The past weekend was the Toronto Bonsai Society Spring Show. During the show, members will bring their trees for sale. It is often a good opportunity to acquire collected materials to work with. This time, I acquired two trees. One is a crabapple, and the other is an eastern white cedar, both are collected material.
The crabapple is a triple trunk and I figured it was a good deal given the price of $60. I knew at the sale/show that the tree was potted in pure organics, so I was fully expecting to repot the tree once I got home. The original owner of the tree indicated that this was collected back in 2020, so it has been growing in this container for the past 3 years. Once I got it home, I took away all the organic soil, pruned the bottom of the tree more so that the tree can concentrate its root development from the nebari. Potting the tree in inorganic bonsai soil, and growing from a colander will hyper-charge its root development. I was surprised to find so little roots given that the tree has been grown in the pot for the last 3 years. I guess the organic soil is to blame. After repotting, I find out that the tree was actually invested with alphids… so I quickly took out my chopstick and quickly squished all that I could find. I later realized there was a nest of them hiding underneath some dead bark. I just stripped away the dead bark, and terminated the nest. I finally sprayed the tree with insecticidal soap for good measure. I will have to keep a close eye on the tree for the coming weeks to ensure the alphids don’t return. The tree was clearly very neglected by its previous owner. I hope I can develop it into a show worthy tree someday. My plan for it this year is to ensure it survives, and next year I’ll start working on it.
The second tree is this collected Eastern White Cedar. There was another tree at the show for a little more money, but it got snatched up quickly by another member. That’s fine, I just wanted some old material to work with, any tree will present just as good an opportunity for me to express my artistic skills.
Although this tree was in much better soil in comparison to the Crabapple, I still wanted to repot it into my own mix, as well as into a colander. Keeping the medium aligned with my other trees will ensure I’m aware of how much watering is required for the tree. Also, growing in the colander will help it grow a lot of fine roots. I was pleasantly surprised that the tree already had some nice root system, with radial roots coming from all around the base. I only did some minor pruning of the runaway roots, and then potted it into its colendar. I have high confidence that this tree will survive the repot, given the amount of roots that it already have.
When putting in the medium, I also mixed in some old soil from my blue spruce repot last week. Some of that mycorrhizae should do some good to the tree.
Once I’m sure it is growing vigorously, I’ll start to shape the tree. This one would be a challenge, given that the two branches are heading their own separate ways. But it’s these challenges that make bonsai so dynamic and fun.
Bonsai Workshop 