Seedlings under window screen

[timhanson81]

I like to grow plants from seed and at some point a few years ago I saw Al suggest placing window screen over the seedbed as the seedlings were growing in order to given them some movement while they were young. Al is documenting the technique on his blog this season (http://bonsaial.wordpress.com/) and I said I would post some pictures of my results.

Last year during the growing season I kept the screen on for 2-3 weeks and then let the plants grow without the screen for 2-3 weeks. I also kind of twisted the screen as I was placing it on top of the seedlings to give them some extra movement. As you can see in the picture of the seed flat, I grow my seedlings very densely so I use wire to hold down the screen or put a couple rocks on top to really smash the seedlings down.

I'm very happy with the results so far. The technique gives the seedlings random and interesting movement with virtually no effort on your part. I have only used it on Japanese and trident maples but I don't see why it wouldn't work with most other species as well. If you're a masochist like me who chooses to grow bonsai from seed/seedlings I think this method is the only way to do it. It definitely opens up your options as you don't have to rely solely on the trusty trunk chop to get movement in the lower trunk. If you are growing larger trees, you can grow out and cut back as usual but still keep the nice low movement. If you are growing small trees, you can utilize sacrifice branches in the first inch or two to gain taper but still keep the rest of the movement for your 6 inch tree. I am just starting this experiment but I think using this technique I will be able to get a shohin maple pre-bonsai in 4 years. What do you think? (Caveat: I live in California)

Anyways, this has become far too long winded........here's some pictures from today.

First 2 pictures: Trident maples
Last 3: Japanese maples
I have about 50 2" pots each of trident and Japanese maples with a wide assortment of movement like this. Pretty fun little seedlings I think.
You can't really see much detail in that last picture of the seed flat but on the left side I already took out 50 of the larger seedlings and transplanted them into 2" pots. So there are +/- 150 trees left in the flat that I will grow out/smash for another year.

FINALLY. THANK YOU TO AL KEPPLER!!! The practical bonsai techniques you take the time to freely share are invaluable!

 

[milehigh_7]

Sweet! That Al is okay sometimes.

 

[Smoke]

Sweet!

Your welcome.

 

[Smoke]

This will work on pines too.....

 

[daygan]

And thank you, Al! I'll have to try that with some of my seedlings this year.

 

[KayaMooney]

Any update on these? I'd like to see what's come of them in the past year or so.

 

[barrosinc]

Cool! Do you have any pics of what these look like now?

 

[timhanson81]

I will take some pictures and post an update soon.

 

[timhanson81]

Here are a few of the "trees" as the stand now, two growing seasons from the initial post. I had potted a bunch of these into 2" pots with the intention of selling them but that hasn't happened yet so pretty much all of them have stayed in the 2" pots and not put on a dramatic amount of growth. I think I also have some of these seedlings that I planted into my ground growing area a couple of year ago. If I dig up any of those this coming spring, I will post pictures of them here.


Here is one Amur maple and a couple of Japanese maples


Three Trident maples


I'm not 100% sure, but I think this is the little semi-cascade Japanese maple seedling from my initial post. This may have been the only one I planted into a 1 gallon container and the difference in growth is pretty significant. It makes me realize I should plant more of these into larger containers this spring.


As Al said initially, "This will work on pines too....."

I'm still convinced it is almost always beneficial to use this "window screen technique" when growing from seed.

 

[DhD47]

Thanks for the post. I love the idea and will be sure I give it a try when I have seeds started.

Keep us posted on how the trees go.

Dave

 

[RobertB]

Great post. Any updates here?

 

[Gary McCarthy]

I do like the randomness of the movement.