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.
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| 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
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| 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.
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| 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
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