Damn it , I love bonsai , I have 2 in progress , started from 4-5 months ago , small plants but they are growing into every directly very nicely , they are healthy just need time to get the hold of the pot …
I wanted to take care of them more and try more kind of these but I don’t have time to do it ….
um so we’ll just i’ll just kind of go through them and we’ll pull out any kind of the interesting ones um i guess this is first a little bougainvillea that’s styled similar to um nigel’s um except i have a a really low first branch yeah which i’m going to keep yeah and the rubric is covered in the smallest um it’s looking good yeah well there’s the first big big cut and i’m just really letting it grow so it that was having some problems with its roots and is this a pink pixie cut yeah yeah because it’s thornless right yeah smaller and it’s more of a like um rocket shoots where the the other one i can show you guys when we get there it grows kind of out it’s more of limelight yeah yeah it is almost fine yeah these aren’t really i mean maybe if you let it grow really long it would become more of a yeah but i find it more it grows like this like these pieces like straight yeah like almost like a like a candle like a pine tree yeah more shrubby than the other bougainvilleas aren’t there yeah it was struggling a little bit so i’m just letting it grow all summer so i’m not going to prune it and it’s still you can see it’s not super established in its pot yet now let’s just look at this humidity here oh yeah when we when i came here it was like 50 50. yeah and now we’re at 83 humidity 27 degrees celsius so i don’t know yeah it has gotten cloudy out so that might mean rain is coming yeah yeah well it’s this thing i’ve seen this get up to it’s kind of um well the sun hits it so it the thermostat gets really hot i’ve seen it in 30 35 this uh sometimes even reads 40. really but like we haven’t had a hot hot summer yet but it just i guess when the sun gets over it hits it right away yeah it’s just a good indication kind of for the backyard yeah it is i have some smaller other pines kind of surrounding so this is a big scotch pine wow uh so this is the first tree i’ve ever collected oh yeah uh and it’s been kind of sitting in this uh storage tote for about three years i’m probably gonna repot it next year yeah um i got this from the uh side of a railway okay so i found a um a lot of good trees on the side of railways because like they get buffered by the snow they got the wind and then people come back and cut cut back from the from the the rails yeah um so is it in the original soil still or um some of it yeah so again probably the the closer core still has some original soil but it’s in all of my uh i guess this is my version one of bonsai soil i see yeah so this uh there’s i can get a close-up on it there’s some like haydid pieces some expanded uh glass this is i forget what it’s called uh it’ll come to me some turf s a little bit of everything it’s gritty though yeah very gritty that’s good for it and this is my my new mix so this is a small uh limber pine i think okay so many pines i know there’s a variety of pines so this is kind of my newer mix so you can see that there’s these pieces of pink and black those those are granite bits so i really started liking using the granite that changes the acidity of the soil yeah granite and there’s also um there’s the pink and the black granite have a high mineral content of beneficial minerals uh but they they need the mycorrhiza in the active soil so i have bits of organic material as well i see uh and then just some pumice and uh some lava uh but the granite is good it’s a heavier product too it keeps the pots on it it’s good to have that weight in the soil sometimes and i’ve heard a lot of pines prefer having some weight on top of the soil for the roots to grow yeah i don’t know why that is but wow yeah that’s good well because maybe then they get in that small kind of crevice in the on those shales of rocks and stuff they develop like that and pines always will make their own soil from their decomposed needles from their litter and all that yeah fine litter and stuff they call it right yeah pine duff yeah well i think it’s called pine duff yeah this granite is like um a lot of it comes from like the northern ontario shores and stuff so okay pine like trees like that grow up there like a lot of local people go up to that kind of area to collect yeah so they’re growing in that naturally so it’s a really good and local uh product so you don’t really have to pay a lot of shipping fees and stuff for it and is that sold for chickens like chicken grit or something um no it’s it’s different than that um but it probably could be but um so from ray ray