To automate or water by hand

Last year I installed an automatic watering system and I was thinking about doing the same thing this year, but then I decided to water by hand instead. There are many reasons and many lessons I learned from going through the process and I will try to outline those here.
The main reason I decided to install a watering system last year was because I was working in Autsin for five weeks and I did not think it would be feasible to find people to water for me for all those times (but I will have to do something similar this year). Five weeks in Austin and other usual summer trips meant asking for a lot of help. So I did some research and decided on a soaker hose based system with a four zone timer.

In case other people are considering whether watering system is worth your effort here are my impressions.

What I did not like:
1) Concerns about failure – this was the biggest problem. My system failed three times at different points. Twice I came home with water running down the street because connectors failed (once before the timer so it could be going for a while). Once the goof plug at the end of the line came out and the water was coming out of the end of the soaker hose instead of the sides and messing up the pressure on the whole bench. What’s worse is that knowing that failures have occurred kept me worried about whether it is going to happen again. It definitely took the pleasure out of the automation. And after all that my timer failed – I checked it in the morning and everything looked fine but when I got home in late afternoon the trees were super dry. The batteries were fine, the program was correct, but I am certain they did not get watered and it was a hot day. I pulled the batteries out and put same batteries back after I checked them and it worked well the next day. I tried figuring out what happened but it remains a mystery.
2) Less control – you definitely don’t have the control you would have with hand watering. Being able to adjust the amount of water to differences in temperature, moisture, rainfall, types of trees, stages of development (e.g. did you just de-candle the tree) makes it less optimal. Some of those issues can be adjusted, but I don’t think it can be adjusted to the point that you can get to with hand watering.
3) Not being able to move the trees easily – because I would attach the soaker hoses with wire hooks to the soil it became easy to move the trees as well as rotate trees. This is not a big problem, but it definitely diminished my ability to work on trees easily.
4) Less contact with the trees – not watering every day, or twice a day, made it easier to ignore trees. I did not get to look at my trees every day and so some things were ignored. It would make it harder to spot problems early.
5) Uses way more water than hand watering – I noted that my water bill was higher than usual and more water was ending up on the ground instead of the pots. I think the soaker based system uses less water than sprayer systems, but it is still more than hand watering, in my opinion.
6) Difficulty with fertilizing – I fertilize using tea bags and I constantly struggled with placement of hoses over the bags, around the bags, under the bags, etc. Somehow, I could not quite figure it out so that the pots with bags would get watered evenly and enough water would go through the bags.

What I liked:
1) Not having to ask for favors and rely on others – this was the main reason I installed the system. I still had to ask people to check that it has not failed but I did not have to find people to water twice daily.
2) Flexibility with schedules when at home – when I hand water I have to be home at certain times, but the system freed me from it. I could water by hand in the morning and set a timer to water in the afternoon only.

So my advice is to not use the automated system if you can do the watering on your own or with a little help from your friends.

A big airlayer that (almost) worked

A year ago I decided to deal with the ugly roots and an obvious graft line on a large maple.

So after considering it for a few years I decided to airlayer it above the graft line. As often is the case, Carrie and I did it together.

I have been pretty successful with airlayers, as in all live, but some don't get 360 roots, but I have never done one on a trunk over two inches. One of the problems of doing it at the same time from both sides is that sometimes the lines don't meet.

A year later we decided to look inside the big pot and see what we got.

Well, what we got was wonderful roots

But only on one side. Turns out it is important to rotate your airlayers, even if the tree is over 50 pounds and is hard to deal with.

After some wrestling with separating this thing without cutting the roots off I came up with the idea of wrapping the roots in a t-shirt and sawing through the stump. It took some time.

I was pretty sure there were enough roots there for the tree to survive. I recut the side with no roots and added more rooting hormone with the hope of better luck next year. I guess I don't need to rotate it anymore :)

The tree seems to be doing well a month later. I hope it growth new roots this year.

Progress on a large Virginia Pine

This pine was collected in February 2013 and potted up with Russell Baggett in a box that he built for me. I think it was about 3 feet by 13 inches by 10 inches. The tree was growing on top of a crack on a rock and was really easy to lift out, but came with a long rootball.

The top two pictures are from August 2013 and March 2014. It spent about a year and a half in the box growing undisturbed with minimal pruning until...

The big bend!

