If you want to keep yourself busy train some bonsai! These little trees are constantly growing and evolving. Let me warn you that I am not a trained bonsai artist, I just love having nature close to me and when you live in a concrete jungle bonsai is the way to go. I am not too much of a wire-shaper. I prefer to clip, trim and shape trees and this takes much longer than wiring a grown branch. I let nature have her way, I abide by her rules and work my way around her whims and fancies.
The beauty of bonsai is that you could work with trees, succulents and even bushes to shape them in a manner you like. I am biased towards trailing trees with a wind swept look. I find myself naturally wanting to shape all my specimens this way.
(a ficus grown over rocks)
Trees like the ficus benjamina, the sacred ficus and the banyan are easy to grow. These grow from clippings and each time you prune you could add a few more trees to your collection. However, succulents like the portulacaria afra, jade and Senecio Himalaya are really easy to work with.
Senecio Himalaya
Patience is the key while training bonsai trees. Deep pruning, shaping and waiting for branches to grow as desired takes years, but as the saying goes Rome was not built in a day, bonsai take time to shape up.
Pomegranate
Fruit trees are amazing as bonsai. Custard apple (sugar apple) trees and pomegranates are my favorites. Even if they don't bear too many fruits I am thrilled to see a few flowers or a couple of fruits on them. Since I don't use chemical fertilizer for my plants these don't seem to be doing as well as those in the plant nurseries, but I am happy with mine. I can still eat fruits off my bonsai trees.
In February I managed to get a bit of re-potting and weeding done with a little help from my husband who lifted the pots for me. This has resulted in a slight improvement in their growth. This flowering bush was plagued with mealy bugs and hadn't bloomed in a long time time. With a little care there were plentiful blooms and this plant just got another light trim and a some fertilizer after the picture was taken.
This orange jasmine / Murraya exociticais my all time favorite. It is slow growing but when it blooms it looks like it had snowed over just this one plant in my garden. The amazing scent of these flowers takes you to a different world. This bonsai has met with a couple of accidents and had a few of its shapely branches were broken. With a little taping and wiring I was able to save one of the thicker branches. Being a compact growing dwarf variety makes this an excellent material for a bonsai.
Root pruning and possible root rearrangement needed to be for this Ficus beghalensis. This is a seven year old tree with its arial roots growing wild. I just gave it a deep prune and root rearrangement. I seem to have misplaced the after picture, I'll edit my post when I find it.
This is a grafted ficus ginseng. A small leaf ficus is grafted on to the roots of the older tree in order to give it an aged look. I bought this three root structured bonsai some eight years ago. I guess it is over nine years old now.
This ficus tree is seven years old, I grew it from a cutting of the grafted ficus ginseng above. It branched out into two thick trunks and looked beautiful at first but now the trunks have curved downwards and need to be pruned. I also have been thinking about dividing them into two trees so I have let it grow wild.
This sacred ficus or ficus religiosa has been with me for 15 years. It was almost killed by my neighbor who threw concrete and construction materials on it two years ago. Many of its branches were broken then and the tree hasn't really recovered from the trauma.
I took one of the broken branches and rooted it in water. Now it has grown into a quite healthy looking tree. This was one of those bonsai which got a deep pruning in February and has branched out quite nicely.
This ficus triangularis is one of the slow growing ficus in my garden. As pretty as it is, it drops all its leaves twice a year and goes almost bare before it puts out some tiny red figs. These figs look pretty but are really very tiny. I have had to pull out this bonsai from the brink of death a couple of times. To be on the safe side I had rooted a few clippings so I always have one or two of these plants with me. Sadly plants and trees don't live forever. For us in the tropic and sub tropical regions we tend to forget this aspect of life and expect our plants to live on forever.
Sorry I have had to take my pictures standing ( as my back is still troubling me) and that doesn't show these trees at an advantage. They do look pretty if seen from the right angle.
Before you go take a look at my Nolina palm or pony tail palm. It' is another one of my favorites and it is about five years old. I am waiting for this plant to put out some pups. Hope it happens sometime soon. That is all folks from my bonsai garden. Happy gardening.
Thanks for your time and support. It's always fun to post in the hive garden for #gardenjournal.
