December 2010

Chaenomeles (flowering quince)

These amazing little trees make spectacular bonsai. They are probably not created in the same way as traditional bonsai, ie informal upright etc, but are done in a more artistic fashion they come in a great range of colours (we have red orange and salmon in stock) and will produce quinces, usually yellow and sort of pear shaped.

Trees like this really stand out when used as a feature, or even as an accompanying plant.This is where all your unusual pot shapes and colour comes in, bright tree, bright pot. They tend to grow with multi trunk configurations and are often seen as raft style bonsai. So there you go! Something completely different

Merry Christmas to everyone from the whole gang here at Red Dragon Bonsai, Kath, Sam, Jesse, Thor and myself.

I would just like to thank everyone for their support and business during the year, it is very much appreciated!

Take the time to enjoy the season and remember its reason.

Watering (yes again!)

Well no we are not running out of water as I recently mentioned and as you would have noticed!

When will we learn that we are ‘a land of droughts and flooding rains’ written by Dorothea Mackellar (I think about 1918)

It is vital to remember that although we have had this extensive rain, as soon a s it stops and the sun comes out, your tree will begin to explode.

This presents a few different ‘problems’

1. Because your tree/s have been getting so much water they have increased their uptake dramatically. Whilst this is a good thing, this will continue to happen even after the rain stops. So rather than back off from your watering after it stops raining be sure to keep it up for a week or so as let the trees uptake slow down. Remember that a tree in a pot is an unnatural thing, and will have all the characteristics of a tree growing in the ground where it can travel and get all the moisture and nutrients it needs. But confined to a pot it is relying on YOU!

2. The other thing that happens during this heavy rain is that it will leach out the bulk of your fertilizer. It doesn’t matter when it was put in, most of it will be gone, especially the powdered form. We use and sell Healthy Earth fertilizer here at the nursery and find this as one of the better fertilizers.

So we will go around the whole nursery and redo the trees with this. Remember that with all this rain and humidity, the majority of your trees will have a new burst of growth. Its for this reason that it’s a good idea to fertilize them so as they are not stressed. Just remember though, more is NOT better!

Defoliation

Now is a great time to defoliate some of your trees. This works with most broadleaf varieties ie: figs, maples etc

The purpose of defoliation is twofold, firstly it will force your tree to produce new shoots sooner than it would have, thus producing smaller leaves, and secondly, it will create greater ramification (more branching because of the prompting of more growth inside the tree because of more light getting to it, see above) It will also improve autumn colour in your maples.

Just remember that after defoliation be sure as to not to over water your trees as they are not able to transpire because of the loss of leaves. Make sure you cut the growing tip off as well, this sends a signal to the tree that it has lost the provider of auxin (growing hormone) and will readily promote new growth.