container growing saplings

[TnKidd]

Hello everyone, new guy here.
Had an interest in bonsai for a couple years, so far so good, I have managed to keep a Fukien Tea alive for 2 years lol I also have a little Juniper that I have had for a year. So not so much Bonsai as just growing miniature trees.

I want to change that this year...well next year.
I want to get 2 trees, a Japanese Red Maple and a Willow Oak from the local nursery.

This is what I plan on doing.
I want to buy a couple year old sapling of each, build some screen sided wooden containers and let them recover and grow a little. ( I dont have too much real estate to grow in the ground and what little bit I do have we are doing dirt work and growing grass seed at the moment so the Mrs would have a heart attack.)

Next spring I will attempt to do multiple air layers to each tree and afterwards chop the trunk and place into training boxes and go from there, that way I will hopefully have multiple pre-bonsai to grow and experiment with while I attempt to make something special from the trunk chops.

Question 1) is this a decent idea or a waste of time and money?

Question 2) anyone have any good resources or ideas for size of containers

Question 3) I know this is a hot topic but in regards to soil... for the next year do I need to use typical bonsai soil or use compost and some soil with grit? Any advice on burying a tile this year or wait till next year?


Any advice would be great, if there is a place where all this has been answered I apologize. I tried to search for it and couldn't find much.

 

[Shibui]

There probably isn't one answer, just lots of different possibilities.

1. Growing trees is always a good idea. Not sure about your choice of species to begin with though. I haven't grown willow leaf oak but other oaks can be a little challenging to get good ramification and some don't like big root reduction. There are many different red Japanese maples and you will probably find that many are grafted which may not be so good for bonsai. Japanese maples are a traditional favourite for bonsai but in reality are a little more difficult to manage - very prone to unwanted localised thickening unless your pruning is really good. My recommendation for beginners is trident maple - far more forgiving and much faster to develop (at least over here)
2. Grow containers can be any size. The bigger they are the faster the trees will grow usually. Shallower boxes usually help promote lateral and surface roots and reduce the amount of deeper roots you need to cut off eventually but some good trees have been developed in deeper containers too. Some people have favourite dimensions for grow boxes but the trees won't care much as long as there's room for the roots to grow and it is large enough to not dry out too much. grow boxes are great for those with limited access to ground or those who may need to uproot and move at short notice. A little slower growth rates but far more control as the trees do develop.
3. I prefer to use a good quality potting mix in all containers but the larger the grow box, the less important this seems to be so you may get away with a mix of compost and grit or similar.
There are many who swear that tiles, etc are the best but I firmly believe that good, regular root pruning will always produce a better nebari than simply sitting a tree on a tile.

 

[Potawatomi13]

Adding to point #2 purpose of ground growing is causing tree to believe is in open ground to make trunk bigger/with faster growth. Bigger container helps tree feel "free" to grow. Having to grow on apartment deck must personally use this manner of growth.

When buying tree pick one with interesting movement/bends in lower trunk. Even cutting down low will still leave boring straight section forever. Commend choice of new trees.

 

[cheap_walmart_art]

Welcome to the forum. Where ya from in TN?

 

[TnKidd]

Good info, thanks everyone!

Not sure about your choice of species to begin with though.

No certain reason I picked these trees other than I am able to get a couple of 5 ft tall decently healthy looking ones for around 15$

My recommendation for beginners is trident maple - far more forgiving and much faster to develop (at least over here)

I was looking at some Tridents but cannot find them locally and I'm not too sure which online retailers are trustworthy.

2. Grow containers can be any size.
A little slower growth rates but far more control as the trees do develop.

I would be ok with that, that was what I had figured, but have read alot of conflict on the matter and could not find too much specifics on the saplings vs bonsai

Having to grow on apartment deck must personally use this manner of growth.

That's my issue, all the dirt work and grass work we have done at our new house, I would be shot if I even thought about digging them up so they will have to be on our patio

Welcome to the forum. Where ya from in TN?
Middle Tennessee about an hour south of Nashville

Hopefully if anything this will be a good learning experience that wont cost me an arm and a leg

 

[cheap_walmart_art]

Good info, thanks everyone!






Hopefully if anything this will be a good learning experience that wont cost me an arm and a leg

Come visit the Nashville club sometime! The next meeting will be Tuesday the 5th at 6:30pm in Massey Hall, Cheekwood. You could also visit the booth at the Creative Arts building at the Nashville Fairgrounds this weekend at the Lawn and Garden show.

https://nashvillebonsai.com/

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

@TnKidd
Welcome to BNut. Bonsai can become a lifelong hobby.

A couple thoughts, offered to help.
1. do take advantage of the local Nashville bonsai society that @cheap_walmart_art invited you to attend. My biggest mistake in my 40+ years of messing around with bonsai was thinking I did not need to ''join a club'', that I could learn what I needed from books, magazines and after Al Gore invented it, the Internet. (just Joking, I know Al Gore did not invent the internet, he sponsored enabling legislation that allowed a defense department technology to become public).

