There’s nothing new with the schefflera I am working on. I’ve been too busy with the shipment of variegated plants from Hawaii. My wife said to me that I love variegated so much, she was going to paint spots on her face. Cute. I do love variegated plants though!

This month I learned a valuable lesson. I find it odd that at my age there are still things to learn. When I was a boy I was certain that I would know all of the secrets of the Universe by now. How naive I was.

My lesson started innocently enough. I had heard of a technique to root cuttings in water – just water. I have a neighbor who has two beautiful specimens in his yard. A crape myrtle with a bloom in a shade of pink I have not seen anywhere else, and an oleander with red leaves. I took 80 cuttings of the crape myrtle and 85 cuttings of the oleander.

I set up a place to try this new technique out on my patio. I set the cuttings standing up in plastic pots and set the plastic pots in a black tub. I filled the tub with water and changed the water every day. I decided to mist the leaves with fertilized water even though I know it’s not a very effective way to deliver fertilizer to the plant – only around 10% of the fertilizer is absorbed. I use a meter which tells me the strength of the fertilizer in the solution. (I have a lot of tools left over from when we grew bonsai trees at our nursery.) I am using 200 parts per million, which is almost the same as a quarter teaspoon per gallon.

I did this everyday for about 3 weeks: pour out the old water, fill the tub with fresh water and mist the leaves. After 10 days or so, I started seeing calluses on the cuttings as roots started to form. Lo and behold over the next several days, roots started growing!

I started thinking about this and I began to get mad! Yes mad! You see, I have taken cuttings before and I was always pretty successful, but I did it with special equipment that I had spent good money on. I have a heated rubber mat, a special plastic tray with special reusable plastic pots, a special soil mixture just for cuttings, special liquid hormones that I dip each cutting into before placing it in the soil and an automated misting system that is timed to mist the leaves every 15 or 20 minutes to keep the cuttings well hydrated and turgid. After all this time, I was using this system and all I had to do was plop the cuttings in a bucket of water. WATER!

I was still fuming on day 25 or so when I pulled the cuttings out to plant those that were ready. The oleander had about 5 that rotted, so I threw them away, and 43 of them had roots that were 1 inch or longer. The roots had grown together a little, but they slipped apart easily enough. However, I noticed that the roots were very plump and tender like a bean sprout. They were easy to snap off. I knew I would have to be careful planting them.

I got out my potting mixture and attempted to pot the first one as easy as I could. I was very gentle and I snapped all of the roots off. I tried again. I, very gently, snapped all the roots off. I decided to switch my potting mixture. I mixed up a blend of 70% perlite and 30% peat moss that I could dribble on to the cutting as I held it in place in a pot. I couldn’t firm the cutting in for fear of breaking the roots. Finally I got all of the cuttings into pots, and they looked sad. Some were flopping around, leaned over; it was a mess.

Over the next several days some died as I had obviously been a little rough with a few of them even though I was as careful as I could be. Even though I have some, about 25, that have taken hold, I now wonder what will happen when I go to transplant them. With all of the perlite in the soil mix, it will fall apart on me when I take them from the pots. I guess I’m going to have to wait until the roots develop into a root ball. We’ll see.

So the lesson I learned is this: There is a reason for buying tools. It’s because they help you do a job easier, faster, and better than the alternatives. Yes, you can root cuttings in plain water, but you can’t easily plant them once you do. With my purchased system for taking cuttings, everything was thought out and designed for ease of use. Sure, only 60 – 65% of the cuttings take using the purchased system, but they root in a soil mixture from the beginning. When the roots grow, they grow in a safe environment and transplanting them into a larger pot from this system is a breeze.

I also learned that half of the joy of having hobbies is the gear and tools that are associated with them. I actually missed setting up the system and checking it every day. Sure, it’s a little extra work, but I love it! I even got into taking the temperature of the soil to make sure it was ideal. I thought of several different ways to spend more time with my cuttings using the purchased system. I didn’t do it because it was more work. I did it because I wanted to spend time enjoying my hobby. It’s how I smell the roses.

A note about our mud men: Most people don’t know this, but the traditional mud men, the ones we sell, are made of a mud which is only found in one area of the world. There are actually two types of this mud and it is found just a few miles inland from Hong Kong around Guangzhou. This area is renowned for making pottery sculptures, statues and statuettes of Chinese deities (Gods & Goddesses). These are some of the finest pottery craftsmen in the world! They supplement their income by making mud men and bonsai figurines at night after dinner. When they have assembled a collection of these in the green ware (unfired) state, they take them to the one company who buys the figurines from them. That company, then fires them and we buy the figurines directly from them. This practice has been going on for many, many years. Not counting the thousands of years the craftspeople of this area have been creating religious sculptures, this tradition of making bonsai figurines is a heritage that has been going on for 100 or more years.

	CH04 2 inch Hut on Stilts unglazed $3.95 A perfect little hut to make your bonsai remind you of far away places like the beaches of Fuji or the mountainous area of China
	CF06 - 3 Man 3" Unglazed $6.50 In assorted poses. 3 x 2 x 3. A perfect complement to any bonsai, this mud man group suggest deep thought and contemplation. Can’t you picture them philosophically pondering the nature of the Universe?
	T154 Bonsai Trowel - Dirt Patter $12.95 An extremely useful tool to use when you're trying to tidy up your soil in your Bonsai pot or when you've just pulled those noxious weeds and have made your soil look like moon craters. The overall length is 6 3/4". The wood handle is 4". The metal patter is 3" long and is 1 3/8" wide tapering to a point. Another excellent quality Japanese Product!

Our new monthly Bonsai tips are brought to you, by special arrangement, courtesy of the John Yoshio Naka Family. You can find the full year’s guide and a whole lot more in the book Bonsai Techniques I by John Naka. We have both of Mr. Naka’s books, Bonsai Techniques I and Bonsai Techniques II, available for immediate purchase.

Much of the care of bonsai this month is determined by the temperature and the locale, also by the fact that the growth cycle is either slowing down or ceased completely.

Location: Keep turning the bonsai on its shelves so that all sides receive an equal amount of sunshine. The afternoon sun is less desirable than the morning sun.

Watering: Do not neglect regular watering. Overhead watering is always beneficial. If the soil in any pot is still damp on the surface at the end of a hot August day, something is definitely wrong with the drainage. Check to see what’s wrong.

This is vacation time. See that a capable reliable person will water during your absence. Automatic sprinklers are not completely accurate because there is a tendency to overwater, plus the fact that every tree does not require the same amount of water.

Trimming and pruning: The growth has ceased by now on most bonsai so be careful about any drastic pruning. The pruning of flowering bonsai may remove next year’s blooms.

Wiring: Smaller branches can now be wired and bent.

Fertilizing: Fertilize as usual this month.

Transplanting: Do not, except in an emergency, attempt any transplanting or repotting this late in the year.

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