leatherback
The Treedeemer
My wife was born in Rumania. Rumania gets snowy winters.
We don't, normally, get snow for more than a few days, if it stays that long.
Fretting about overwatering - a myth nowadays
- Thread starter Clicio
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We don't, normally, get snow for more than a few days, if it stays that long.
coh
Imperial Masterpiece
Funny this came up...during the most recent Mirai Q&A someone asked this question (I'm paraphrasing):
"Walter Pall says that for trees in modern substrate, it is impossible to over-water. If you are unsure, just water more. All the excess water will drain out. Do you agree with this?"
Ryan gave a one word answer (anyone familiar with Ryan knows that this may be the only time he's ever given a one word answer to any question):
"No"
and on to the next question.
"Walter Pall says that for trees in modern substrate, it is impossible to over-water. If you are unsure, just water more. All the excess water will drain out. Do you agree with this?"
Ryan gave a one word answer (anyone familiar with Ryan knows that this may be the only time he's ever given a one word answer to any question):
"No"
and on to the next question.
Kadebe
Chumono
Yup, it's not like 20-30 years ago... we had much more snow days than now
leatherback
The Treedeemer
coh
Imperial Masterpiece
I was surprised by the terse answer (he did seem a bit ticked off during the session, perhaps what happened earlier in the day with the sale and all the blowback from that). That said, he's explained his reasoning about watering countless times on the livestreams, Q&A's, etc.
Clicio
Masterpiece
I have no stomach for superstars.
leatherback
The Treedeemer
One day one-on-one I will tell you about the first time I met with Ryan, at the Bonsai Focus reception during Bonsai Trophy in Genk.
Clicio
Masterpiece
Please do.
coh
Imperial Masterpiece
What year was that?
leatherback
The Treedeemer
will do
leatherback
The Treedeemer
coh
Imperial Masterpiece
Reading between the lines (always a risky proposition), my impression is that you did not have a good experience with Ryan. Would that be an accurate interpretation?
leatherback
The Treedeemer
zanduh
Mame
What is most annoying as a newer hobbyist is that in the lack of hard science for most questions people when explaining something will talk as if all choices are about the dichotomy of healthy and dead trees.
Yes it’s obvious that if you forget to water your tree it will die. But then the topics become a lot more nuanced and the conversation does not.
Walter Pall says that if you are using free draining substrate you should water and liquid fertilize a lot (youtube, no citation provided). Walter Pall has amazing trees.
Michael Hagedorn says that overwatering a tree will cause weak roots for the summer and eventually kill the tree (p. 141, no citation provided). Michael Hagedorn has amazing trees.
Not only can masters not agree upon what will and will not kill a tree but we can’t quantify what is even “better”.
/end rant
Yes it’s obvious that if you forget to water your tree it will die. But then the topics become a lot more nuanced and the conversation does not.
Walter Pall says that if you are using free draining substrate you should water and liquid fertilize a lot (youtube, no citation provided). Walter Pall has amazing trees.
Michael Hagedorn says that overwatering a tree will cause weak roots for the summer and eventually kill the tree (p. 141, no citation provided). Michael Hagedorn has amazing trees.
Not only can masters not agree upon what will and will not kill a tree but we can’t quantify what is even “better”.
/end rant
leatherback
The Treedeemer
Climate, substrate, watering and fertilizer make the magic quadrants in which you need to find the balance suited to your habits.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
walter-pall-bonsai.blogspot.com
Portland, Oregon - Wikipedia
Munich - Wikipedia
Feeding, Substrate and Watering - English
Feeding, Substrate and Watering Methods of Walter Pall (edited by Victrinia Ridgeway) I was asked to write a paragraph on the 'feeding of...
walter-pall-bonsai.blogspot.com
coh
Imperial Masterpiece
That doesn't really help. Is the problem Ryan? The organizers? The other attendees? You? All of the above?
I don't really know they guy, I've only met him briefly a couple of times at the National Show in Rochester. I was on the photo crew one year and he was explaining to us how a certain tree needed to be moved, what to beware of (it was a Dan Robinson tree, very heavy in an expensive antique container on a rickety stand that was threatening to collapse at any moment). He wouldn't know me from Adam. What I've observed though is that when he is at these shows he is constantly mobbed by people wanting a piece of him. That has to be tiring and might tend to skew impressions about him if you're one of the throng trying to get some time with the master.
Perhaps he was demanding of the staff during the photo shoot? Wanted everything done a certain way?
I mean...why put out the teaser if you're not going to go into more detail.
leatherback
The Treedeemer
Shibui
Imperial Masterpiece
One of the problems is that we are working with living things (trees) There will always be individual differences in tolerance depending on circumstances. Add to that the huge range of climates, soil types, pots, species and care and the permutations become huge. Everyone will answer according to their experiences in their particular microclimate and the soils and cultural practices they use. These days anyone can be an instant expert without scrutiny thanks to the internet so many opinions are based on very little real experience and sometimes only on a single instance. More experienced growers will have a wider range of experience but still limited to their locality and practices.
It would become really complex to cover all the nuances without spending inordinate time typing answers and, even then, the answers would still be limited to that person's particular experiences rather than the full range of possibilities.
I think the best we can do is try to pick out trends in the multitude of answers, try to cross reference with similar climates and cultural practices, pick out some possibilities that seem reasonable then begin to test theories for ourselves.
Clicio
Masterpiece
In fact I think this is the *only* way.
We don't always have snowy winters here, in Romania (this is the name of the country). Last winter, for example, I barely saw the snow. I spent a few vacations in southern Munich in the past and I noticed the climates are not too different from here.
Walter Pall says, in an article on his blog, that with modern substrates over-watering is almost impossible. Those words make quite a difference. I, for example, have a juniper (or something) in a small pot that stays wet for a longer period of time than the trees in much bigger pots. There are many factors involved, I know, but usually there are exceptions from rules. We can't really know a thing for sure if we never tried it. Until this year I was scared of overwatering, but I found out that it's not that easy to do it.
