PIGLET CHAPTER 2

Adair M said:
Peter Tea gave a wonderful lecture to the Atlanta club about developing Tridents. He said that Tridents need to be developed in phases. Phase one is building the trunk. You definitely have that. Then Phase 2 is building the Primary branches. Phase 3 is building the secondary branches. Phase 4 is the ramification stage.
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I'd agree with that.
 
Adair M said:
Where you been, Don? I hope all is well with you!
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I am well, as far as I am aware. I've been very busy and avoiding bonsai sales, forums and gatherings. Sometimes you just need a break and a reset. I love bonsai, everything about it, from working on junk trees to amazing old specimens, and everything in between. Nothing beats early morning in the greenhouse in spring when the sun is shining, trees are waking and I'm surrounded by the beauty and potential waiting for expression. The smell of flowers, moss, dirt. Its heaven on earth. That said, selling trees can change that feeling and your perspective, if you let it, and sometimes its difficult to not let it. I've met and interacted with a lot of great people through bonsai, but selling trees exposed me to a different element that nearly ruined the hobby for me. And for me it is just that; a hobby. So because of the vocal minority, I decided to stop actively selling trees and step away from the community. Since then I've been rekindling my love for bonsai.
 
Don Blackmond said:
I am well, as far as I am aware. I've been very busy and avoiding bonsai sales, forums and gatherings. Sometimes you just need a break and a reset. I love bonsai, everything about it, from working on junk trees to amazing old specimens, and everything in between. Nothing beats early morning in the greenhouse in spring when the sun is shining, trees are waking and I'm surrounded by the beauty and potential waiting for expression. The smell of flowers, moss, dirt. Its heaven on earth. That said, selling trees can change that feeling and your perspective, if you let it, and sometimes its difficult to not let it. I've met and interacted with a lot of great people through bonsai, but selling trees exposed me to a different element that nearly ruined the hobby for me. And for me it is just that; a hobby. So because of the vocal minority, I decided to stop actively selling trees and step away from the community. Since then I've been rekindling my love for bonsai.
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I hear ya! I am often asked if I sell trees. And I reply that, no, I’m a hobbiest, and while I occasionally will trade trees with others, I view my trees as being part of my family.

I hope you can continue to enjoy your trees in a more relaxed setting.

Also, best wishes for the dog shelter you’re involved with!
 
Don Blackmond said:
I am well, as far as I am aware. I've been very busy and avoiding bonsai sales, forums and gatherings. Sometimes you just need a break and a reset. I love bonsai, everything about it, from working on junk trees to amazing old specimens, and everything in between. Nothing beats early morning in the greenhouse in spring when the sun is shining, trees are waking and I'm surrounded by the beauty and potential waiting for expression. The smell of flowers, moss, dirt. Its heaven on earth. That said, selling trees can change that feeling and your perspective, if you let it, and sometimes its difficult to not let it. I've met and interacted with a lot of great people through bonsai, but selling trees exposed me to a different element that nearly ruined the hobby for me. And for me it is just that; a hobby. So because of the vocal minority, I decided to stop actively selling trees and step away from the community. Since then I've been rekindling my love for bonsai.
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Good to hear! 💕
 
Adair M said:
I hear ya! I am often asked if I sell trees. And I reply that, no, I’m a hobbiest, and while I occasionally will trade trees with others, I view my trees as being part of my family.

I hope you can continue to enjoy your trees in a more relaxed setting.

Also, best wishes for the dog shelter you’re involved with!
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Sorry for this tangent cluttering your thread Sergio. I will drop it after this.
Trees can be like family, when you've had them for many years, or spent lots of time and effort in making significant transformations. It can be hard to let them go to someone else. When you do, you hope the next person enjoys the tree as much as you and takes as good or better care of it. That is generally what happens, but not always. The "not always" can be sad or downright unpleasant.
This tree is an example of the good that can come from selling a tree. It was a great tree with tons of potential when I had it. Judy got it and invested herself in it and made it better. Now Sergio is pouring himself into it and taking it to the next level and beyond. I have a lot of respect for them and their work.
Thanks for asking about the shelter Adair. This month I retired from the board of directors after just over 10 ten years service, 8 as president. I finished the shelter project and its paid off and the organization debt-free. We had an old, worn out shelter and $255,000 balance sheet when I took over. We now have a new, state of the art shelter and $2,700,000 balance, debt-free. I am very proud of what we accomplished.
 