has always told me to look for the black and the pink stuff because that has the the specific minerals like uh magnesium and potassium but okay you need the microrizer to unlock it basically and which is like is it sold for aquariums or what’s the commercial use for it i think it’s just like a bulk aggregate okay uh so for like bedding uh but sometimes it’s like you see a lot of limestone bedding and stuff like that yeah crushed granite um it comes in bigger pieces for uh abutments and stuff like that okay yeah um but then when you can crush it down to a small enough stuff for bonsai soil yeah wow um so yeah a couple other so that’s the new soil mix and so far it’s working well right yeah i found the i’ve mostly just moved to like a particle size method so i’m less kind of concerned with like i have one part lava one part it’s all i just have the the consistent particle size yeah and then i i break it down into basically inorganic and organic so yeah i have all of these and inorganic being the granite the pumice the lava rock all of that one size and then the the pine bark the other size and i’ll do a mix like that with basically 20 20 to 25 pine bark and then the rest in organic yes and i kind of just like over the last several years by this part of this component this part of this i haven’t really found a mix like you’re a perlite uh yeah um so it now i just kind of do it by particle size yes and it seemed to be working pretty well yeah i think that’s the most important thing is particle size to get the air spaces isn’t it and then and then everything’s kind of consistent across your bench yeah so it’s easier for watering yeah here’s another little uh adenium yeah that’s cool and uh beautiful little pot yeah kind of busting out of the little pond they’ll break pods i’ve heard but it’s just starting to grow in new growth um and have you pruned that already this summer um no i don’t think i think it was this was one was a little struggling before so it lost its leaves okay they’ll normally do that they really don’t like our winters like that’s it’s right there’s a struggle to kind of grow them so don’t don’t be don’t fret if like your adenium is not growing well indoors i found as soon as you put them outside they kind of perked up like so this one perked up fattened up and it’s just a little slower to kind of butt out coming out now yeah well hopefully it’ll do well this summer little tree yeah i think so uh next trade we have a a beast of a i think it’s a boston ivy or or some kind of iv kind of iv isn’t it yeah yeah it’s got a nice little leaf set very small leaves and uh we were just kind of digging in it because i was showing nigel but it’s got a a sumo trunk trunk in there wow and the bark texture yeah look at that so it’s very very overgrown um but it’s kind of going to be a unique one because it’s obviously a vine so it grows down yeah but i’m do maybe kind of a kind of like a penis grab so like i’ll have branches like this yeah and then grow uh a fake or faux branch on it right so that’s kind of a good example yeah exactly so i when when i’m going to prune this i basically just prune it and leave that little puff ball there and maybe someday those will thicken up enough that you can actually remove the old batch who knows and uh i think it’s going to be like a it’s going to make really wavy branches because it’s basically going to grow like this and then it’s going to weigh it down and i’m going to cut it and it’ll bounce back up and then that kind of clip and grow will really develop a nice wavy branch yeah and you can grow the branches any length you can just keep them going right to the back of the yard yeah so this one only only gets pruned uh by the lawnmower basically it probably fears the lawn mower don’t come near me and then you’ve got this korean fur uh yeah yeah green for a cream fur wow is that ever cool yeah it kind of has like a very symmetrical yeah almost like the vibrant audrey like foliage that’s so cool and it’s really cool when the new new buds come in spring they bust open and then they kind of spread like the fibonacci sequence i see um and bright green compared to the old foliage isn’t it yeah so these are kind of like an older second flash these little ones [Music] cool trunk and bark yeah lots of weeds in it don’t get to those and it’s turning a little blue up top isn’t it yeah so it really has um like the underside of the foliage is really blue it is very blue underneath so that’s like if you look we can make it a shot yeah you can see it’s hard to see but yeah yeah definitely blue underneath yeah very cool and it’s it’s it’s setting its new buds um so i’m probably just leaving it i did a a pretty uh traumatic route work yeah the first step