True firs
Hi Folks,
This is about an abies (amabilis) "Little Menzies", so named after the mountain I collected it from. It was my first yamidori that I collected some 10 years ago although at the time I just collected it (after an introductory lesson into Bonsai) ......and because I liked it, it was close to the truck and came up very easily.
After adding some regular "bargin store potting mix" I left it in the landscape cloth/chicken wire "wrap" I had collected it in, placed it on the slab of rock and put it into a semi shaded area of the garden to grow.
Over the next few years all I did was perform some minor shoot trimming, dead branch removal and weighted down some of the branches with a real bonsai technique (salmon fishing weigths)
This spring (March ) I decided to try and style it. I wanted to keep the long low branches as I think that it reflected its struggle to survive.......and was its niche for survival on the local microsite and from the extreme environmental conditions it was exposed to (the cold harsh and somewhat long winters at 1100m).....keeping its main branches below the snow.
I didn't have to cut too many roots off of the root ball and placed it into the only pot that I had that fit. I think like it better on a slab so I might change it back in a couple more years after its shown that it's fully recovered....so far so good, this years growth was to be expected, for it lost a few more older needles and its buds grew about 1/2"-1" on most branches.
I know that the foliage is a little thin on most branches but I hope that it will back bud for me with a little fert, but not too much ....as that tends to give them bigger needles.....that's the difficulty I find....balancing fertilizer.
Thoughts, comments?
Cheers Graham