Finally a bit of warm weather and my hardy bonsai need watering. I’m also looking at some suitable trees to plant over my temple project.
Hi everyone nigel saunders here it is a balmy six degrees celsius out today or 43 degrees fahrenheit the weather is going to get even warmer tomorrow and it’ll be warm for the next few days i noticed my trees were a little dry out here on the benches and it’s above freezing today so i’m going to give them a water there’s still no rain water to be had it’s still frozen so i have to use tap water i’m using cold tap water that should be about the right temperature for watering the trees today i had rabbits nibbling on the larch trees you can see how they’ve chewed the top off most of the branches i think they’ll recover just fine and they’ll probably be even better bonsai because of this severe pruning so i put them up on the bench here so the rabbits can’t get to them but i have another set that the rabbits did get to over here i have another set of larches and these are the ones jonathan gave me and i thought they were safe up here but i guess they weren’t the rabbits must have climbed up on the bench and you can see they’re really chewed down but again these are going to be better boneside because of it you can see the buds coming out on the trunk there they have a few little branches so they’ll be fine it’s uh going to be interesting developing these trees uh yeah it’ll be really interesting i think they’ll uh become really nice trees in the end i’ve got my bucket of cold water out here and my watering can so let’s get watering i’ll start the watering at the end of the bench here and work my way down giving them all a thorough watering just like that [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] i also need to give all the trees in the greenhouse of water i don’t know if i could call this a greenhouse anymore it’s more of an orange house all right i’ll get all the trees watered inside here also [Music] spring is always exciting in here in canada but it’s also kind of i don’t know it reminds me of that monty python skit where you know they say bring out your dead bring out your dead hopefully we don’t have any but you know the conditions here are so up and down that it’s hard to keep every tree alive it always seems like you get one or two that die over the winter and yeah it may be just you know it got too dry or too cold or too much wind or maybe you just don’t know fungal disease who knows but so spring is very exciting the trees that make it are fantastic those that don’t oh it’s always sad but that’s the way it goes and that is about it yes indeed so everything in the greenhouse is watered now so i’ll continue watering the ones outside giving them a second soaking making sure that soil is thoroughly saturated with water the bench here is in the shadow of the fence in the winter so it doesn’t get much sunlight on it and as you can see everything’s still frozen on this bench so i don’t need to water any of these trees yet until they thaw out [Music] it feels so good to be outside in the warmth here fantastic it’s been a long time coming it’ll probably get quite cold again it kind of goes up and down in spring but you just have to appreciate the good days when they come and bundle up for the cold days i finished outside here watering all the trees so let’s head indoors now here we are back inside now yesterday i finished cementing the top of the temple to the midsection so you can see all the faces there i made these intermediate blocks here which kind of helps the transition i’ve been getting a lot of questions wondering what tree am i going to put on here and i mentioned a ficus tree but i need to pick out an actual tree to go on this temple and it may be several trees i may have you know one growing kind of on this side another one over here but i’m thinking of using a tiger bark ficus i have my tiger bark ficus here a root over rock planting this is an artificial rock i can show you it here it’s made of cement over a i think it was a sponge i used as the core it looks quite good it’s working quite well and i was thinking this tree this was given to me by michael from our club he air layered the top of this tree and he gave me the bottom part and i regrew all this structure to it but it has it’s already kind of on top of a rock there’s a view of it and you can see it’s kind of gripping the rock already there’s a lot of roots going around it so it wouldn’t be hard to reposition these roots to grip the side of the temple or you know coming down off of the top of the temple so this might be a really good tree to remove from this rock and use with my temple planting these tiger bark ficuses they have naturally small leaves which is really nice they’ve got a really interesting bark texture on them which is also really nice and they grow aerial roots really easily they take to pruning really easily you can prune them back hard and they sprout new branches so they’re they’re a really good tree for bonsai and they would fit in with this temple planting really well the tiger bark ficus here would be a good tree to put on the temple but it’s just one possibility i’m going to keep my eyes open um i mean any ficus micro carpet would work really well on this temple planting so yeah i’ll keep my eyes open it may be i might start with a smaller tree maybe even you know some of those tiger bark ficus cuttings from the cityscape diorama i might steal one or two one or two of those trees out of that planting or try and develop more cuttings from those trees to get you know i don’t mind starting the trees young on the temple and then having them develop alongside the temple so they really kind of grip the temple and grow with the temple so right now this tiger bark is fairly thick actually for the temple planting it would look good i don’t think it’s too thick but i might you know be better off to start with a younger tree i’ll have to see it it’ll be something i determine when the temple’s all done i guess and i can you know take a look at all the possibilities try out different trees and try and find kind of the the perfect composition i guess or a good composition another possibility of a tree i could use with my temple planting is a dwarf shaflera they also get aerial roots really easily and they get nice bark on them as they get old it gets kind of a nice texture so yeah and you can get them quite small cuttings in that and i could grow it on the temple it would look quite good so that’s you know another possibility is a dwarf schefflera another possibility for a tree for the temple would be my ficus microcarpa the one that’s growing in a 3d printed vietnam-style bonsai pot this tree is about the right size and these trees also take to pruning really well they get aerial roots uh they’re fantastic trees the tiger bark ficus is a ficus micro carpet it’s a variation of it it has a just slightly different texture on the bark and a little smaller leaves and just slightly different growing characteristics but yeah both would be fantastic for the temple planting another possibility of a tree for the temple planting is one of these willow leaf ficuses this one is probably too big for the temple but i could get smaller ones or cuttings of these and grow them on the temple and develop them as i say you know a young plant and then develop the root system so it thickens up and really attaches to the temple really well but yeah a great variety for bonsai i would say they’re a little more finicky than a ficus microcarpa but you know still really good they can take cutting back they’re not as finicky as a ficus benjamin for instance they’re somewhere in between another really good tree that would look good on the temple is this ficus nataleensis they grow aerial roots really easily the leaves can be reduced really nicely they have a nice leaf shape they get nice bark on the trunks it would be fantastic in this temple the only thing is that they’re from africa and the temple is cambodian so the two might not mix that well but it would be an excellent species it’d look really good on this temple i’ve had a lot of people wondering how much does this temple weigh and i did weigh it it weighs about 8 kilograms or around 17 something pounds so it’s not too bad you know i can lift it really easily once it gets the base on it it’ll be a little heavier and the pot and the soil and the trees but as i said it’ll be a forehand bonsai or two people will be required to lift it and that’s all for today i’m nigel saunders thanks for joining me in the bonsai zone