In August 2014, Juan Andrade stopped by and we bent the pine in the section that was almost 2 inches thick. It took some preparation and I had a acquire a few tools, like the large jack, stainless wire, a steel rod. My band saw came in handy to cut a notch in the 2x4.

This is what it looked like before we started cranking.

After about a 30 degree bend the copper wire we were pulling with (#10) broke!

So we switched to stainless steel wire, but we did not want to take any more chances and use 10 loops of it. An overkill for sure.

At the end it was about a 90 degree bend. We stopped every few cranks on the jack and checked that the rig was ok and gave the tree a chance to adjust.

And then we pruned it. A lot.

I took the wire and the plastic rope off in September 2015, a year after we bent the trunk. I put a screw into the trunk and tied the top to the screw with stainless steel wire so that when I cut the pulling wires the tree did not spring back.

Then at the end of February 2016 my friend Carrie and I repotted the pine into a smaller (20x14x6) box. We worked just one side of the rootball and removed a big root. My plan is to start grafting it next year and repot again in two years working the other side of the root ball.
After then I can start working on the upper part of the tree. This is a long term project, but with collected material they are all long term.

PS. right after posting this story I got a Facebook reminder of the picture I posted on FB three years ago - and it this pine.

First Show

This year I decided to put a tree in the show. My friend, Russell Baggett, has been telling me for about a year or two that I should stop worrying that my trees are not ready and just put them in the show. It is not about winning - it is about supporting the club. So this year I figured I need to go ahead and do it. While pines are what I am most attracted to in bonsai I decided to display a Juniper Foemina I bought from Rodney Clemons back in 2011. Junipers grow much faster and so I thought of all my trees this one had the most potential to look ok for the show. I also had to get a stand and I ordered one from Jerry Braswell. I talked to him and gave him the specifications for the stand I wanted and he did a great job.

Below I posted the progression of this tree from October 2011 until March 2015.

This is the first picture I have from October 2011. The tree was very full when I saw it, but I did not take a picture and started to cut it and apply wire. In fact, I think this is the first tree I have ever wired. The next picture is from the same month.

This was my first time working on juniper foemina and I remember that after a few hours I noticed that my hands started to tingle from all the pricks. Those needles are pretty sharp and you need to be careful not to push against the needles, but to handle the foliage with the flow of the needles.

A few months after I wired the tree Ryan Neil came to visit our club and I brought the tree to his workshop. He had adjusted the angles of some of the branches and had me add heavier wire for main branches. Next is the picture from December 2011 after Ryan has set the branches.

December 2011.

February 2012 - I just repotted the tree into better bonsai soil. I think this is when I started to take pictures of my trees once a year. This is a really good practice and I recommend that to anyone I know. I also try to take pictures of trees when I work on them. Life is so much better with automatic backup :)

February 2013 - I think I did not do much but just fed the tree and let it fill out. The only thing I did is add a shari on the trunk - the trunk line looked a little too simple and boring and I thought a shari could help it.

May 2013. Our annual show used to be in May and in 2013 our judge was Boon. He suggested cutting off the first branch and making jin which transitioned into the second shari. The tree got fuller yet and Boon also talked to me about cutting a tree for better structure.

March 2014. Another shot from the annual photo shoot. I repotted the tree into Zenigo pot which I thought was a better fit for the tree, but still left enough space for the tree to grow and develop.

August 2014. One of the benefits of living in Atlanta is that it makes it easier for friends to stop by. Juan Andrade was flying back to his bonsai apprenticeship in Aichi-en in Nagoya from a trip home and he stopped by for a few days. We were joking about how it is so hot and he noticed my sombrero (a present from Russell Baggett). I posted this picture on Facebook with a title the Juan suggested - "Ay chihuahua, que calor!". When I showed it to my wife, without missing a beat she said "From Aichi-en to Ay Chihuahua!" This photo ended up in the article about Juan in Bonsai Focus.

February 2015. I finally got my stand. I think this is when I first thought that now I can actually display a tree in a show and I had to start getting it ready.

At this point I think I just cleaned it and wired a couple of branches. It was still pretty cold in February so I was doing most of the work inside. One day Maya, my 7 year old daughter, got a needle embedded in her foot - it took a long time just to convince her to let me get it out. Sorry, Maya. This is one of the stones I considered displaying the tree with.

