Sunday, April 26, 2009

Water Jasmine Shohin 016 (26/04/2009)

(26/04/2009)

Source: Root cutting

From the clear plastic container, i can see the roots are spreading outwards. And the stems are slowly hardening and fattening.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Water Jasmine "Wild" 004 (11/04/2009)

(11/04/2009)

Another wild one i bought from my neighbour florist for its trunk thickness. Sadly i noticed there was some very minor rot near the base of the trunk. I scrapped off the bark and the rotting cambium layer and applied several coats of lime sulphur to it. Because the whole trunk is very fat and tall, and only the top part is budding and growing, i decided to try to airlayer the upper part off to develop into future shohin material. The bottom there after could be trained into another shohin as well. Lets see how it goes in about 6-8weeks time.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Moss Hunting Trip





Went moss hunting today, noticed that there are a few kinds moss, trying to get the small needled-like bugger, those are more fine and greener and looks alot more spongy

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Aquarium Gravels



Woots, finally went to get a pack of aquarium gravels(1-2.5mm) to test out for creating a better bonsai soil mix myself. These are labelled as 100% natural river gravels and it says from "America" which im not very sure about that though. Its always best to sieve it to remove finer size gravels/dust which you dont want it to be there and afterwhich might give it a good wash and sun it for few days before using it for my smaller bonsai.

Reviews:
Here because the diameter are only approximately 1-2.5mm, so i only divide it into a rough portion of two sizes(mainly 2mm's and 1mm's). As you can see the ones on the left after sieveing are mainly 2mm's. From my sieveing experience, a pack of theses gives you estimated 80% the 2mm's and the rest 15% 1mm's and lesser and overall its quite clean, when your the whole bag out, you dont really see lotsa dust flying off niether during the sieveing process. Recommend it as a soil mixing media to greatly improve drainage as these are gravels and they are not porous and does not retain moisture nor break down easily. Dmg: $12/10kg pack

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Water Jasmine Shohin 005 (07/04/2009)


Source: Nursery stock

Bought another shohin "mallsai" from my workplace neighbour florist. Seems pretty interesting, but the overall wasn't really fantastic. Branches were sparse, the main branch which goes on the way up though developing taper already, was greatly weakened as wire had bite into it quite alot. When i unwound the wire and took it off, the whole branch was like 40% damaged and gonna break easily. Another smaller branch behind had some bark totally removed when the wire bite into it as well, exposing the heartwood i believed. I did a repot and changed the soil to a very draining one. Right now is to let it recover, grow more feeder roots and stronger root systems, then slowly pinch and develop more backbudding and branches to ramify in years to come. Weak diluted seaweed extract will be fed every few days, and organic dung pellets will be fed after few weeks time. Stay tuned =P

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Water Jasmine Shohin 006 (15/04/2009)



Source: Nursery stock

Another one that i bought to play with. The trunk is quite gnarly and nice for such a young one but sadly theres inverse tapering.