Sowing cherry seeds

Part I here ( where I eat my way through tons of cherry to get the cherry nut and then crack those open to get the seeds )

Ok so I finally got the seeds in the part one. A batch of 31 seeds ready to be sowed. I discarded the bad seeds.


I used old egg boxes to plant the seeds. I keep those just for those occasions. I usually place 6 seeds per box and its frosted and blocks most of the hard sun from the seeds, so its just right for me.


I used a knife to make six small drainage holes at the bottom.



I used my latest bonsai mix to sow the seeds into the "pots" and place six cherry seeds per box.
Then covered the cherry seeds with a thin layer of the same bonsai mix and closed the whole setup.








I placed the remaining of the seeds into their own package ( the one from where the cherry was sold ).
My only issue with the box was that it had huge holes at the bottom. I used a tissue paper folder several times and placed it at the bottom to prevent my bonsai mix from being washed away.




And that's it for now!
I'll have to cross fingers and hope that it does sprout.
I think I skipped totally on the cold stratification process, but the cherries have been in the fridge since 17th Dec 2014 or so. That's roughly 1 month alternating between the fridge and the freezer.

White Pine seedlings tryout

I got a little white pine seedling from a friend last year.
Well at least that's what he bought and so we are expecting this to be a white pine but its rapid growth is kind of a surprise.
White pine are known within the bonsai community to 5 needles per fascicles (bundles) and also to be a slow grower ( 1 growth per year ) compared to other japanese pine species used ( Japanese Black Pine and Japanese Red Pine)

Like I said above we are not yet sure which type of pine this is but we are hoping this turns out to be a white pine seedling.

July 2014


August 2014

You can see new needles just starting to appear at the center.

October 2014

The new growth has elongated. I was expecting it to stay put until next year, but...

Janurary 2015



Late December it was already starting to pull new growth and by January I'm starting to see some candle formation.
That's pretty fast for a plant who's supposed to be a slow grower. I just hope this quick growth won't weaken and kill the sapling.



Around December I got another batch of seeds that were already cold stratified in the fridge for several months.









Repotting the seedlings
I've got two batch, one batch of 4 seedlings from the big seeds and one batch of 2 seedlings from the small seeds.

The seedling from the bigs seeds batch are more vigourous and with more developped roots, so I too the chance to root prune the tap root.







But the seedlings from the small seeds batch are les vigourous so I won't take the risk of cutting the tap root on them.

Mango pre-bonsai from seed

Its the mango season once more in Mauritius and all those mangoes everywhere I look reminded me that I had several mango seeds I was experimenting on.
This is one of my attempts to create a prebonsai mango material from a seed.
I planted the seed in the ground around Feb 2013 and it started to sprout early march 2013.

Here's a rough 20 months progression.






The plant grows quickly and even the young green stem is pretty hard to bend. So if anyone else is planning to start to make a mango bonsai from seed, get some wire and shape VERY EARLY.

After the first leaves had hardened off I went ahead and repotted the plant.
The plant had thrown a long tap root with lots of feeder roots throughout the length of the tap root.

^ Long tap root


^ You can see the feeder roots throughout its length.


^ Went ahead an reduced the tap root.


^ Went ahead an reduced the tap root.


^ And back into the ground.

Roughly 20 months later
I repotted into a colander early 2014 and placed back on the ground to allow the roots to escape into the ground.

^ Roughly 20 months later, the first leaves are still present and the trunk is starting to get a bit more stiff.


^ Roots that escaped from the colander


^ Wired and positioned the trunk and the possible first branch


^ Wired and positioned the trunk and the possible first branch. Used a guy to hold the trunk into place.

I don't have anything planned yet for it and it still has a long way to go before its even remotely close to become a pre-bonsai but its a start.
Just experimenting on this material but here are my first initial impressions.

Its not a good learning material for beginners, the trunk is pretty stiff and snappy. Even young green shoots gets quickly rigid and tough to style.

The leaves looks like its going to be a challenge to reduce or harmonize with a small trunk. So future plans would be to allow it to grow much much thicker.
This means NO bonsai pot for the next 3~4 years, full ground growth in the colander and a regular root prune on roots coming out of the colander every 6~12 months or so.

Pomegranate from Seed - Part I

Some time ago I kept some pomegranate seeds and decided to try to make them sprout to make, in some unknown future, bonsai out of them.

With the tropical climate in Mauritius, I got quite a bit of growth over the last 12 months, but it still has a long way to go before it even comes close to bonsai material.

This is the basic plan done so far :
> Germinate seed
> Leave alone to grow freely
> Prepare Sapling for bonsai life:
> Get rid of taproot
> Leave alone to grow freely
> Young plant - wait for basic lignified structure to appear
> Start wiring (if you want to)
> Allow for sacrificial branches to thicken up the plant
> Leave alone to grow freely


There's roughly 12 seeds that sprouted and so far only one has progressed far enough to go into the wiring stage. The rest have been through the "get rid of the taproot" stage only and are growing freely for now.

Stage 1 : Germinate the seeds.

No bonsai excitement in view at this stage, only basic horticultural skills needed to keep the seeds alive and kicking.
Stratify it, plant it, wait for it to germinate, wait for it to get strong enough for transplant, cross fingers and anything else that you can cross and hope it does not die on you.
Each seed germination process will vary, so just be patient at this stage.