When it warmed up for I took the tree outside to clean it and apply lime-sulfur. Then I could finish wiring the tree. It was a constant strugle for time between repotting and wiring. Not to mention work and family. At some point I had to decide that I will not be able to detail wire the tree. My friend Carrie came by to help me repot my trees and also moss this tree. I think half the moss came from the driveway of my neighbor's across the street.

This is the final display. I ended up using one of my favorite stones - this is a natural hut stone. The daiza was made in Japan by Mr. Suzuki. I think the tree and the stone work well together. Kathy Shaner was our judge this year. We set up the trees on Friday night and I want back home. The plan was to come back for the public critique of the show the next morning.

Surprise! The next morning I found out that my tree was given first place in the enthusiast category (for some reason it says "master" on the ribbon). The rules state that most of the work needs to be done by the owner, who cannot be a professional. That definitely applies to this tree since I literally applied every wire myself. Kathy was very nice in her critique and mentioned that she liked how the stand and the tree and the stone work together.

The next day my family came to share in my special moments :).

Looking back at the last three and a half years I can see how much of my understanding of bonsai has changed. I was lucky enough to travel to Aichi-en 3 times and am getting ready for the next trip in May, which is when they work on needle junipers. I am hoping to get my hands on the true Tosho and learn how to cut and set pads. I was lucky to study with Peter Tea and Juan Andrade over those years and things are starting to make sense, but I am only starting to learn how much more I need to learn.

The Spirit of Mike Blanton.

I did not know Mike well at all and I really should not be the person to write about him. I only met him once. Briefly. We met him for a minute at Brussel’s sale. But we got to talk some on Facebook. He used to post pictures of a different tree he worked on every couple of days and I was getting jealous about how good his life must be working on bonsai every day. Then I learned that he had stage 4 lung cancer and it all looked very differently. At some point I started wondering if that is what it is going to take for me to start doing what I love doing and I decided to take more time to spend with my family and my trees. If I got a better perspective, in part, it is due to him and his spirit.

I got to think about Mike today because of a present I got in the mail from a friend, Jeremiah Lee, whom I know through Peter Tea and Facebook. But first the back story.

In March 2013 I was fortunate to spend my 40th birthday at Aichi-en. It was repotting season and we got to go work on clients’ collections. One of those clients was the owner of Shinpukuji Temple who happens to be a big fan of Bunzan pots. We spent two days in Shinpukuji and the first day I spent putting drainage screens in many Bunzan pots. Here are some pictures

When I got back I was able to get a Bunzan pot from … Boon. I always thought it was a funny combination – Boon bringing me a Bunzan pot. When Mike was getting weaker I decided to send him that Bunzan pot as part of a care package. I guess I thought maybe bright colors would brighten his day a little. I hope it did.

So today, when I got a package from Jeremiah and found two Bunzan pots in it I thought of Mike again. I am very thankful to Jeremiah for his generous present, which is a thank you gift for a tiny favor I did for him. And also for helping me to spend an evening thinking about Mike. I don’t know where we go after we die. I hope he is having fun working on bonsai wherever he is now.

Old man’s quince

Another post about another Chinese quince. This is the second oldest tree produced at Aichi-en. I saw the pictures of this tree posted by Juan Andrade. He sent ne the pictures below, and a friend of mine translated the story. This tree is at least 120 years old and was grown from seed.

Old man’s quince

This old quince tree has an impressive thickness at the root, measured to be 36cm. At a first glance, it looks like the tree was either taken from a mountain or raised by root grafting. However, this tree was raised from seed. Quince is relatively easy to take care of, but still, this tree clearly shows many years of dedicated care.

Specifically, it is said that 85 years old Mr. Sukijiro Tanaka planted a seed when he was an elementally school student and raised the tree. Thus, the tree is at least 70 years old. Mr. Tanaka was a gardener residing in Nagoya city, raising many needle junipers and black pines, but he was especially proud of this quince being very special. Later on, the tree was under the care of a Bonsai enthusiast Mr. Adachi in Chukyo (Aichi prefecture area) until one day Mr. Kyoji Kawakami of Daihoen in Tokyo discovered the tree by chance when Mr. Kawakami went to Chukyo area to purchase bonsai trees. He then fell in love with the quince and took it home back to Tokyo.

