AusBonsai

treeman wrote:

delisea wrote:Hi Treeman,
Any chance of a photo of the 4 year olds?
Cheers,
Symon

Not yet.......

come on, we are all friends here...

Cmon Treeman!
You jumped on your soapbox in the other thread around happily sharing all your information and learnings!

Photo's Photo's Photo's!

Fine then...here..
The plan is to let these thicken to about 25mm before potting (if I can wait that long)
If I'm really patient I might let a few get to 50mm..

They look great Mike!

You just need to put in 100's of them!

Thanks Mike. Very exciting. Needless to say this is what we all should be doing if we have the space. I put in some native Callicarpa and a Gmelina leichhardtii in on the weekend.

Jow, do you think 100's are needed to give yourself options or to spread the joy?

delisea wrote:Jow, do you think 100's are needed to give yourself options or to spread the joy?

Both. Very few people who ground grow actually achieve good results. The ones that do should do more of it!

Look at the extensive back budding. I have noticed this on one I cut down and bent just 4 weeks ago as well.

Grant

Nice Mike.

Cheers,
Mojo

Love all these recent posts.

Jow wrote:Very few people who ground grow actually achieve good results.

Jow,
This comment has really intrigued my curiosity, considering how popular ground growing and Yamadori is.
Is it possible to elaborate a little as to why ground growing by the majority of people doesn't achieve good results - Please.
and Thank-you in advance.
Kevin

Going to be some epic specimens in there TM!
Thanks for sharing!

Kevin wrote:

Is it possible to elaborate a little as to why ground growing by the majority of people doesn't achieve good results

-

It's because, like always, planning and follow up are neglected. You need to have a pretty concrete idea of what you are trying to achieve or nothing will be achieved. You also need to follow that plan up with the necessary techniques needed to achieve the goal. They are, watering, feeding, pruning, mulching, weeding, leader replacement, pest control, wiring (sometimes), digging, arranging roots and replanting. All the boring stuff in other words.......

Thanks Mike,

Great foresight and great management in achieving these results.

No doubt these little ones will greatly reward your efforts.

Don't forget the patience. Also, I wouldn't call it the "boring stuff", it's an all included packaged adventure.

Thanks,
Kevin

Jow wrote:

delisea wrote:Jow, do you think 100's are needed to give yourself options or to spread the joy?

Both. Very few people who ground grow actually achieve good results. The ones that do should do more of it!

And to encourage the ones that produce outstanding ground grown material, bonsai hobbyists need to recognise the effort and talent that goes into growing prebonsai for 5-10 years and be prepared to pay $300-500 for a tree that they will have to spend 5 years or more structuring and refining. I am talking about shohin and chuhin sized trees. Longer time frames and bigger $ for larger trees and more difficult/slow growing species.

Cheers,
Mojo

treeman wrote:

Kevin wrote:

Is it possible to elaborate a little as to why ground growing by the majority of people doesn't achieve good results

-

It's because, like always, planning and follow up are neglected. You need to have a pretty concrete idea of what you are trying to achieve or nothing will be achieved. You also need to follow that plan up with the necessary techniques needed to achieve the goal. They are, watering, feeding, pruning, mulching, weeding, leader replacement, pest control, wiring (sometimes), digging, arranging roots and replanting. All the boring stuff in other words.......

Amen to that.
and if we don't, we will just end up with bigger sticks.


regards

Thanks Mojo and Kevin. Just to give you an idea, these Leptos have been wired, un-wired and rewired five times and they are only about 150mm high. They will probably need re-wiring another 10 to 15 times depending on how large I want them. And that's just the trunk! (I re-use and re-re-use my wire now , so much wire...oh the wire......) It takes 3 years (not including 1 year in the seed tray) in a pot before they are ready for the rigors of ground life. You gotta be a bit crazy really....