getting it into uh this is just a dollar store basket but these baskets are really nice because they’re good they’re it’s like a perfect size for a big bonsai pod yeah basically nice nice angles yeah yeah yeah so there you can see that’s got the shot of the base there oh yeah and do they last in the sunlight these pots um yeah so so far so good this is probably two two years okay um but for a couple bucks from the dollar store if it only lasts a couple years it’s okay yeah so this is like transition them into the into these before they go into bonsai plots yeah that’s the final step isn’t it this looks like a dawn redwood yeah uh close this is a bald cypress cypress yeah so those are always hard to distinguish uh one of them has alternating leaves yeah um so the bald cypress so this has alternating and the don don redwood is is parallel opposite there yeah and and the bald cypress has a little finer foliage the red don redwoods are a little coarser and a little bigger yeah but you pay for that when because the bald cypress isn’t as winter hardy i see um so it has kind of like the nicer characteristics for bonsai but uh it’s kind of like the trident maples and the japanese maples you have to they take a little more work so this is one that would go in the in the outside fridge so i don’t don’t really let this uh freeze no you don’t but i’m growing this like the the traditional uh swamp cypress so it’s gonna have like the really wide buttressy roots yeah uh you can see this one kind of wraps right around right now but you can root from these pretty severely like a lot of people just dig out root cuttings yeah uh especially out west um so i’m gonna take off that big one and then um the first big cuts kind of right here and it’s just growing new new leaders right so that’s your first big chop there yeah and they transition really quickly don’t they oh yeah yeah so this was in like one this is two years growth yeah yes and this was i i get a lot of my trees uh from nursery stock i have a few collected ones but a lot of them are are for nursery stocks so i’ll buy a uh like an eight an eight-foot tree that’s meant for the garden there’s a big japanese maple right back there yeah um and then yeah so i’ll rip them out of the pots cut them down to basically stumps and i’m sure the people at the nursery nurseries would think i’m crazy shake your head yeah yeah that’s cool yeah beside it are uh some black black pines sorry black spiders yeah yeah um very blue just like mine yeah yeah so it’s it hasn’t been pruned yet um i’m gonna do a fall pruning i guess on it yeah and uh how many i think there’s eight eight or so in here and then i’m gonna put a couple small larges okay in front and they’re all different sizes so it’s a good variety yeah yeah so these kind of three main ones um i bought i bought together and they were all kind of the same size but i found one just naturally gets bigger when you do a group planting like this yeah yeah and then um because they genetically grow at different rates yeah yeah um and then there’s three kind of little ones i get them from uh like an online thing that will ship you kind of nursery or like one year kind of stock we’ve done it for the club a couple times yeah um you remember that but they make great little plantings and you can get little uh seedlings for like five bucks depending on the species yeah and they’re great for ford that’s nice stuff i got we’ll start on this side and then we can go around okay um here’s another uh shimpaku okay uh and this one’s styled like a cascade a full cascade and uh i recognize that pot that’s from chris hendry yeah exactly yeah um everyone like that too that’s looking really good isn’t it so you get that wrapped with raffia and wire yeah and it didn’t really need the raffia i just kind of did it to to practice doing that yeah putting it on um yeah it’s looking really good you got some good movement in that and yeah the base is really cool yeah yeah it’s got powerful roots yeah and curing it but the cascades are kind of a pain to to maintain they’re just everything’s kind of challenging with them watering wintering standing like you can see i can’t even keep it on my bench it needs to be right just a little bit yeah and uh it’s really top-heavy so it’s connected with a wire to a brick yeah yeah and thank god it’s a juniper because like it’s it’s really also really hard to get water into the into the base here yeah um yeah a little surface area yeah so it’s a unique style but definitely comes with its challenges yeah yeah but it’s well you’re doing a good job of it it’s vigorous on the bottom and the top which is good yeah not not as filled out as my other juniper maybe just because i don’t get enough water to it