the other side, the entire assembly held in place with a plastic nut that was had tighten by hand, then snugged with a wrench.  All of these items are standard, off the shelf plumbing supplies that I picked out myself.

Putting this together took about an hour.  I bought more washers than I actually needed, and once they were returned I found that my actual cost was closer to $20. Some thoughts:

• If I were doing this over, I would make two and place them side by side.  I would also seek out trash cans larger than 35 gallons.
• I located the hose fitting higher than I like, and on the next one I make, I will place it much lower down, almost at the bottom of the barrel.
• I had a site ready to receive a rain barrel, which saved me a lot of time. First time set up for a rain barrel means a very sturdy base-a filled barrel can weigh several hundred pounds.  It could cause real damage or injury if it tipped.
• Preparation of the downspout also needs to be considered. I’m using a simple elbow fitting, which means the overflow simply leaks out around the barrel. Fancy diverters are available that direct rain to the barrel until it is full, then any excess goes down the spout.
• Because the barrel and it’s fittings are plastic, I am not going to let the thing stay out all winter. It will over winter in the garage-and a piece of flexible downspout will be a stop gap measure to make sure any melt water goes into the down spout and not into the garage foundation