grouper52
Masterpiece
Well, well, well. This interesting little fellow is known as a Buchido. A previous, and much more grand specimen is the only tree I've managed to kill here so far, and at first it was a mystery why it died. As I find out, it was neither the climate up here in the mountains (since I only see them for sale down in the lowland heat), nor was it my technique in re-potting it from it's plastic sack to a bonsai pot and caring for it. NO - I find out they simply never take to having their root balls disturbed in any way, even the gentle techniques of a typical bonsai re-pot. People say, I find out, that "If you re-pot it, it will die."
So, rather than start one from a seed in its eventual pot, I decided to buy another one and see if I could make a very gradual and smooth transition. One night, during a typhoon, however, I was inspired to simply take the entire root ball out of it's sack and set it in this pot, and pile pumice around it and over the root ball to keep it in place during the gale-force winds, and let the pounding rains gradually work the pumice down into the root ball. It worked like a charm - that was about six weeks ago, and the thing is thriving!
The growth habit of these guys is fascinating: a flat and fairly uniform maze of branches grow outwards at 120 degree angles into a pad at some level, as you can see. Then, perhaps, at each level, one or two or more upright trunks grow up, and each trunk, then, at some level, sends out its own new horizontal maze-like pad, and this process continues as the whole multi-trunked structure grows upwards. I've seen specimens planted in the ground many years ago that are now magnificent 6-8 foot sculptures!.
This guy is starting off a bit unusually, in that it has put out a grand total of TEN little new trunks along one branch of the lowest horizontal maze. As the tree gorws, the next growth should be horizontal again, a maze-pad developing from each of those ten trunks!. I've not seen so many trunks so close together, so IO'm not sure how they'll do that, but I'll post progressions as the tree evolves. [If it doesn't die...
]
Enjoy!
So, rather than start one from a seed in its eventual pot, I decided to buy another one and see if I could make a very gradual and smooth transition. One night, during a typhoon, however, I was inspired to simply take the entire root ball out of it's sack and set it in this pot, and pile pumice around it and over the root ball to keep it in place during the gale-force winds, and let the pounding rains gradually work the pumice down into the root ball. It worked like a charm - that was about six weeks ago, and the thing is thriving!
The growth habit of these guys is fascinating: a flat and fairly uniform maze of branches grow outwards at 120 degree angles into a pad at some level, as you can see. Then, perhaps, at each level, one or two or more upright trunks grow up, and each trunk, then, at some level, sends out its own new horizontal maze-like pad, and this process continues as the whole multi-trunked structure grows upwards. I've seen specimens planted in the ground many years ago that are now magnificent 6-8 foot sculptures!.
This guy is starting off a bit unusually, in that it has put out a grand total of TEN little new trunks along one branch of the lowest horizontal maze. As the tree gorws, the next growth should be horizontal again, a maze-pad developing from each of those ten trunks!. I've not seen so many trunks so close together, so IO'm not sure how they'll do that, but I'll post progressions as the tree evolves. [If it doesn't die...
]Enjoy!
