I’m on the YouTube! Garden tour and interview 🎥

[SeanS]

Recently a local South African bonsai person, Clive, came to interview me and film a garden tour for their YT channel.

Here’s the long sit-down interview

Here’s part 1 of the tour of my garden. I’ll post the next parts as they’re released over the next few weeks.

 

[SeanS]

Part 2 of my garden tour

 

[BartelBe]

Is that you? Damn, I watched these two just last week and it was like eating a sorbet, with the can of surplus right next to the dish so I could take plenty of refills. Yummi yummi. You know your stuff SeanS.
Now I know where you get your refrerence base from (!)

 

[Hartinez]

Hey now. Looking forward to watching this Sean.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Really well done Sean!

Love to see your progress. Looks like we have both reached the “Too many trees point at the same time “

Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Orion_metalhead]

Great tour Sean! I didnt realize you had only been doing bonsai for 6-7yrs like myself.

I need to learn to graft. Youve had so much success with it.

 

[SeanS]

Thanks everyone!
I really go all in when I’m passionate about something, so I really wanted to highlight what can be done in a short timeframe with bonsai if you apply yourself to it.
You may notice I’m a much more streamlined version of my B’nut profile pic in those videos Before I found bonsai I was a very dedicated bodybuilder (and was around 50lb bigger), so I’m very familiar with putting in the time and dedicating myself to pursuits that I want to excel at

 

[bluone23]

Nice garden and great mentality: “just have fun”
Started bonsai also in the same time as you

 

[Tahoebonsai]

Awesome garden

 

[Veni]

I love your collection/bonsai retreat.
I especially love your root over rock/exposed root Trident Maples and JBP! Hope you won't mind a couple questions I had whilst watching.

With growing out those trees from seed in 5 years, what was your thickening process like?

What's the purpose of grafting the japanese maple seedlings onto roots of other established JMs?

I didn't quite make out what your soil mix was on the video. I had heard the akadama/perlite, but what was the 3rd component?

Thanks for reading and happy holidays!

 

[SeanS]

With growing out those trees from seed in 5 years, what was your thickening process like?

Nothing special, the usual thickening techniques of letting things grow and then cutting them back. Almost all of my root over rock maples (tridents and JM) have spent some time in the ground, usually 1-3 years to thicken up. Ground growing is the absolute best tool for thickening trunks.

What's the purpose of grafting the japanese maple seedlings onto roots of other established JMs?

Are you referring to the mention of root grafts in the 2nd garden tour video? Those are grafts used to fill in gaps in the root base so that there aren’t any bald spots void of roots, allowing you to create a completely radial set of roots around the trunk.

I didn't quite make out what your soil mix was on the video. I had heard the akadama/perlite, but what was the 3rd component?

Thanks for reading and happy holidays!

The third component is crushed LECA (lightweight expanded clay aggregate).

Expanded clay aggregate - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Veni]

Cool graft technique and thanks for the detailed response. I'm in the process of developing Trident Maple cuttings and JBP seeds, and these videos gave me tons of inspiration over what could be achieved in 5 years!