The Miracle Grow Pinch - Seiju Elm

[Firstflush]

This is what I believe to be a seiju. Slow grower. Broke a clump part and the small one lived.
In southern ca I choose to use more organic material in my substrate so I don’t have to water so frequently.
One would assume with more organic material present there would be somewhat of a solid base of available nutrients to sustain the plant.
This seiju was creeping along. Kind of just meh of a growth rate.

I saw folks on here did not generally recommend a pinch of miracle grow for there trees without water mixing first. There are definitely some risks. On this tree, I used about an 8th of the surface area of a dime. Bam! The elm shoots out new 6” extensions.

I learned that the baseline of nutrients with more organic material is not enough. I need to fertilize more. Also, maybe I go crazy with the strong chem ferts and change out the potentially fried, burnt out soil regularly with pre-bonsai material. Who cares right? The tree is no where near finished. The goal early is get the tree big fast….worry about health of the tree later when/if the tree approaches finality.

My 2 pennies…..

 

[WNC Bonsai]

No sure it is a Seiju. I bought one with similar sized leaves a few years ago from Bill Valavanis at the shohin show in Charlotte. Then a couple of weeks ago I got a cork nark Seiju from Eric at Bonsaify and the leasves on it are miniscule compared to my smooth bark “Seiju”. Maybe there is a difference between these two types of Seiju but……. I’ll shoot a comparison photo on a few mins.

 

[WNC Bonsai]

OK, photos of a smooth bark “Seiju” on the left and a cork bark on the right. Note the tiny leaves on the cork bark elm.

 

[Firstflush]

Well that is cool. I may have a cork bark.

 

[BrianBay9]

In my experience seiju are very aggressive growers, and have much smaller leaves. I'm guessing Cofga is right.

 

[Firstflush]

BTW, no scale. That is a 3” cup. Leaves are a pinky nail.

 

[Firstflush]

So it doesnt have the millions of nodes up and down the stems like a cork bark. Very close ramification/branch structure with pinky nail size leaves.

 

[Scorpius]

That's not a Seiju. Seju have leaves that are miniscule like at the biggest 1/4in.