Malix
Mame
So Wow.
I did not see this coming. I started collecting and developing bonsai in around 2002 or so . Around the time I turned 30. Fell hard for it and collected some material (a few high quality) I thought I'd develop it into old age. Then in 2006, I was diagnosed with a blood clot in my brain brought on most likely by the raging leukemia i was unaware of. Couple miracles later i beat the 10% chance of surviving the bleeding in my brain, all while my son was 3 months old, but I made it through . After making it through the stroke and while learning to deal with living with the leukemia and the treatment we decided - life is short -and we moved to northern california where my wife is from. Wine country. Took about 5 years before I started feeling normal then in 2010 we bought a burned house on a couple acres in the country for a song and began to rebuild it. Spent the next 10 yrs with fullsized oaks, walnut, redwood, maples, and an orchard with almost 50 apple trees to look after . Picked up woodworking, vegetable gardening, chickens and began to build and improve the land and our home with no time spent on the poor bonsai relegated to a spot in my yard that made it inconvenient to water them.
I sadly lost a few. mostly the smaller ones. but the bulk of the material made it through. The trees were located about 60 feet from the hose bib and dragging the hose out constantly while always being pressed for time meant that at times the trees took a back seat. I kept em alive but with deterioration happening as the years went by. Many a night over those years did I stay awake in bed feeling dread wanting to sell them but feeling stuck with no easy way to sell them without investing lots of time I didn't have to the process of finding new owners. Even showing them would be difficult as I was not fenced in all the way around the property so anyone could have walked onto the property to help themselves. But I feared most that they might not make it .. And so it went year after year.
About 5 years ago I put in a large vegetable garden with raised beds but I put them in near the drip line of some dawn redwoods as it was the best I could do location wise. Well that was a bad call. Redwoods are greedy trees. they came up under the boxes and colonized the raised beds choking out everything planted in them. This year I decided to rebuild the garden. A huge project as it would call for building boxes completely elevated off the ground. Well as I began the project My dad and helper said" why don't you nix 2 of the 12 large boxes and put the bonsai in there. Hmm. Sure why not. At least I'll be able to water them more easily i thought..
Well this changed EVERYTHING. The moment I moved them onto the tables I built for them. They were at eye level and I could SEE them again. I could see the trunk lines. I could see all the things that i liked about them. they were brought front and center for me to once again remember why I loved these little trees.
And then Corona hits. this allows me time . especially time to repot 12 of the 17 trees. The ones that have most desperately needed it. I have spent the last month of my life outside in the yard rain or shine. repotting pruning, analyzing. etc.
I can see that I likely lost about 8-10 years of development on these trees avg. in some cases more. But they are in fresh soil/subsrate. The roots have plenty of room to grow and they will regain their vigor over the next year or two. Its a great feeling to break out the old set of tools. Put a razor sharp on my shears, concave cutters, root cutters, etc. and go to work. It feels good to be back at it. Now that I have moved through the bulk of the backlog of work needed to begin to bring these trees back into development I feel good about the years to come. I am not so behinds as to neve be able to catch up . But now its a manageable workload. something to look forward to not dread.
I'll be posting more on individual trees as here are some design opinions I'd like to gather as I look forward to the next few years of development. but for now here are some pics.
The Garden (primarily a vegetable garden, but it has a hose about 4 feet from the bonsai tables and I have installed an automated timed watering system for the bonsai with their own valve and micro sprinklers so that I can water them while. I'm a way or in the heat of summer they can get a misting a couple times a day to cool them down and humidify the tables.
I did not see this coming. I started collecting and developing bonsai in around 2002 or so . Around the time I turned 30. Fell hard for it and collected some material (a few high quality) I thought I'd develop it into old age. Then in 2006, I was diagnosed with a blood clot in my brain brought on most likely by the raging leukemia i was unaware of. Couple miracles later i beat the 10% chance of surviving the bleeding in my brain, all while my son was 3 months old, but I made it through . After making it through the stroke and while learning to deal with living with the leukemia and the treatment we decided - life is short -and we moved to northern california where my wife is from. Wine country. Took about 5 years before I started feeling normal then in 2010 we bought a burned house on a couple acres in the country for a song and began to rebuild it. Spent the next 10 yrs with fullsized oaks, walnut, redwood, maples, and an orchard with almost 50 apple trees to look after . Picked up woodworking, vegetable gardening, chickens and began to build and improve the land and our home with no time spent on the poor bonsai relegated to a spot in my yard that made it inconvenient to water them.
I sadly lost a few. mostly the smaller ones. but the bulk of the material made it through. The trees were located about 60 feet from the hose bib and dragging the hose out constantly while always being pressed for time meant that at times the trees took a back seat. I kept em alive but with deterioration happening as the years went by. Many a night over those years did I stay awake in bed feeling dread wanting to sell them but feeling stuck with no easy way to sell them without investing lots of time I didn't have to the process of finding new owners. Even showing them would be difficult as I was not fenced in all the way around the property so anyone could have walked onto the property to help themselves. But I feared most that they might not make it .. And so it went year after year.
About 5 years ago I put in a large vegetable garden with raised beds but I put them in near the drip line of some dawn redwoods as it was the best I could do location wise. Well that was a bad call. Redwoods are greedy trees. they came up under the boxes and colonized the raised beds choking out everything planted in them. This year I decided to rebuild the garden. A huge project as it would call for building boxes completely elevated off the ground. Well as I began the project My dad and helper said" why don't you nix 2 of the 12 large boxes and put the bonsai in there. Hmm. Sure why not. At least I'll be able to water them more easily i thought..
Well this changed EVERYTHING. The moment I moved them onto the tables I built for them. They were at eye level and I could SEE them again. I could see the trunk lines. I could see all the things that i liked about them. they were brought front and center for me to once again remember why I loved these little trees.
And then Corona hits. this allows me time . especially time to repot 12 of the 17 trees. The ones that have most desperately needed it. I have spent the last month of my life outside in the yard rain or shine. repotting pruning, analyzing. etc.
I can see that I likely lost about 8-10 years of development on these trees avg. in some cases more. But they are in fresh soil/subsrate. The roots have plenty of room to grow and they will regain their vigor over the next year or two. Its a great feeling to break out the old set of tools. Put a razor sharp on my shears, concave cutters, root cutters, etc. and go to work. It feels good to be back at it. Now that I have moved through the bulk of the backlog of work needed to begin to bring these trees back into development I feel good about the years to come. I am not so behinds as to neve be able to catch up . But now its a manageable workload. something to look forward to not dread.
I'll be posting more on individual trees as here are some design opinions I'd like to gather as I look forward to the next few years of development. but for now here are some pics.
The Garden (primarily a vegetable garden, but it has a hose about 4 feet from the bonsai tables and I have installed an automated timed watering system for the bonsai with their own valve and micro sprinklers so that I can water them while. I'm a way or in the heat of summer they can get a misting a couple times a day to cool them down and humidify the tables.
