| It’s June already. Can you believe it? |
It’s getting HOT out there, so be sure to give your outdoor bonsai plenty of water!
I enjoy nothing more than learning about plants and fertilizers to help them grow to be their best. Lately, I’ve really taken to variegated plants. So I usually peruse the nurseries every weekend looking for them. Last weekend, I came across a large schefflera at home depot. I call it a “hernia” plant. It’s so big, you can get a hernia moving it around. It came in a big, big pot.
All the way home I was thinking of what I was going to do with it. I even went over to my store and picked out the perfect pot for it.
It’s currently in a 20” x 20” x 7” pot. I want to eventually move it into a Tokoname pot, but I’ll need to start with a training pot. So I decided to use the PP16 plastic pot. It’s dimensions are: 16 1/5" x 13" x 4". It’s still a pretty big pot, but it is a little more manageable. I’ll keep it in this pot for 1 – 2 years before taking it down again into the final Tokoname pot which will be around 12”. At that time, the roots will completely fill the 12” pot and I’ll have a lot of roots that I will expose in a Nebari style.
Nebari – Exposed roots. Gives the plant a look of strength and age. Makes the plant look like the trees in a swamp do, with their roots exposed.
With the schefflera, in addition to pruning the roots and training it into smaller and smaller pots, I’ll also need to work on getting the leaves smaller and smaller. You do this by completely defoliating the plant every 6 months. Yes, take every leaf off. The schefflera are very strong plants and since they are tropicals, they bounce right back by throwing off more leaves. Except this time the leaves will be a little bit smaller than they were before. So don’t worry about harming the plant, about the only thing that can kill a schefflera is cold.
This weekend is going to be very hot here in Dallas. I’ve decided I’ll go to the nursery this weekend and then stop for a couple months. It’s just too hot. The nurseries are reducing their stock because they can’t water fast enough to keep everything alive anyway. So, if you are in a climate where you can go to the nurseries for a couple more weeks, I’m not only a little bit jealous, I’d say you should go now before your nursery reduces stock.
One thing you can do if you are in the heat like me is look online for other plants. For instance, I just got 40 plants from Forest Farm in Oregon. As I said before, I love Variegated plants. I got a huge assortment. In the collection, I got a variegated Japanese Violet and a variegated Maple that has a pink stripe on it’s leaves. I love to collect them.
One which I am having trouble with is an Aglaonema called “Christmas Day”. Aglaonema’s look a lot like a hosta. This one is from Thailand and the variegation is a beautiful red. The problem is, there’s too much red I think.
You know Variegated plants are freaks of nature. They are also called chimera which means, it’s one organism with two genetically different types of tissue. What this all means is, the plants are much weaker than a normal plant is because the thing we love about them, the variegation, lacks chlorophyll. Without chlorophyll, the plant can’t make the sugars it needs to survive. The variegated have to have at least 30% green to keep them alive.
| Products you may need this month: |
It’s been a busy month here at Dallas Bonsai Garden! We got in a full container (tractor trailer) from Japan last week. We had to replenish stock on 149 lines of tools and supplies. Among the treasures we got, there are some new items including: 2 different sizes of aluminum chopsticks and a canvas tool holder called a “pochette.” It comes in charcoal and brown. We will feature these mid-month, so look for that email!
Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next month. Remember, if you have any questions, let me know. We are here to help!
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