Rocks and other stuff

Good to be back after a long winter's nap...though winter seems far from over.

Ken Huth talks erodium.

The February meeting of the Columbus Bonsai Society was a great time. Ken Huth, of Ken's World of Bonsai led an erodium workshop.  Ken has been a long time advocate for these adorable little plants. If they were technology we might call him an early adapter.  For me, erodium are ideal bonsai in several respects.  Small is an important part of bonsai in my bind, and these plants are happy and hardy at small sizes, something that can't be said for all species.

Apart from size, erodium as bonsai epitomize the artistic deception that all good bonsai have.  Erodium are not trees and are rarely what we consider 'old', but with a little styling these microgeraniums look like ancient trees.  Its a kind of magic or alchemy, which ever you prefer.

Ken thinks 'green' and is always ready
to recylce!

Ken brought along several flats of erodium starts that he had grown on and which needed potted in presentable pots. Ken is well known for using recycled um, beverage cans for growing containers, so the need for nicer, ceramic pots.  Workshop participants each potted up a half dozen or so plants , then got to keep their favorite to take home.

As well as all the raw stock, Ken brought along some 'finished' examples.  Several were root on rock, a really easy style to work an erodium into. Using the rock gives additional visual interest and gives a very impressive trunk base. I was inspired to take some of my erodium cutting out of grow pots and get them wedded to some rocks.

Erodium roots are fairly flexible,
so can be used for rock style plantings
more easily than many woody species,
which have to be wedded to their rocks
when the roots are young  and pliant. 

Like most bonsai practitioners, I have a collections of stones and rocks (what's the difference?) , but what I wanted was something craggy, textured and interesting. With nearly a foot of snow on the ground its, not a great time to go collecting.This being Modern America, if you want something, just go shopping. Since it was nearly 8;30 PM in Modern America, shopping involved the interweb.

Anything you want to buy, someone is selling, and the interweb makes sure all those buyers and sellers find each other. But Google can also be a surprisingly effective way to find out about worlds you don't often visit. Which brings us to a style of aquarium decoration based on design concepts from Japanese gardens.

The style is called iwagumi, and the lean spare aesthetic that shapes a Japanese garden that is mostly stones  has been translated to a fish tank  where the fish and plants take a back seat to the hardscape.  As with bonsai and many other Japanese influenced artistic pursuits, there are some precise and complex ratios and space/size concerns.  Minimal is far harder to do right, though it looks so easy!

The most prized stones used for this type of aquarium design of course come from Japan, most are expensive and hard to come by.   Just like items branded or marketed for bonsai are usually moe expensive, the same deal goes on in other hobbies.  Smart hobbyists soon figure out that there are smart substitutes or alternatives that work just as well-or better.

 I liked the look of the Japanese stone, and after finding that specialized aquarium websites charge a fortune to ship it ( no surprise to anyone who has bought akadama) I was surprised whena few posters in online message boards said that buying
from aquarium stores may be expensive, but bargains can be found in "your local bonsai shop or Japanese garden store"!!!
Not sure about you but I don't have a 'local' bonsai shop, as much as I wish that were true!