right and the cascade pot is uh dries out faster than regular regular pods it drains so much doesn’t it yeah a lot of watering behind it is a little collected through yeah that’s an old tree you’ve had that along yeah this is one of kind of the first ones i pulled out i recognized that and uh i pulled that off but it’s really really cool yeah that’s a little big dead wood and then i really like this tall kind of tengen on it yeah uh and let’s see like so there you can see this used to be roots all dead right here oh yeah yeah and then the root base and the living vein is right here so this whole side of the the tree is dead uh but it’s just going super strong so i’ve already pruned it yeah and it’s kind of got uh well you can kind of see them there’s this one branch here a second branch and then a third branch uh so it’s going to be a a cascade kind of framed in this tension that might look good planted over top of those rocks we collected yeah it’s definitely going to go over something or i was going to put it in a kind of like a a crescent pot something kind of give it more of that dynamic movement yeah but you’re right it would look really good over a rock it would those rocks we collected from with stuff and they were really cool yeah so i’ve like in the spring i’ve already pruned it and i’ll prune it into my pads and stuff and it’s it’s it’s growing really strong that’s good that’s nice blue and blue as well uh next to that is my bird’s nest spruce yeah um so it’s kind of a fat uh broom style spruce uh still lots of work to do it yeah but it’s growing really strong so it just looks good and healthy a lot of a lot of my conifers were root pruned all at once a couple years ago so they didn’t get a lot of work this year no spring really yeah uh candle so you can i didn’t even i haven’t pinched the candles so this is just left to grow this yeah seasoning yeah so i’m gonna i’m gonna a lot of my whole basically all my conifers i’m gonna do a fall pruning and then that will set the buds for next year so like you don’t i didn’t prune mine at all last year either yeah this year i pruned it so i kind of find every second year yeah seems to do the trick getting vigor and then prune it and gain vigor again yeah cause that really helps you push and then you can push the the branches back yeah so there’s a lot of really nice pieces here in the middle but like for example i could cut this whole thing off yeah leave these kind of smaller pieces yeah um so that worked just to come on it yeah yeah lots to come this is a fun little dwarf hemlock i believe okay uh it’s kind of got some groovy roots on it i’m gonna put this over a rock where did you get that from uh this is from a nursery out east okay um kind of like uh um east of the gta is that one we tried to go to on on the trip but didn’t make it yeah it was close yeah closed on sundays sundays yeah but yeah a really nice dwarf uh hemlock i’m not sure if it’s a canadian hemlock or what variety of hemlock is how dare people take a day off i know that’s really cool yeah because i got a little cutting from chris hendry a hemlock cutting and yeah it’s very similar to that i’m wondering if it’s the same species with the yeah a couple of species already already has really it’s already kind of bonsai yeah and it’s a nice size isn’t it yeah either that or it’s just struggling i don’t know well it was struggling before it was like very yellow okay um and uh you can see it’s it’s kind of bounced back oh yeah there’s a hemlock over there it’s not doing too well okay that looks healthy that’s a nice species yeah um oh i won’t pull out each one of these but i have some more kind of dwarf uh dwarf variety of uh dwarf alberta spruces but i think this is like a gene dilly and this is like a prince prince or something but okay they’re both alberta dwarf alberta spruces uh but they have a kind of unique type so this is more of like a upright calmer and this is more like very bushy so it’s just a different growth your habit yeah so i’m training these to be smaller mommy trees yeah and uh the air the air pruning from the baskets it keeps that root base really nice and small that’s very cool and what is this one this i’ve never seen a tree like this yeah this is a japanese cypress cypress i forget the uh camp camper an interest or something i’m not gonna pronounce it now okay yeah um but it’s a weird cultivar i think it’s called uh a resin or not raisin resin or something like that but it makes these like tornado branch leaflets really and then you can see it continues into the tree so this is like naturally wrapped around it and stuff it’s got some twists twisted bark and uh same thing it was a big bigger tree and just trunk top it right off top tornado hurricane