Today, I own the tree. Mr. Kawakami once said when the arrangement was made for him to inherit the tree from Mr. Tanaka in exchange for some money, Mr. Tanaka was in tears and could not receive the money. One can only imagine Mr. Tanaka’s grief for parting with the tree he had raised for many years.

From Small Episodes of Bonsai Suiseki by Teisuke Takahashi (published Dec., 1962)

Here are a couple more links. You can read more about the history of Aichi-en here and here is the link to the movie Juan made at the last Gomangoku (Daiju-en family annual show).

Early morning in Tokyo

First trip out of the hotel was a resounding success. I was hoping to find a convenience store for an obligatory onigiri and… I did! I should also mention that it is 4am. I have been up for about an hour and had to adjust to an early change of plans. The original plan was to make it to the Tsukiji fish market for the tuna auction and then find a place to watch the semifinal world cup game between Brazil and Portugal. However, at about 3:15 am as I was writing down walking directions I found out that the fish market is close today. So I had to adapt and decided to try to go to sleep. And try I did, but sleep I did not. Around 4am I realized that since I am not going to try walking 4 miles to Footnik (English Pub) to watch the game, I should load up on provisions for the game.

Tokyo at 4am is a treat. There are very few people out. Mainly taxi drivers sleeping (crap, Germany just scored!) in their cars. I think I came across a little homeless camp, which was very clean and orderly as one would expect from the Japanese homeless. It was raining earlier so the city felt very fresh and clean. I started exploring by taking the first right turn and found nothing open on the first lap. But I did get a can from the 8th vending machine, of what turned out to be a cold sweet coffee. So after the first loop I extended my search area and after passing the homeless camp found the motherload – Lawson! It is a convenience store where you can buy anything you might need to watch a 5am soccer game in Japan. It is like a gas station store, but more Japanesy. So I got just the staples: Onigiri (125 yen), a bottle of green tea (120 yen) and a mystery snack which was as fishy and crunchy as I could only hope for. Onigiri is a rice triangle, usually wrapped in seaweed, and sometimes has a filling. Since I cannot read Japanese it is always a surprise. What I love most about it is that they put a layer of plastic between the rice and the seaweed to keep seaweed crunchy. As I learned later I got the best kind with salmon filling. But on the way back to the hotel I was given the biggest gift of all – an all day and night open noodle shop. I even thought about sitting down right there and then for a breakfast of some ramen, but it was getting close to the start of the game so I decided to postpone.

In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that it was not really the first trip out since I did go out last night for dinner, but I really did not pay attention where we were going. I got into Tokyo the night before. Landed in Narita at 4:30. Convinced the customs agent that there was nothing weird about bringing two huge and mostly empty suitcases for a ten day trip (I told him that there were items waiting for me in Nagoya, which made him suspicious even more, but when he saw my bonsai tools he knew I was legit), exchanged a bunch of greenbacks for a bigger bunch of (crap, Germany just scored again – I might be eating noodles earlier than I thought), took a bus to Tokyo station (stand in line 2 ten minutes before the bus arrives, but move to line 1 after 5 minutes), took a taxi to the hotel, check in to the hotel and was ready to meet Wil at 7PM (This is messed up – the Germans just scored for the third time and it has only been 25 minutes).

Wil has been living in Japan for 15 years. (you cannot be serious – 4th goal for Germany! They just showed a 5 year old kid in the stands crying into a cup followed by a very pretty lady crying into her hand). A friend put me in touch with him and he very graciously agreed to arrange for me to have daiza made for some of my stones. He knows one of the most renowned daiza carvers, Mr. Suzuki. So I shipped him the stones and he brought them to my hotel. (ok, this is disgusting – goal 5 for Germany. I don’t know what the Brazilians were doing last night, but this is disgusting). Not only he agreed to take my stones to Mr. Suzuki and pick them up later when the daiza were made, he also was willing to schlep all the way across town after work to deliver them, and even to sit down for dinner with me. We found a “cheap and cheerful” salary-men restaurant which was heavy on nutritional information and light on flavor. It turned out to be an Athlete Restaurant. But what the food was missing in flavor the company made up for. Wil told me about how he ended up in Japan and got into Suiseki. I did not know that he is a director of the Nippon Suiseki society. We had a great talk about this and that and I am extremely thankful to him for his time and help.