Natchez- 2 year progression

[vaibatron]

Purchased this tree in October of 2014 as a candidate for the landscape (sorry no picture). However, as the leaves dropped I quickly changed my mind and in the spring of 15' I decided to chop it and begin working on a twin trunk. The slenderness and soft undulations of the main trunk lend themselves quite nicely to a mother/daughter style tree.

So in early May the deed was done and I left it to grow mostly unchecked in the original nursery pot/soil until leaf drop in November. Laziness coupled with the fact that the soil drained well and the tree was very healthy when I purchased it, gave little reason to worry moving forward. (On many of my other deciduous trees, hindsight has told me to work the roots early!... But I had luck on my side this time!)

Fast forward 5 1/2 months, I cleaned up the chop site, bare rooted, and planted in a grow box in 30% lava, 30% pumice, 20% turface, 20% fir bark. To my surprise the nebari wasn't that bad and the tree grew spectacularly this season but I definitely let it get away from me. A busy schedule lend itself to clip n grow, which in turned produced fairly good leaf reduction. However, the branching is in need of serious attention. The chop site is almost completely healed.

FF another 6 months or so, here it is today. The daughter trunk is a bit straight, but I feel the planting angle and rotation can help. Waiting for leaf drop to fully wire this mother! At which time I will post an update.

 

[vaibatron]

Chop site and base of trunk

 

[_#1_]

Very nice progression!

Have you thought about chopping the daughter trunk to at least half its length? since they grow so fast and heal so well...

Will be following this thread

 

[vaibatron]

Very nice progression!

Have you thought about chopping the daughter trunk to at least half its length? since they grow so fast and heal so well...

Will be following this thread

Thanks! That notion is definitely on the table. And prob the most logical way to fix the pole"ness" of the second trunk. In fact, the pictures don't adequately show the somewhat witches broom occurring at the chop site, so something has to be done.

I really should have addressed it last spring, but I'll raise my beer to learning the hard way!

 

[vaibatron]

Annnnd a humble sketch. I'm most certainly not at @MACH5 sketch level but it is a start.

 

[vaibatron]

Not but one bite on this thread so I'll post up some fall color!

 

[cbroad]

I like it! I have a few crapes I'm playing with too. A question for you though... do you get your lava and pumice locally or do you order online? I can find big chunks of lava that I'd have to crush but I can't find pumice anywhere... Would love to know where I can find these items locally!

 

[vaibatron]

I like it! I have a few crapes I'm playing with too. A question for you though... do you get your lava and pumice locally or do you order online? I can find big chunks of lava that I'd have to crush but I can't find pumice anywhere... Would love to know where I can find these items locally!

Thanks! I wish we had a local supplier, but in the last 3 years I have yet to find one. I too, was buying landscape bags of lava and crushing it, but the particle size was too inconsistent and left me with more sediment than usable material.

Two years ago I saved the funds to buy both lava and pumice from bonsai jack and it has made a world of difference. Trees that are in the growing out stage get a 50/50 turface/inorganic mix. Luckily you work at TGBG, so I'm sure you get that cheap!

I'm sure others will agree with me in saying, I would rather cut back the number of trees, than have to put them in less than adequate soil.

On a side note, does TGBG have any fall deals on JM or CM??

 

[cbroad]

I tried going to Southern States to find pumice, they can order Dry Stall (not Stall Dry, this is something different but not pumice and of course they had this item in stock) which is pumice. I forget if the guy there told me I could order a few bags or if I had to purchase the whole pallet... I've resorted to using peat moss with tons of perlite after I wasn't happy with my turface/permatill/granite mix.

Haha yeah I stocked up on turface, its pretty reasonable with my discount, but I'm not using it right now until I can find other ingredients.

We've been having a "all plants on sale" sale for a couple weeks now. Everything is at least 20% off but a lot of things are 50-75% off. We have a decent amount of 3 gal crapes left that are about $12.50 after the discount but we're pretty short on JMs, we do have some Acer japonicas left that might be interesting, I want to say they're around $50 and about 5 or 6 feet tall. We have some 10-12' tall b&b Bloodgoods for $100 that probably have 4" root crowns but not everybody thinks they make decent bonsai. We still have some large b&b crapes that are cheap, probably around $75-$100. I'm kicking myself for not getting the Bald Cypress' that were 8' tall for $40...

 

[cbroad]

Just checked, the fern leaf maples are $35 and $40 and are about 4.5-5' tall and the only other true JMs we have are the red leaf weepers...

 

[vaibatron]

Correct me if I'm wrong last year they had a few b&b maples of decent girth for $30? Can't remember the cultivar, however they were nice from the bag up. But I wasn't convinced they weren't grafted, even so, a good price for an air layering project?

 

[vaibatron]

I tried going to Southern States to find pumice, they can order Dry Stall (not Stall Dry, this is something different but not pumice and of course they had this item in stock) which is pumice. I forget if the guy there told me I could order a few bags or if I had to purchase the whole pallet... I've resorted to using peat moss with tons of perlite after I wasn't happy with my turface/permatill/granite mix.

