A favorite tree...and a favorite species

Clearing out the trees that didn't make it through the winter is always disappointing. Even though the toll was not as bad as last year, it is a reminder of how ephemeral a tree can be-but also a reminder of how tough they are as well.

One tree in particular seems especially resilient. It's the bonsai that I personally have had the longest,a collected crab apple of unknown variety an dubious provenance.  I really like crabs, and though not tree is bullet proof, they sure come close.

About the dubious provenance: When I moved to Columbus in 1990, I spent the previous year living in a studio apartment-room to read a bout bonsai,no space to try it. Arriving in central Ohio, and a rented house that taught me what the realtor's term "German Village area" meant (side note:never tour a property in the evening,no matter how great the interior looks,you'll get a surprise when you move in.) I had space for plants. 

As new hobbyists do, I wanted to expand my collection, and the idea of collecting potential bonsai from the wild seemed appealing,free plants for the taking and all.  So In February of 1991 when the weather broke and armed with a shovel and a plastic grocery bag (Big Bear,this happened some time ago) I walked down to Schiller Park.   There were several crab apple trees with luxuriant crops of root suckers, so I found what seemed like a good one and started digging.  Though the air temp was pleasant the ground was of course still frozen, so the removal was neither quick not clean, and as I recall there were some false starts, but eventually I got one out of the ground and into my bag.  

Satisfied that I was a real bonsai practitioner now, I walked home carrying my ill gotten gain. At no time either going, coming or during did anyone stop me,ask why I had a shovel or what I was doing.

This seems the appropriate point to reminder readers that collecting without permission is the wrong way to go about things.

Once I had the fledgling bonsai home and potted into a cost effective training container (a plastic tub that originally held macaroni salad) it sure didn't look like much.  A segment of the donor tree's root,about the size of a cocktail weenie sat at soil level, with a few viable roots going down and one slim branch rising straight up.

Crab apple blossoms about to open.

It took some time, but this ugly duckling somehow became a swan. Despite a rough start in life and the inexperience of it's keeper, it not only grew but thrived. It branched out well and was gradually moved into a proper training pot and then a production grade Chinese pot. Training and styling were accomplished by the hedge clipper method-lots of hacking back of vigorous shoots.  I have accepted the fact that crab apples, like many flowering/fruiting bonsai, wont always have well manicured foliage pads.  The need to let them bank some energy and create new fruiting spurs has to trump the desire for compact form

This seedling spent two years
in a growing bed to develop trunk
thickness,now live in a training pot
for some branch work.

The tree flowers reliably every year, and it's been something of a tradition to bring it to work with me so it can share it's beauty with a wider audience.  Spent blooms are removed and it has never been allowed to set fruit, though I am curious about the size and color of possible fruit so may allow it to do so this year.  It has managed to stay very healthy on its own until recently. Although the very cold winters don't seem to bother it at all, the hot dry summers seem to stress it, and the last few years it has developed black spot and looked absolutely awful by July.  Though it's against my principles to use chemicals, a prepackaged  bottle of  rose spray does the trick, with weekly application through the summer.

The red leaved crab in the round pot and the green leaved on in the
cloud pot are both about three years old,collected from the back
yard.  It will be a few years before they bloom.

I have added many crabapples to my collection since this first one,both by purchase and by digging.  Seedlings are plentiful in my back yard, and since crabapples are over utilized in the suburban landscape, volunteers are everywhere.  Great advice for creating crabapple bonsai can be found on the Evergreen Garden Works website

https://www.evergreengardenworks.com/crabappl.htm

A Book Review

Bountiful Bonsai: Create Instant Indoor Container Gardens with Edible Fruits, Herbs and Flowers by Richard W. Bender

This is author Bender's second book on a bonsai subject. His previous effort, Herbal Bonsai was published in 1996. As the title suggests,he advocates for the increased use for herbal plants as bonsai.  I thought he had an interesting take on the  hobby but rather an limited grasp of the artistic aspects of bonsai.  The example trees were generally over potted,had thin trunks and masses of undefined foliage.  

Bender's new effort is much more of the same.  His topic this time is summed up in the jacket flap copy, stating "(he) expects his plants to look good but also to play a supporting role in the home by supplying  fragrant fresh herbs and fruits for the dinner table". What Bender is advocating is bonsai that are useful as well as good looking.

The way that he accomplishes this is fairly easy to predict and proven positively by examining any of the multiple color photographs in the book: Bender's bonsai don't look very good.  Check that-these are obviously healthy, vigorous specimens that grow well and bear their particular crops with enthusiasm  Bender gets wine,jam,marmalade, tea and cooking herbs from his 'bonsai', so they certainly live up to the "Bountiful" mentioned in the title. They just stray from the usually accepted rules for bonsai.

The author acknowledges that 'bonsai' grown in his method will of necessity have larger that traditional pots, and will have larger foliage areas.  He presents these situations almost as freedom from rigid bonsai rules, but while may assure that his bonsai bear fruit, it also means that his bonsai are to my eye indistinguishable from any houseplant. Well cared for,handsomely potted, but not a bonsai.

Design aspects aside, Bender has a firm grasp of the horticulture involved in this endeavor.  The types of plants he recommends as 'bountiful bonsai' are a wide range of growing things-old friends like natal plum, myrtle, dwarf pomegranate and the myriad of citrus as well as some very nontraditional choices like sage, scented geraniums,papaya and hot peppers! He not only offers care and culture advice, but provides recipes for those interested in making their own bountiful bonsai.

A promotional video can be seen here :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrU6xC5kbV8

Some of the comments and the author's response to them are instructive.