Snow Queen Hibiscus Bonsai
I’m assembling my 3D printed Snow Queen and pruning my Snow Queen Hibiscus bonsai on this cold windy spring day!
The Hibiscus was started from a cutting that I got from Connor last summer.
It is a cold and windy and overcast day today and it’s kind of drizzling so on this cold day i’ve got a fun project on the go in the greenhouse i’ve got my snow queen hibiscus out today and today is going to be a bit of a frozen theme this isn’t the first time i’ve had a frozen theme on the channel back in 2015 we made some really cool snow sculptures it’s 2015. it’s a new year i’m excited to get working on bonsai trees i figured my snow queen hibiscus needed a snow queen to stand beside it so i found a 3d model of elsa on the internet there it is so it comes in about seven pieces the hair is a separate piece the body the legs the dress comes in two parts and then the hands you can pose the hands so they’re separate also so i’ve put in a 3d print request sent the model files off to the makerspace at the library and hopefully someday hopefully in the next couple of weeks i’ll get my model of elsa back and she can accompany the snow queen hibiscus plant the model has been printed thanks to eric and joe at the library let’s have a look at it here’s a look at the model and as you can see it took several tries to get some of the pieces right uh it’s a tricky thing to 3d print and that’s why i’m thanking eric and joe because they did a really good job on making this model you can see the part of the dress at the back the first time it was too thin and it didn’t print properly the second time they added a base support down here and it printed quite nicely it’s very shimmery i i actually really like that one and then they printed a thicker version which is a little more cloudy looking but it’s very strong this is the part of the dress that turned out fine the legs turned out fine i guess there’s some failed attempts at legs here uh there’s two hands one there and one there uh there’s two feet so i think you know the legs were printed separately and then somehow they got it printed all together which is good and then there’s two torsos here uh there’s one with supports oh this one uh this one the arm came the model must have shifted and the arm’s funny on that one and this is the good one here so i’ve got a bit of sorting of the parts to do and then i’ll clean them up and assemble them but this is uh it’s gonna look good i got them to print it in the clear filament which doesn’t turn out clear you can you can do two things you can sand them and buff them and you get them like almost crystal clear or you can get an epoxy that you can paint on top and get that nice and smooth and that should help the translucency of it but i don’t know if you’d ever get it really clear because of the the round filaments so i don’t know i’ve seen people 3d print lenses they made their own telescope and things like that but i kind of like it cloudy like this and then i want to add a bit of transparent kind of color to the model when it’s done so it kind of looks like it’s half ice and half human mark from the kw bonsai society made me this really cool pot which also fits into the frozen theme it’s kind of like a stained glass pot made with real glass and it’s got sort of frosted panels clear panels it’s got drainage holes in the bottom here two drain three drainage holes and it’s really cool i i think you’ll be able to see the roots grow inside the pot and you can certainly tell when it becomes pot bound so i’m not going to plant my snow queen hibiscus in here but i am going to plant cuttings in here and get them going i’m going to start assembling the model of elsa you can download this uh 3d file for free from thingiverse i’ll put the parts that i don’t need back in the bag the sections of leg here um the torso with the shifted arm i’ll put that back in i don’t need the feet here i’ve got the two hands the hair the body and the dress oh i don’t need this one and i’ve got to decide which i like better out of these two i do like the shimmery effect on this lighter one it’s really cool so i think i’m gonna try using this one and then i’ll put this as a spare so there i have it those are all my pieces i need to assemble i’m going to leave the supports on the feet so the figure stands upright a little more easily now we’ll go on there this goes on behind here the torso on there the hair quite the fancy hair it’s got the braid yeah a really good detailed model so i’m going to have to remove the supports i think i’ll start here i’ve got to remove the supports that are on the figure here that you know hold the arms in place when you’re 3d printing a lot of them can be broken away that sound you hear in the background that’s a machine that they use to clean the sewers out it’s it’s like a big vacuum cleaner it’s been going all day today very pleasant not i’ve got a pair of little clippers that i’m going to try and break the supports away with i might need a knife these things are good for little fine pieces but i don’t think i can use them for i can’t get around some of the larger supports no i’ll have to use a knife all right i’ve got my hobby knife here i’m going to try and cut away these supports i’m just trying to see how the arm is okay it’s just flat there we go got the one arm loose there this one has quite a few supports on it you can see all the supports attached to it yeah