Haha yeah I stocked up on turface, its pretty reasonable with my discount, but I'm not using it right now until I can find other ingredients.

We've been having a "all plants on sale" sale for a couple weeks now. Everything is at least 20% off but a lot of things are 50-75% off. We have a decent amount of 3 gal crapes left that are about $12.50 after the discount but we're pretty short on JMs, we do have some Acer japonicas left that might be interesting, I want to say they're around $50 and about 5 or 6 feet tall. We have some 10-12' tall b&b Bloodgoods for $100 that probably have 4" root crowns but not everybody thinks they make decent bonsai. We still have some large b&b crapes that are cheap, probably around $75-$100. I'm kicking myself for not getting the Bald Cypress' that were 8' tall for $40...

If you can swing it, buy from bonsai jack or another reputable dealer. Your trees will thank you.

I have heard from an individual from TGBG (possibly you!) that permatill makes a bonsai grade soil?

 

[cbroad]

Were they the shrubby ones about 4 feet tall? If they were the shrubby ones they were Shirazz. I picked one up last year and debated getting another one this year when they went on sale but they're all gone now. They did have pretty clean grafts and my intentions were to layer the hell out of them, but I got as far as bare rooting it, but it has regained a lot of vigor this year and put out 4' whips in late summer! So I think next year I'm going to do many layers.

I don't do much ordering online but I may not have a choice for these kinds of products. I thought I could make a pretty good mix using locally sourced stuff but so far I'm wrong... My problem is finding similarly sized particles.

Yeah that must have been me, I'm really the only bonsai nut here! My landlord works for BFG which is a huge hardgoods distributer in the country and he said Stalite has had a lot of interest in a bonsai grade Permatill. Don't know if they've gone ahead with that yet but it could be great for us on the east coast that can't get pumice easily.

 

[vaibatron]

Shirazz! That was it! I had a good feeling they were grafted, but I just couldn't pull the trigger. Maybe next year!

If you are concerned with particle size, bonsaijack is the place to go! Washed, pH tested, and uniform size. I've been informed on other threads that's it's expensive compared to their sources but for me, it works!

 

[cbroad]

Shirazz is nice, but some people don't like variegated plants for bonsai; I guess it detracts from the over all look... I like it because of it's angular growth and really tight internodal spacing (some internodes are around 1/4") and the leaves on mine were pretty small (around the size of a half dollar and smaller) except for the longer late season growth.

Just looked at Bonsai Jack's website, prices seem a little expensive but since its sifted and graded it's probably a fair price but I don't really know since I've never bought any soil online. They seem pretty reputable and ethical though, sounds like they have a good guarantee and return policy. Looks like they are serious about providing a good clean product and take many steps to ensure they sell a quality product which is worth a little extra money in my view. AND FREE SHIPPING!!! -which was one reason I never really pursued buying soil online. I might have to give them a try next year.

 

[vaibatron]

Shirazz is nice, but some people don't like variegated plants for bonsai; I guess it detracts from the over all look... I like it because of it's angular growth and really tight internodal spacing (some internodes are around 1/4") and the leaves on mine were pretty small (around the size of a half dollar and smaller) except for the longer late season growth.

Just looked at Bonsai Jack's website, prices seem a little expensive but since its sifted and graded it's probably a fair price but I don't really know since I've never bought any soil online. They seem pretty reputable and ethical though, sounds like they have a good guarantee and return policy. Looks like they are serious about providing a good clean product and take many steps to ensure they sell a quality product which is worth a little extra money in my view. AND FREE SHIPPING!!! -which was one reason I never really pursued buying soil online. I might have to give them a try next year.

Do it! Your trees will love you for it!

 

[cbroad]

Last year I had some plants in my bonsai mix that were being auto watered and had the same types in potting soil and the ones in soil were so much healthier. I identified a few potential problems but I knew my mix could be improved. So I vowed not to put them back in a bonsai mix until I could get the ingredients right... All of my plants are in the training stages and I don't have a single plant in a bonsai pot so right now potting soil is pretty economical for me. What you said about keeping less plants in better soil is true, it's just hard to not bring plants home when customers return them and we can't sell them anymore, and I only take home probably around 5 0r 10% that comes back. I don't want to count how many plants I have but it's probably around 75... and a lot of them are crap

 

[vaibatron]

So a little update...

Unfortunately, life has gotten in the way of bonsai, so maintaining health is really the primary focus here. Things seem to be settling down so I should get more time to devote to my trees.

3 years in.. I did some structural pruning before bud break that seems to have furthered this tree along. This tree deserves a good wiring, which will be my number one focus come leaf drop!

As always comments and critiques are welcome

 

[ColinFraser]

Cool; looking good. I think it would be nice if the whole composition looked a little more like it had one shared canopy - right now it feels to me like two distinct ones running into (or away from) each other.

I also think you could use a good strong/larger branch on the opposite side of the main trunk, not quite as low as the foliage on the small trunk, but close.

 

[cbroad]

I'm liking it, it looks really good! I like Colin's idea about one shared canopy, or you could shorten the secondary a little to make a separate canopy. Thanks for posting!