AusBonsai

Whenever I have to move a bonsai for repotting or pruning my back reminds me it is not as young and strong as it once was.
There's no doubt that larger bonsai are impressive. At shows they naturally dominate and that usually means one of the bigger bonsai wins the people's choice. Large bonsai allow us to catch eyes with a huge trunk. The canopy and branches can be really well ramified.

Individual smaller bonsai just can't compete with the monsters at shows so shohin sized bonsai are usually shown as a group. That means having a whole stable of little trees to choose 5 or 7 in prime condition when it is time for the show. As not every bonsai will be in show condition at any given time that means having a good range of small bonsai to choose from.

Here are a few of the trees I'm currently developing for the Shibui Bonsai shohin stable.

And a few more: Pots for these and the others I'm growing is the next challenge. I've contacted some of our Aussie bonsai potters and asked them to design and make a range of shohin pots for me. Creating and firing will take time but I'm hoping I'll have some by spring.

I'll update as the pots arrive.

Good selection of trees coming along. I agree wholeheartedly that to get one decent display you need probably 20 trees to choose from, and it also depends on the season.
I note that there is an abundance of moss on/around your trees, I am having similar issues. A few years ago I was scrounging for a small piece of moss and now its everywhere.
Can't wait for the pots!

That moss has become a real pest. A local club member originally noticed a very dense, low growing moss on tree trunks in Albury. It transplanted into pots OK and grew easily but it seems to be happier growing on tree trunks than on the soil.
That moss has become naturalised at my place so turns up on most pots and on most trunks and up into the branches. It is remarkably difficult to remove from trunks and branches. On smooth bark species I can brush it off with a brass wire brush but trying to get it off trees with cracked, furrowed or corky bark is a nightmare and can cause significant bark damage.
I now spray the trunks with vinegar solution a couple of times each year to kill off any moss climbing up.

The ones you see with moss are a few that I obviously missed in the last round of spray.

Nice showing Shibui.
I agree that its much beeter to have lots of smaller trees rather than large ones

Plus they are easier to hide from the Missus

Ken

Neil, quick side question. Re: vinegar spray - I saw in a previous post you were running a 50/50 mix. Still stand by that?

shibui wrote: ↑June 11th, 2022, 5:26 pm That moss has become a real pest. A local club member originally noticed a very dense, low growing moss on tree trunks in Albury. It transplanted into pots OK and grew easily but it seems to be happier growing on tree trunks than on the soil.
That moss has become naturalised at my place so turns up on most pots and on most trunks and up into the branches. It is remarkably difficult to remove from trunks and branches. On smooth bark species I can brush it off with a brass wire brush but trying to get it off trees with cracked, furrowed or corky bark is a nightmare and can cause significant bark damage.
I now spray the trunks with vinegar solution a couple of times each year to kill off any moss climbing up.

The ones you see with moss are a few that I obviously missed in the last round of spray.

Neil..... go with Yates Anti-Rot and/or fire. It is incredibly fast acting at killing it. I spray my Allocasuarina trunks with Yates Anti-Rot, and it kills it. There is no other alternative that is as fast acting and effective from my experiences. You simply cannot effectively remove thick moss from deeply fissured trunks if its got out of control. Anything that has become a really dense problem, (like I've seen on your material in past posts) I would also incorporate a flame thrower to. I'm not being funny. I use a hand-held one, that you can reduce the flame to an intense short blue flame. (not the long fire flame). If you keep it at a distance so that it only singes the moss, it will do the trick with minimal damage to the bark. But you can't get too close for a second, otherwise it scorches the bark. But it does give it a nice natural burnt bushfire look if you get too close The problem with deep fissured bark tho, is that you need to kill the moss between the cracks, and only Yates Anti-Rot will do this. You can up the dosage to 15mL per litre if its bad, but I'd be careful allowing that high a concentrate into the roots too much. The best prevention is to obviously regularly spray it to prevent the build up, but once it becomes like a rug, you have no other option that will work without damaging the bark. And unfortunately leaving the moss will eventually rot the bark.

People on here ogle and go "oooh, ahhh, the moss is so pretty!". I disagree. There is nothing good about moss and I've said this for 10 years. It just causes so many problems that I try to prevent it at all costs.

Seriously though. I use it with 10mL per litre of water, and it does the trick and prevents build up. I have not had any problems with any of the native material I use to kill it. The type of thick dense blackish moss I've seen on your trunks is similiar to my problems if I let it get out of hand. But Yates Anti-Rot is incredibly effective, and its not had any issues on the natives I've sprayed it on. If its heavily impacted, I would repeat every 3 days, until its killed. Ray Nesci got me onto it years ago, and I haven't looked back.

Neil, quick side question. Re: vinegar spray - I saw in a previous post you were running a 50/50 mix. Still stand by that?

I'm still using the 50/50 vinegar mix. It is certainly effective on moss and does not appear to cause any other problems.
Not sure whether a weaker solution would be as effective because I haven't tried weaker mixes yet.

oops.

Might need to clarify my comments. Apparently the 'moss' issue I had long ago, is a thick fungus and not moss. The anti-rot kills the fungus, which in turn would then lessen any grip that any moss had that was growing ontop of the fungus. But I have tested over the last week and yes it kills the fungus dead, but not the moss. So I am indeed a moron.

So obviously I must have shown Ray the tree with fungus so many years ago, and forgotten that it does not kill the moss.
I was experimenting with a lot of chemicals at the time though, including triforine, so I may have been using triforine in the mix as well as others which may have lead me to believe it also killed th moss, but clearly the anti-rot does not stop moss, I apologize guys.

The fungus is a thick growth that presumably is so damp for extended periods, that moss then grows ontop of this fungus as well, as the trunk becomes enveloped in a thick covering of it. But ever since I have known about the damage moss does to fissured bark, I have not allowed moss to grow.
Perhaps I should incorporate vinegar into my spray as well.

I take it all back. The product does work.

You just need to use a strong concentration of about 20 mL per 1 litre of water, and then wait at least a few days to see the moss die off.
I wasn't patient enough to see the product work and had forgot that I used a higher concentration.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=30317

The above is a time lapse I will update showing the product Yates Anti-Rot to remove MOSS.