Alpineart's Blog

This was another  purchase from Ebay recently .I find a lot of good material that people don’t want and its usually at a very cheap price . Most consider this as a poor quality pot plant , which it probably is however as far as Bonsai goes it good and can certainly be improved .This was simply slip potted from the large plastic container to a large bonsai training pot .The roots close to the trunk were very healthy however lower down in the soil they where extremely wet and rot had began to take it toll . The majority of the roots that were good were around 1.5 long . I simply teased them out and  cut them back by about 60 %  then slipped it into the pot . This will in time make a very nice semi cascade . I will allow this to settle back then trim and wire it for shaping . It has a slight reverse taper at the graft union and a couple of area’s that will nee some work where the tag ties that were left on the trunk have created some swelling I’m in no hurry to shape this as i need to pot up more big junipers , so its under cover and onto the next challenge .

Cheers Alpineart.

This is one of the huge  Juniper Chinensis pfitzer that was collected a while back . I have decided to slip them into pots while i am capable of doing so . I managed to purchase some large pots for this purpose over the weekend and its time to make a start . With all the hard work done when collected it was simply a matter of removing from the grow bed and potting it up .This particular juniper has a base of 350mm in time it will be wired and styled , it is beginning to back bud in certain area’s along the severed branches .The carving of  the large amount of  stubs on the trunk will take place after the initial styling . I need to be sure of their survival prior to doing any further work to them .

Cheers Alpineart

These are a batch or two of  Trident maples that have been set into various configurations from single trunks  , root over rock ,with some being readied  to be trained onto rocks  plenty of fused trunks in all shapes and sizes from plaited to twisted and woven . While having an injury has slowed me down , some of the stock has suffered from lack of care . With close to 1500 plants in grow beds some where bound to be neglected . I have been digging the tridents out and trimming both roots and leaders back hard ready for another growing season . Not all where a complete success but i will use the un fused whips to infill the lower trunks  to improve the overall character of the better trunks . With plans to move to a large property put on hold i am still potting as many trainers into pots in case the opportunity does arise and a move is necessary . These were 1-2 year old whips fused together and grown on , now they need the hard trim to continue the development of the lower trunks and the start of the branch structure . With so much stock i have managed to work 150 trunk over with another 70 odd to go . Then i will progress onto the other trainers . I still need to re-pot around 400 pot plant trainers/pre-bonsai , time is running out .