there’s there’s a v shape on the waist here that fits into a v shape here so i am going to have to remove these these flat plates here that’s too bad but a lot of these supports you can break away with your hands okay here i go i’m gonna have to remove oh that’s not going to be easy well let’s do the ones up here first wow that’s gonna be that easy either they’re very firmly attached there’s one off the ear now i gotta get this one yeah i got that one that one came off that’s looking good look at that let’s do it one at a time slowly and carefully sun’s coming out it’s kind of nice i didn’t bring any tropical trees out today because it was really cloudy and i didn’t think there’s much light in here but now it’s you know a little better just got to keep separated oh good thing i have my glasses on hit in the face with these flying parts oh that’s not what i wanted to do the head just came off oh i did not want to do that oh okay well plan b i’m gonna have to glue the head back on oh my goodness i did not expect that boy oh boy looks like there’s a pin on the top for the hair to hold the hair in place so i think that’ll be my first job today is to glue the head back on before it rolls off the table and i lose it that should be enough glue make sure i don’t get the head on backwards okay that’s got to be good now right i’m going to leave it upright we’ll put that is that going to tip over probably i’m going to put that leaning up against the pot here [Music] like that okay okay so everything’s going perfectly not okay let’s see what’s going on with the legs there’s a bit of a piece there okay so the next part i’ve got this dress it’s a few hairs from the 3d printing here i got to remove oh let me just run the knife down there so this has the v here so i’ve got to remove this top part and there is some supports in here if i can get in there like that and like that there that came off so that that is good now i think there’s a bump there i gotta remove that okay so that is ready for going there’s a few hairs at the back here from 3d printing too some people just take a little blowtorch and they torch it and the hairs just kind of shrivel up and go away okay so that’s good so the legs i think are ready to be glued up in the dress like that now it’s quite possible because this is printed with uh clear plastic you could have a light underneath it kind of lighting the model up at night time which would look pretty cool okay that’s got glue on the legs i can’t i can reach in there a bit to put some on there but not much okay so here i go i’m lowering this down so i’m just going to put a little pressure on it until the glue sets it says on the glue package to hold the pieces together for 10 to 15 seconds and allow 24 hours for the cement to fully harden i still have to cut away these supports under the torso here or pull them apart or something so i can glue this to the body oh there goes the head the glue’s still wet no wonder you know what i’m going to glue that later i’m going to get this separated first here i’m going to be 3d printing some lanterns for my cityscape pinging soon i’ve just got to get in and model them up which i don’t think it’ll be too bad i’ll look at some reference photos and come up with a model that can be 3d printed in one piece there got a good chunk of the sports off there so that’ll be kind of fun making some 3d printable lanterns and i’ll put that on thingiverse so everyone can print them out for their penguining oh there we go the support just popped off really nicely look at that that came out really good so that sits on top of here like that oh that fits really nicely look at that i’m going to do the hair next i think i’ll glue the hair to the head so here’s here’s the hair so i’ve got to separate it from this backing plate and it’s pretty tough to tell what to support and what’s not that was a support so there’s one support gone i can hear raining outside again good thing we’re in here in the greenhouse you know when i get that new glass greenhouse up i don’t think i’ll ever leave it i’ll be in there 24 hours a day okay i’m getting some more supports off the hair here just trying to pull this backing plate off there we go here’s my head there goes the pin goes into there let’s see if i can get that in oh like that well that that’s looking pretty good that goes on top of here and the hair can kind of help support the head i think yeah so i can do that all at once the hands have some weird support on them that i’ve got to take off and i got to be careful with the fingers i don’t break those off there we go so far so good break the support off here so the support is gone now i just have to get rid of this base so i’ll try pulling it off there that came off really easily so there’s one hand you can see it five fingers turned out pretty good okay i think i want to glue the hair on next on the pin there okay here i go so we’ll just bring that in and that is it now i went together really nicely okay let that dry for a bit now the next thing i can do is i can attach the torso to the dress here so i’ll do that i’ll get my super glue out [Music] [Applause] and i can put this together now because it did fit really nicely is that about 15 seconds probably not okay i’m setting it down carefully make sure my hands aren’t sticking to it there okay that will be the next thing to go on is the head um i’m gonna let that dry for a bit first so i’m gonna let