Anyway - after disdaining belonging to a club, I sat down one day and looked at my oldest in my possession tree, a 28 years in my possession pomegranate. It looked like crap. Nothing like the cool trees in the books. That is when I decided I needed to join a club and through them find teachers. There are several elements of bonsai that do not translate to 2 dimensional images or linear descriptions as in the written word. Design is 3D, looking at a laptop screen won't do it. Also many techniques need to be seen up close, and some coaching is helpful. For example creating jin, or grafting or creating pad of foliage.

So visit the Nashville club. Don't feel you have to join the first time you visit, just check it out. When I joined the Milwaukee bonsai society I found a really friendly group of people and a couple in particular started talking to me right away. I was hooked. MKE encourages study groups, and also sponsors visiting masters to conduct sequences of classes. It is a really good learning environment.

So do yourself a favor. It in the unlikely event people rub you the wrong way (it happens, rare, but happens) at least attend their annual shows and keep an eye on their newsletters to see when they have an artist visiting and doing demonstrations. Bonsai is a real world hobby, not a virtual world hobby, get your hands dirty.

2 - yes, you can bulk up trees in grow pots, 1 gallon to 3 gallon to 5 gallon. Rarely will you have to use nursery pots larger than 5 gallon capacity. One advantage - with trees in containers, you don't have to lay on your belly to do pruning on a tree in the ground.

3 - forget air layering as a propagation technique - trees for bonsai should be locally common (either in nurseries or native in the woods), Never try to make bonsai with an endangered or threatened species, that is just getting distracted by values other than what bonsai is about. The only time you should be looking at air layering is as a technique for creating better roots (nebari) for your tree. The surface roots up to the basal flare or buttress of the tree is the nebari. Once in a while you will also use air layering of a tree in the landscape to take off a section that is cool to create a bonsai. Layering is not a good propagation technique. It takes too long, while you are doing an air layer, you can not do anything else bonsai related to the tree. Air layers are not 100% successful, and if you are new to the technique there is a higher failure rate. Some trees will require 2 years to air layer, during which you are not doing bonsai. Trees are not that expensive. Just buy another one from the nursery rather than waste time trying to air layer for propagation reasons.

THere are reasons to air layer, but it is not to just ''get another tree out of the deal''. That is a time waster.

4. Avoid fads
Some techniques have ''fad status'', in that they get proposed very often, especially by those offering advice that have not been doing bonsai very long, less than 5 years. They will suggest one or more of 3 things ''Air Layer It'', ''Put it on a Tile'' and ''Put it in a Colander or Pond Basket"
All three techniques have their places. Air Layering I have already critiqued. Put it on a tile is often proposed, and does work, but it is really a technique for making very flat, wide nebari, which is not appropriate for every type of tree. It is great when used with Trident maples and Japanese maples, but not all tridents and not all Japanese maples. For other species more often than not it is inappropriate. And especially while you are new to the hobby can create some problems. Save it for advanced use for specific trees with specific goals.
"Put it in a Colander or Pond Basket" - this is an essential technique for PINES, especially YOUNGER PINES. It is not really the best idea for anything else. SO while colanders and pond baskets have a place, they are bad choices for hornbeams, elms, ginkgos, and maples. Most deciduous trees and conifers that require moist conditions are harmed more than helped by the use of colanders and pond baskets.

Okay, enough about fads.

5 - try many species until you find a few that you really like.

Oak - oak bonsai are very slow to develop. And Oaks, no member of the genus Quercus, WILL NOT AIR LAYER with any reliability. One in a hundred would be a good rate for rooting oak air layers, and for rooting oak by cuttings. Just go out and buy a second tree, don't try to air layer an oak.

Maple - do not buy grafted Japanese maples for bonsai. Assume all nurseries propagate their Japanese maples by grafting unless they specifically say that the specific tree you are buying was cutting grown. One source of cutting grown Japanese maples is http://www.evergreengardenworks.com/ thier one gallon size are really nice, you need to email or call to get the list of 1 and 3 gallon trees available. The 2 an 4 inch pot cutting grown maples are great, but they are young and will need 5 years of growing out to be ready for their first bonsai styling. They are cheaper too.

Shimpaku juniper - you should try one, and Japanese flowering quince - Chaenomeles hybrids, you should try one of these too. Your local nursery should have the ''Proven Winners'' Double Take series of Japanese Flowering quince. Pick one up in a 3 gallon pot and go to town with it. I like the double flowered Scarlet red, but the other colors are great too.

Hope I didn't overwhelm you with the length of my note. I type as fast as I talk, so this did not take long. But I forget to have mercy on my readers.

 

[cbroad]

@TnKidd
I believe at one point @Vance Wood was selling hand made screen sided boxes, but not sure if he still is. You can see them in his avatar picture.