I also placed seeds in other containers, same story: wait for seeds to sprout and be strong enough for transplantation.

Stage 2 : Prepare Sapling for bonsai life

Do some basic bonsai root works: Get rid of taproot, spread the lateral roots in a desired radial shape to become future nebari.
You can forget about ramifications at this stage, because the main trunk is usually way too thin.
You need to let it grow, grow, grow and thicken, thicken, thicken.
Oh and stick it in the ground or a training pot! :)
Keep the bonsai pot inside the closet for now.

The "Get rid of the taproot and spread lateral roots" are probably the two most important actions at this stage.

The taproot is usually a long vertical root that is used by the plant to anchor the plant into the ground, over the years as the plant grows, this taproot grows deeper and thicker. It will also create lateral roots that will go in search of nutrition in the ground. As the tree grows older, some taproot dies and rots away, leaving only the lateral roots to hold the tree into the ground.

In a bonsai, you don't need that anchoring structure, so we need to remove the taproot to be able to place the plant successfully into a smaller pot. The advantage of a seed over a nursery material or a yamadori material is that we can remove that structure earlier and also arrange the lateral roots earlier.

Young pomegranate sapling

The taproot has been removed and the lateral roots spread about

Repotted

Processing several seedlings

Removed from the seed tray, and sprayed regularly with water to prevent the roots from drying out.

Identifying the taproot

Taproot removed

Do the same on the other saplings

Optional step : Use some rooting hormone to encourage new roots where the taproot has been removed.

Repotting : Creating a small hole into the soil

Repotting : Slowly position the root mass into the hole

Repotting : Adjust position before filling the hole once more.

Repotting :  Done

The whole batch processed

Step 3 : Wiring and sacrificial branches

One of the plant has started to lignify, that is it started to produce true woody structures.
At this stage its ideal to wire the plant into a desired shape.
As the plant continues to grow and produce more lignin ( essentially more wood ) this will hold the plant into that new shape.

In nature, the plant's own leaves, fruits and branches will also bend under their own weight to shape the trees. In addition to that, the plants are shaped by external elements like wind, rain, animals (birds, squirrels, monkeys) or even men.

In the case of a bonsai, the bonsaika ( bonsai artist ) has various approaches to creating/shaping the trunk, some approaches I could take in this case are :

• Leave the plant on its own and allow external elements affect it just like in nature.
• Place the pot at odd angles and changing the angles every year or so. 
• Wire the trunk and force a shape on the plant.

With established nursery plants it can be more difficult to create daring curves and shapes because of the rigidity of the trunk. In the case of a young 1~2 year old plant the trunk is soft enough to bend without breaking.


So basically at this stage you can :

• Give it some basic shape and flow to the trunk (Via wiring or placing the pot at odd angles and letting it grow or other means)
• Choose your main branches, sacrificial branches (you can optionnaly get rid of the rest right now)

What you should AVOID to do :

• Do not start on the ramification process!
  The plant is still too young to start creating the ramification
• Do not place it into a bonsai pot!
  The plant needs a bit more room for the roots to develop and to thicken up the trunk.
  Use a training pot or if you have enough space, plant it into the ground for 2~3 growth cycles.

Important side note :
DO NOT OVERWORK THE WIRING!

Place the wire, give it some shape and LEAVE IT ALONE!

Do not give it a twist in one direction then change mind and twist it around in the other direction 5 mins later or the next day.

Decide of a general shape, wire the trunk, shape it and let it be.

The sapling is still young and twisting this way then retwisting another way etc will weaken the trunk and in the worst case scenario might well kill the plant altogether.

If you are not satisfied with the shape obtained, leave it alone for the next 2~3 months to allow the tree to recuperate and give signs of new growth before attempting to "correct" the shape.

Stage 3 - Part I : Wiring

The plant at stage 2 : taproot removed and repotted.

After the plant was allowed to grow freely.

The older lower section has started to lignify ( turn into wood ).

Here you can clearly see the older lower lignified trunk
and the upper newer semi-green trunk.

As you move up the trunk it turns from woody, to semi-green to green.

Time to wire

Give some shape : Slowly and carefully give twists and shapes.

Same tree from another angle. At this stage it is important to not overwork the wiring process.

Stage 3 - Part II : Sacrificial branches
After some time (a few months in the best cases, several months in worst cases) new shoots are going to appear.
Most bonsai books stress a lot on "Remove unwanted growth", but that approach is usually for ESTABLISHED bonsai or near established bonsai.
In this case, the plant is FAR FAR AWAY from being established.
It needs to grow and most of all, it needs to bulk up the trunk, and the best way to do that is to allow it to grow freely for some time, OR make use of sacrificial branches.

The principle of the sacrificial branch is simple :
Allow one or more branches to grow freely to bulk up the trunk or branch with which it is connected.
And once the desired thickness is obtained, cut off the sacrificial branch.

Same plant but as you can see it has pulled several new branches.

Here I'm pointing at one of the sacrificial branches.

As the sacrificial branch will grow, it will become thicker and thicker,
in return it will also make the area underneath it to thicken up.
In other words the lower trunk will become thicker.

Same thing here : The sacrificial branch that I am holding will be allowed to grow freely.
In return as the sacrificial branch grows, the lower section will thicken up.

As the plant will bulk up, I will have to check on the wires to make use that the trunk is not growing over them.
The areas most at risk are the points with U-turn curves or S-shape curves like the point that I am pointing at.