Any Bonsai tree Keepers?
- Thread starter JK47
- Start date
I was just on their site and a great site it is.I have always wanted one and now I have a source,thank you very much!
Last few weeks I have finally been getting a little bit more free time away from rod building to where I can enjoy some more time working on my trees again. Been working for the past week on a few project trees I have.
This one is a ficus forest. I received this forest planting about 4 years ago from a friends Dad whom had to move to an assisted living home and was not able to take his trees with him. At the time I came to posses it it was living but not thriving and in very bad need of a lot of work. As you can tell from the picture it was WAY to tall to be anything even remotely proper size, branches were long thin and leggy due to being grown entirely indoors under poor lighting, and trunks were all crossed and very poorly spaced.
So first thing I did the first year I had it was to trunk chop it down to a more natural height. All that was left were the bare trunks with no branches so basically was just a pot of 10" sticks sticking up out of the soil which made wiring the trunks into more proper positioning much easier. Then lots of new branches and leaves grew back over the following year as seen in this pic.
Now this year I have kept pruning it to force better ramification and also have most the trunks in their final position with the exception of one in the rear I am still working with. Last week I also gave it the first defoliation it has ever had which will help reduce left size (hence it is defoliated in these pics). You can also see the results of the ramification work over the past couple years in these pics. Still has some more wiring and other work to do but it has come a very long way in the four years I have owned it.
This one is a ficus forest. I received this forest planting about 4 years ago from a friends Dad whom had to move to an assisted living home and was not able to take his trees with him. At the time I came to posses it it was living but not thriving and in very bad need of a lot of work. As you can tell from the picture it was WAY to tall to be anything even remotely proper size, branches were long thin and leggy due to being grown entirely indoors under poor lighting, and trunks were all crossed and very poorly spaced.
So first thing I did the first year I had it was to trunk chop it down to a more natural height. All that was left were the bare trunks with no branches so basically was just a pot of 10" sticks sticking up out of the soil which made wiring the trunks into more proper positioning much easier. Then lots of new branches and leaves grew back over the following year as seen in this pic.
Now this year I have kept pruning it to force better ramification and also have most the trunks in their final position with the exception of one in the rear I am still working with. Last week I also gave it the first defoliation it has ever had which will help reduce left size (hence it is defoliated in these pics). You can also see the results of the ramification work over the past couple years in these pics. Still has some more wiring and other work to do but it has come a very long way in the four years I have owned it.
Thanks. Feels good to finally have some time to work with my trees again this summer. I snagged a few decent sized Yew's from Meijers last week when they started marking them down. Gonna start working on those here shortly. Grabbed two of them in 5g pots marked down to only $17.50 each. Got about 1.5"-2" dia trunks so should make a nice start.
I picked up this 5g yew from a local nursery last week when they were marking them down to $17. (grabbed two of them). I liked this one because it had a decent trunk size to it and I have been really wanting to try my hand at some carving, shari/jin since I have never attempted any of that before so I figured for $17 you can't beat that for something to practice on. So I picked up some lime sulfur off ebay and some wood carving bits for the die grinder from the local hardware and have been having some fun the past couple days working on this. Since I did so much top work on it I ended up not touching the roots and just uncovered the trunk and put it into a big pot I snagged at a yard sale today for $5 and put a little 8822 on top the soil. Figure not messing with the roots at all will give it a better chance to recover.
Somewhat pleased with the way it came out considering this is my first ever attempt at any sort of shari / jin as well as first time doing any carving. Wish the pics would show the depth/shadow of the carving better because it has much more depth in person than the pics lead on. Once I see if it will survive I may end up down the road turning the more upright right branch into a deadwood at some point but figured I would leave it as is for now.
BTW....having never done deadwood before I have to say, lime sulfur stinks!
lol
Somewhat pleased with the way it came out considering this is my first ever attempt at any sort of shari / jin as well as first time doing any carving. Wish the pics would show the depth/shadow of the carving better because it has much more depth in person than the pics lead on. Once I see if it will survive I may end up down the road turning the more upright right branch into a deadwood at some point but figured I would leave it as is for now.
BTW....having never done deadwood before I have to say, lime sulfur stinks!
lol
