Alpineart's Blog

This has been one of many project done over the last couple of months . Plenty of Winter digging and root pruning has been completed and all the material is safely back into the grow beds , I took some time out from digging and re-potting to construct some new landscape mediums , good rocks are as rare as hens teeth around here and usually weigh far to much for this old bloke to man handle . The off cuts of poly marble will become the tray on which the rocks will begin their new life as a living work of art or PenjingThese were constructed from left over auto-claved concrete panel offcuts , a weight saving of close to 80% . The task at hand is to try to make them as natural as possible , no easy feat for an amateur but worth the effort at the end of the project . Custom made to suit my requirements as most things are around here . Using a cement based tile glue to adhere the pieces together for the basic base on which to build the rock on . With the pieces glued together and allowed to dry they are them waterproofed before the first acrylic render coat is applied beginning the process of numerous  coats of cement render with another waterproofing agent added . This finish is the base coat from which i build several coated renders over and over to build the texture on which the coloured renders are applied . It is time consuming but again worth the effort as they are custom made for the purpose required . Once this colouring process is started there’s no turning back or slacking off as the waterproofing /hardening agent has a relatively short working time . Creating 5 rocks or multiple rocks is well worth the effort as 1 item begins to harden the next rock can be worked on . There is no time for a meal break as once set , the colours cant be blended and its back to the start . As each surface  dries  another water proofing agent is applied which does aid the colour blending , however I’m working with 3mm and 5mm brushes so speed is essential . . With all the rock coloured they will be set aside to completely cure and you guessed it more water proofing will be applied , after which the will be weathered for about 2-3 weeks depending on the climate conditions . They are then soaked in water to dispel any lime from the mortars and dried out . In a matter of 4 weeks from start to finish and around 40 – 50 hours work the will be ready for the landscapes /Penjing to be put together . In the meantime the trays will be carved out of Poly Marble to suit each individual or set of rocks . Hope you enjoyed this topic as much as i did in the construction of  it .

Cheers Alpineart

This type of landscape / mountain scape came about last year after collecting a smaller olive . I flat cut the base and disposed of it in the compost heap . It sprouted numerous shoot however is was not a good sized piece worthy of the work involved . This butt has huge character and will with a lot of work hopefully become a very nice living mountain . With 2 natural hollows that will become lakes and possibly even a waterfall could be added with the  aid of a mini solar pump . I re-washed the roots and carved off the excessively log roots back to stubs removing about 10-15 kg of weight . A quick tidy up of the bottom flat cut and its off to the scoria bed to grow on to become Mt Alpineart . I have no doubt it will sprout shoot hopefully the will grow in desirable positions to become a mountain forest or hillside scape representing the natural area’s olives grow . The old bark will add character to the rugged hills and no doubt moss will be added along with a few mame coniferous trunks as well .

Cheers Alpineart

These were spotted in the front yard of a subdivided block here in town . A small excavator had done the hard work and removed them , all i had to do was chose a few good trunks load them up and bring them home . Not as easy as it sounds , they look small from the roadside until i took a closer look . A mix  of Olives , Citris , Oleanders which i decided to leave behind , Crepe Myrtle , Callistermon and a couple of others were available . I will positively identify them after leaf out Due to the size of the trunks i need some serious help to load these up into the ute .The 2 big olive are estimated at around 300-400kg , no hope for a few blokes to lift these , so a trolley and ramps were used to move and slide them into the vehicle . The big trunk was a real struggle , many thanks to a passer by who saw the delema and stopped to offer another pound or two to get it into the back of the ute . With 2 loads safely home i washed the soil off  the olives in preparation for splitting 1 down and flat cutting the bases . While this lightened the load the are still too big for 1 man to lift . Idecided to split this one into 2 smaller bases The bases were cut  down to 300mm x 400mm and 500mm x 400mm and 600mm x 600mm mm when flat cut , . Now with 3 large olives to play with in the future these will simple go into a scoria bed to allow them to grow the new roots required . The other trunks will get a quick work over and be potted into plastic pots to recover from the removal . All in all a very rewarding day , wont have to worry about fattening them trunks just need some foliage .

Cheers Alpineart