Don Blackmond said:
Sorry for this tangent cluttering your thread Sergio. I will drop it after this.
Trees can be like family, when you've had them for many years, or spent lots of time and effort in making significant transformations. It can be hard to let them go to someone else. When you do, you hope the next person enjoys the tree as much as you and takes as good or better care of it. That is generally what happens, but not always. The "not always" can be sad or downright unpleasant.
This tree is an example of the good that can come from selling a tree. It was a great tree with tons of potential when I had it. Judy got it and invested herself in it and made it better. Now Sergio is pouring himself into it and taking it to the next level and beyond. I have a lot of respect for them and their work.
Thanks for asking about the shelter Adair. This month I retired from the board of directors after just over 10 ten years service, 8 as president. I finished the shelter project and its paid off and the organization debt-free. We had an old, worn out shelter and $255,000 balance sheet when I took over. We now have a new, state of the art shelter and $2,700,000 balance, debt-free. I am very proud of what we accomplished.
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Im glad to see you are still around and I know you were really focused on getting that animal shelter turned around. As a dog lover that has adopted 5 shelter dogs and 1 that his owner had to give up due to a change in living arrangements. I salute you for your hard work to help homeless pets find forever homes. The dogs and cats you help dont know the hard work you and others put into helping them, but when they go home to a loving family Im sure they do appreciate it in their own way.

I am sorry that some vitriol from selling trees has so effected your bonsai hobby. I never heard any bad things said about you and you were always regarded as someone that sold quality trees.

I did buy a trident from you once during the winter and for some reason the tree never budded out in the spring. Since I had purchased the tree during the winter and I had it a few months already, I couldnt be sure if it my fault or otherwise. So I never really said much about it but I hope I didnt contribute to your losing interest in that aspect of the hobby.

Your absence was definitely noted and I am glad to see you back around these parts
 
MACH5 said:
Jon, I almost always have done the approach graft when it comes to roots. I have used the scoring method three times. Two on tridents and one on a Japanese maple which did not work. The problem with scoring the bark is that you run into the possibility of the tree bridging which maples can do rather easily. However, scoring the bark as you can see, it's much easier to do and requires much less expertise that doing an approach graft. So for those with a little less experience it may be worth trying that first.

I am going to take a wild guess and say that with a ficus you probably stand a good chance of success as they root very easily as it relates to the scoring method. I do not know for boxwood but I would say it may need more encouragement to root than packing moss against the target areas? But that's just my sense.
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I have done thread grafts for my Trident's roots and while I've had like a 100% success rate, I don't like how you end up with a scar at the entrance site. I haven't done any thread grafting before. I feel like you've done a bit of a tutorial on here with one of your maples. Would you be able to point me to that if it does exist?

Thanks,
Cory
 
Don Blackmond said:
Sorry for this tangent cluttering your thread Sergio. I will drop it after this.
Trees can be like family, when you've had them for many years, or spent lots of time and effort in making significant transformations. It can be hard to let them go to someone else. When you do, you hope the next person enjoys the tree as much as you and takes as good or better care of it. That is generally what happens, but not always. The "not always" can be sad or downright unpleasant.
This tree is an example of the good that can come from selling a tree. It was a great tree with tons of potential when I had it. Judy got it and invested herself in it and made it better. Now Sergio is pouring himself into it and taking it to the next level and beyond. I have a lot of respect for them and their work.
Thanks for asking about the shelter Adair. This month I retired from the board of directors after just over 10 ten years service, 8 as president. I finished the shelter project and its paid off and the organization debt-free. We had an old, worn out shelter and $255,000 balance sheet when I took over. We now have a new, state of the art shelter and $2,700,000 balance, debt-free. I am very proud of what we accomplished.
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No worries at all Don. Glad to see you're doing well.

To that point, about three years ago I sold a few of my maples in order to keep improving and upgrading my collection. Unfortunately the trees fell into careless hands, they suffered and then realized bonsai was too much work. I would like to use some expletives here but I will refrain.

Congrats on your accomplishment!!


misfit11 said:
I have done thread grafts for my Trident's roots and while I've had like a 100% success rate, I don't like how you end up with a scar at the entrance site. I haven't done any thread grafting before. I feel like you've done a bit of a tutorial on here with one of your maples. Would you be able to point me to that if it does exist?

Thanks,
Cory
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Sure Cory. Here it is.

Root graft on a maple

I have a maple (many of you are familiar with it) that I am slowly adding root grafts in an effort to improve its nebari. I decided to chronicle as best as I could my process for completing one. There are a couple of ways to do root grafts. One is by thread grafting and the other by way of...
www.bonsainut.com www.bonsainut.com
 
MACH5 said:
Sure Cory. Here it is.

Root graft on a maple

I have a maple (many of you are familiar with it) that I am slowly adding root grafts in an effort to improve its nebari. I decided to chronicle as best as I could my process for completing one. There are a couple of ways to do root grafts. One is by thread grafting and the other by way of...
www.bonsainut.com www.bonsainut.com
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Yes, that's it! And I realized that I said that I hadn't done thread grafting but I meant approach grafts. Looks like you realized my intent Thanks so much 😊
 
Awww Piglet, looking so pretty. I have to ask why that name? 😂
 
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