connor this is another japanese cypress i think this is a sitka variety or sika okay so it’s a very dwarf um very tiny yeah and uh again it’s gonna be a really small one so this is the leader that’s growing up just to join vigor and uh first cut here and then cut again wow that’s going to look great in the pot someday isn’t it yeah that’s really cool wow some really interesting species of conifers here yeah um so this is a siberian spruce okay uh so it’s a five five needle spruce i don’t know sorry it’s pine these are pizza pines right right pine yeah uh five needle pine uh but you can check out the nice old uh flaky bark on there oh yeah i can get in here yeah so this was repotted in the spring and it’s not doing too good just so there’s some dye back on it yeah uh it’s it’s already lost its last year’s needles you can see how much needles i lost but the this year’s growth is still on it and still flexible yeah and it looks like it’s recovering so i’m hoping for it uh hoping for it to to hang around protect it over the winter just in case the new is that new buds in there yeah so they’re setting yeah i think it’ll be fine won’t it it’ll yeah probably be twice as rigorous next year yeah let’s hope i find a lot that after root pruning and putting them in bonsai soil if they make it yeah they just explode new growth they just love it uh so here this one i’ll pull out to the front because i think it’s really fun to look at uh so this is a tiger bark ficus uh one of the first trees i got as well um so it’s growing on um a tufa stone um so i believe that’s what’s called tufa rock yeah um so it has like this really nice cry craigly almost looks like coral rock yeah um so i really think it fits this kind of tropical uh side of the ocean kind of feel so i imagine the a shoreline kind of here and uh it’s just sweeping out into the sea nice so i took some uh really big bends to this branch so it was wrapped well it’s still wrapped in raffia and then it was tourniquet and then i actually had to split uh split the branch oh yeah um and where was the branch before um it was just more vertical and upright okay so you made it more cascading yeah so i tried to it’s still kind of parallel here i’m trying to maybe swoop it a little more but it’s nice that it descends into this yeah this branch that is nice and it doesn’t need to be straight because nothing’s really straight on this side either so there’s no really point yeah keep everything curvy yeah and then this kind of has just naturally eroded with the erosion so the soil was a little higher i kind of like that feature this may end up being like a root wall yeah it looks good of some sort very natural yeah and i really like the kind of two levels i’m going to keep exaggerating that yeah because this this big route you can see it’s it’s started to make its own root base downloading yeah it’s starting to flare out which is really nice yeah so if i elevate it give it more space this will start yeah show that feature off more and um you can see there’s crazy roots growing right on it aerial roof yeah so i’ve this is a um a moss wall so it’s not i uh a lot of people make their uh their retaining walls out of muck yeah uh which i’m sure some of you guys have heard it’s like part academic dust has some sphagnum uh and then clay and it’s basically a a muck ball like a mud ball yeah and he’s smacking on and i’ve kind of got the same effect uh and i’ve used it in some of my other trees i’ll show you guys when we get there um but you i just compact moss into a flat panel and stick it on yeah and uh basically you keep it wet for a while until the roots start growing and to penetrate and it’s a it’s really kind of an effective retaining wall you see some dropping but yeah roots really love it they basically grow into it you love it don’t yeah and uh you’ll get kind of this effect here where like this is gonna be like a cage of roots i guess yeah that’s really cool that’s the original trunk of the tree there yeah wow so this is a i’m i’m constantly battling the the vigor of the trunk versus the vigor of the roots right um because to my kind of fear when i repotted one last year i noticed that like it was mostly aerial roots yeah and then the trunk didn’t really have a lot of strong root growth in it so that’s part of the managing as well as these big aerial routes which i’ve decided to keep i’m not um a lot of people are worried about that this area will start to swell but it’s going to do that naturally yeah if they do that in nature don’t they they yeah if they grow up i could i could cut those off and have a really cool kind of separate tree um and uh same kind of missile so here’s a big first cut it’s uh healing over oh yeah nice yeah and they’re