it dry for maybe [Music] good 10 15 minutes i think before i even touch it otherwise i think it’s all gonna fall apart on me i’ve got this nice chunk of white marble here that makes a nice base for this tree kind of looks like ice and snow so that’ll be a really nice base to display the tree on in the future so i’m going to be pruning this tree up today um i’ll try planting the cuttings i hope i hope it’s warm enough out here to you know keep them growing but i don’t know so let me get out my tools and we’ll uh prune the tree up all right here i go with the pruning so i’m not sure which is the front of the tree let me see here i think it’s this way it kind of comes towards me a bit so this branch off to the right hand side is getting too long i have a new shoot here um there’s a new bud behind here too so i can prune it at any length i do want to keep it fairly short because it’s getting quite vigorous so i’m thinking i’m going to take it back to here so here i go like that this other branch here to the left hand side is also getting very long and vigorous so i’ve got a bud here and here so i’m going to take it off right here like that back i’ve got another strong branch coming up right here so i want to prune it so it keeps fanning outwards so i’m going to take it back to here like that and then i’ve got a a strong vertical one coming off that branch and i don’t want that becoming the leader i want to get some vigor out of that so i’ve got to take that quite far back too so i’m going to take it back to here like that now this one is still quite vigorous so i’m going to take some of the leaves off of it and you’ll see why they call it the snow queen hibiscus see how it’s a variegated leaf it gets all that kind of white edges on it so that’s why they call it the snow queen so i’m going to take this one off also there’s one hanging down here i’ll take off and i think i’ll take this one off also at the base here i have a sucker coming up around the back here i don’t want a multi-trunk thing so i’m going to take that off like that so that is it that’s pruning up the snow queen hibiscus got it back in shape and looking more like a tree here’s a shot of it a little more close up yeah looking good so on this little cutting i’ve got the roots sorted out when i repotted it i’ve got the top structure underway so it’s just going to take time and just continual development on this and i think it’ll turn into a fantastic little bonsai in the future and it flowers it gets those uh kind of pinkish flowers on it so yeah really cool i like it okay here i go hopefully everything won’t fall apart on me it looks like it might take a little longer than i expected for the glue to dry so i’ve got everything set there so i’ve just got to let it dry so i might have to come back in like an hour or two or something like that it just uh i don’t know the glues and it’s not setting very quickly but it’s looking good the model’s looking quite good i will have a snow queen for my snow queen hibiscus i’ve come back an hour later and i checked on the model and the glue is still in kind of a gel stage so it still hasn’t fully hardened so i think i’m gonna have to leave it overnight i just i tried uh picking it up and the head fell off again so i glued it back on this time i’ll let the glue dry overnight and then it should be good and hard by tomorrow i’m going to finish up today by planting my cuttings in this pot that mark made i’ll place a screen in the bottom of the pot and add a base layer of soil all right here i go with my base layer of soil i’ll fill it right up and then stick the cuttings in the soil these are very young cuttings so i’m not sure if they’d take if they were hardwood cuttings they would root for sure but if they were a little more mature but we’ll see how they do there’s no harm in trying you can always pull them out and replace them with other cuttings later on okay so here’s my pieces they’ve got a little limp so i want to cut off these lower leaves i’m going to re-cut my point there and i’m going to cut off these other leaves too leaving just the tip like that and then i’ll stick it in the soil and i’ll plant it fairly deeply you don’t want them drying out so here’s the second cutting now cut off all these lower leaves and the large upper ones and i’ll just leave that growing tip like that and that can go in the soil like that i got one more here so again i’ll remove all these leaves that reduces the load on the cutting doesn’t have any roots yet so okay and that can go in the soil also like that now i got to give it a good watering make sure the soil is good and soaked the cuttings will need lots of humidity and i do have this little mini greenhouse that i could clean up and put on top of it so i think i’ll do that and that’ll keep the humidity around the cuttings i’ve got the greenhouse all cleaned up so let’s put it on top of the cuttings that fits nicely so that should keep the cuttings nice and humid and hopefully they’ll root and grow today i got my elsa partially built i got cuttings on the go and i pruned up my snow queen hibiscus it’s always fun creating bonsai with a bit of a theme to it in this case the snow queen and that’s all for today i’m nigel saunders thanks for joining me in the bonsai zone
To see previous videos of my Snow Queen Hibiscus, click on the playlist here…
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQouTWwmTQoxp2BCKSbIcDeVSTG3fj9i7