 

[TnKidd]

Come visit the Nashville club sometime! The next meeting will be Tuesday the 5th at 6:30pm in Massey Hall, Cheekwood.

Thank you for the invite! I wont be able to make it to the show this weekend or on the 5th but I definitely will try to get up there sometime!

@Leo in N E Illinois
haha I did have to read that through a couple times to process it all but thats great, I came here for info and you definitely dished some out. I think I have found a couple of Trident Maples to purchase, the only downside is they will be a little bit young, only 2 to 3 years old but the Gentleman at the Nursery says they come from South Carolina and are grown from seeds and not grafted. He says they are a somewhat big nursery that specializes mostly with Maples. I had him order me 2 of them, worst that can happen is I will let them grow for a couple more years, I will just wait and see, they are supposed to come in Thursday or Friday I believe.

I also bought some Trident, Pin Oak (This was before I read your post, oops) and coincidentally some Shimpaku seeds from Sheffield's Seed Company. While I dont have any ground space, We do have a couple of above ground garden beds that I am gonna make use of for the seeds. I only bought a packet of each so expecting only 1 or so to actually make it but just planning for the future and experimenting. Thank you for the recommendations of different species, we will see what fruits come of my projects this year and will look for some of the others when I go to pick up the Maples!

Im gonna wait until I get the Maples to see what size grow boxes I will build for them, Supposed to be a rainy weekend next week but thats what garages are for!

@cbroad Thanks for that! I found his post where he had his Patent number that explained the science behind it, very well thought out and very well done. Would these be good to start the Maples in or would these be considered Training pots as opposed to growing pots? (If that makes sense)

 

[cbroad]

would these be considered Training pots as opposed to growing pots

These would be growing pots. Training pots are usually similar to bonsai pots with the dimensions larger than a finished bonsai pot, but used to start encouraging a shallow root system to eventually transition into a bonsai pot.

A screen sided training pot would be good for any tree starting out because it encourages superior drainage, which then encourages more oxygen to penetrate into the root zone, which equals many fine roots. Bonsai pots have very limited space, so people would rather that pot be filled with fine feeders (which are doing the real work) than big old chunky roots.

 

[TnKidd]

Ok, that makes perfect sense, I have alot of aluminum screen material left over from some projects, I'll give that a shot.

 

[W3rk]

@TnKidd
I believe at one point @Vance Wood was selling hand made screen sided boxes, but not sure if he still is. You can see them in his avatar picture.

He does not. I believe he said that (among other things) it was no longer cost effective. But you'll see a lot of people on the forums here make their own custom wooden grow boxes, especially for larger collected trees that wouldn't fit in more standard off the shelf planters.

 

[cbroad]

lot of people on the forums here make their own custom wooden grow boxes

Yeah I know, I was just trying to kick a little business towards @Vance Wood . His looked very nice (much better than what I could achieve) and looked very sturdy and well built.

I have plans that I drew somewhere, with a "proprietary" system that would make repotting very easy and hassle free . I just need the copious free time to actually build them...

 

[TnKidd]

Ok so here is what I ended up with.
From Mr. Maple in South Carolina, I bought 2 Acer buergerianum/formosanum (Taiwanese Trident Maple) and built my boxes.

1 x 1 x 1 I feel like I built them a little bit too big but we will see what happens. Layed down about 2 inches of gravel to try and compensate.
Used 2 parts of good top soil we bought to redo our yard with 1 part Miracle Grow tree and shrub soil additative mix.

Wired them to the box to let the roots get a good hold and we will let it grow out and reassess next spring.

#1 Nothing too Interesting going on right now.
(See our patchy fresh grass? Giant rocky Mudpot this time last year)


#2 has some Interesting movement in it. Quite happy to see where this one will go.

Also on a whim I bought a 5 year old Trident from Brussels Bonsai. Its tiny enough to where I'm wondering if I should go ahead and plant it in a grow box as well, I dont have a picture of it right now but I will throw one up on here tomorrow.

The issue I am wondering about with the Trident from Brussels is it came to me and while it is not very dense it does have alot of leaves still on the tree that only slightly wilted like it came out of a greenhouse with no dormancy this winter, should I defoliant before spring hits or just let it go and see what happens?

I also got my seeds I was talking about.
Around 100 Trident seeds, 50 Japenese Pines ( I thought I had ordered shimpaku, guess not) and 25 Pin Oak. Soaked them for 36 hours, took the ones that sunk wrapped in a damp paper towel and placed in a bag and placed in the fridge.

I wonder if it may be a little late for seeds but too late to change it now, we will wait and see what happens.

I'll update tomorrow with some more pictures, I just figured I would update my post and not leave you guys hanging wondering what dumb decisions I ended up making!

 

[TnKidd]

Here is the Trident from Brussels, what to do with those leaves....

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Excellent.
Do nothing with those leaves for at least 2 or 3 months.

 

[TnKidd]

Excellent.
Do nothing with those leaves for at least 2 or 3 months.

Ok, that sounds easy to do