nice small leaves on the tiger bark aren’t they yeah and uh this has just been growing uh all summer um so i haven’t uh normally i do a big prune right before they come inside to bring them into shape yeah and you’ve had this probably eight years have you ever no no i’ve only been in bonsai for about four or five years okay uh but this is one of my first ones yeah yeah i’ve brought in and i don’t know maybe you remember nigel but it was around this time a couple shows ago yeah um the one in the church when we did it was i remember that yeah i used it to cover a speaker or something it wasn’t actually in the show but uh no maybe i did the demo on it um so anyways yeah so it’s it’s i’m starting to put movement in it look at this root here yeah that form naturally like yeah that’s amazing isn’t it to get that s shape in it yeah it’s really really cool and these are all like that this is from uh tropical expressions okay in hamilton he has some really nice bigger bigger ficus and stuff like that very cool uh so this is a a dwarf little leaf linden or a lime tree so you can see the uh variety there [Music] it comes to a minima okay um so it’s silly yeah it’s uh a unique cultivar oh there’s some there’s a line of ants that means something’s gone yeah so you can see them right here oh yeah maybe we’ll try to find out it’s probably something on the leaves probably but it’s still insects or aphids or something i haven’t had too many aphids this summer no nerve eye i’ve had japanese beetles and not much scale either let’s follow where is it going i’ve had a little bit of scale yeah well you always get something don’t you oh well something’s eating the leaves up here oh yeah that kind of looks like the damage the japanese beetles do yeah they just sort of make a leaf skeleton i always check the they’re always on the bottom of the of the leaves yeah there’s some black things here i’m not sure what it is i’m going to spray it regardless with some uh soap and water and then i always start with soap and water and move to yeah that doesn’t do the trick then try something else eh that’s what i used to well that’s why you pull out your trees and you look at them uh a lot because i didn’t i didn’t notice this until now it’s hard to keep up sometimes it’s so good it’s growing really strong good looking tree isn’t it yeah so the first thing again i put it in this uh pot yeah kind of expose the roots and i did some uh basic uh pruning just for for shape yeah but it’s uh a very unique variety as you can see here that it’s just back budding like like crazy um small leaves yeah so a lot of them stayed a lot of them uh didn’t come out in the spring because i severely root pruned it so it pushed what it could and it kept it so we’ll see what happens uh over the winter again i find they get a really nice bark on these as they get older yeah i’m really excited uh it’s it’s crafted somewhere in here yeah it may be here but it’s not it’s not super noticeable no and it’s likely grafted on just the regular linden yeah so i don’t think uh you’ll get a lot of that bark mix match right yeah it has a nicer base yeah that is a cool species very good and then very flexible still so like i’ll clip and grow yeah but if i do need to put wire on it i can nice nice so this is my uh clump style nigel style uh cheflera so i did the kind of same thing he did with the multiple trunks nice and kind of just followed all of his his videos that one has like maybe like 20 or 30 videos on that one so it’s good that you can kind of just follow through nigel’s techniques and and do that um but again all this it’s just growing all summer mine’s about that vigorous too okay yeah um mine could probably be repotted i think it’ll help her bigger i’m hoping to do that this yeah towards the end of summer just before i bring it in i find it’s a good time because whenever i bring tropical trees inside because of the reduced light they tend to grow all kinds of aerial roots and because it’s suddenly warmer it’s almost like a spring for them and so it’s a good time you let them grow all summer yeah yeah hard prune them repot them bring them inside and then they and then you can fit more inside yeah you get the indoor leaves which is a disadvantage but because they’re larger leaf size but eventually you get them under control yeah so it’s growing it’s grown strong and nice and pushy looks good some some shoots coming up very tropical yeah you can see the smaller yeah i think i pruned it probably around the same time or either just before it went outside or just in the early spring i see um yeah mine i defoliated last fall okay so that’s probably it kind of weakened it a bit so it’s it’ll probably gain vigor over the next few years [Music] you
