澄んだ水盆栽会 Sundamizu Bonsai Kaifiles.meetup.com/1273803/Journal_Sundamizu Aug...
Transcript of 澄んだ水盆栽会 Sundamizu Bonsai Kaifiles.meetup.com/1273803/Journal_Sundamizu Aug...
from the Greater Clearwater and surrounding areas
澄んだ水盆栽会
Sundamizu Bonsai Kai
August, 2013
2013, Issue 8 Page 2
The Mullet Wrapper by Terry Davis 3-5
Sundamizu Bonsai Kai News
6
Contacts & General Information 8
Inside this issue:
It’s free! Stay in touch
with Bonsai activities!
Join the Meet-up Website for
the Sundamizu Bonsai Kai.
Go to http://www.meetup.com/
WestCentralFloridaBonsai/
It’s easy and only takes a min-
ute .
Also, all issues of the
Sundamizu journal are
archived on the meet-up
site. Go to the “more”
tab and then click on
“files”
Regional Happenings Buttonwood Bonsai—Inverness: Key Train-
ing, 130 Heights St., Inverness, Fl; Meets 2nd
Saturday of every month.
President: Bob Eskeitz
352-556-4999
Contact: Al Harnage
352-527-3263
Sundamizu Bonsai Kai—Clearwater: Meets
2nd Saturday of every month. Moccasin Lake
Nature Park, 2750 Park Trail Lane, Clearwa-
ter.
Clif Pottberg: 352-424-6000
Lois Powell 727-742-3301 or
Hukyu Bonsai—Tampa: Meets 3rd Saturday
of every month at USF Botanical Gardens.
Pres. Palmer Ogden 813-486-9374
Lakeland Bonsai Club: meets 3rd Thurs-
day of every month; 7:00pm; First United
Methodist Church, 72 Lake Morton Drive,
Room D-3, Lakeland.
Pres. Paul Cacioppo; 863-860-1173
Suncoast Bonsai Club—St. Petersburg:
Meets 4th Saturday of every month.
Pres. Linda Gibbons; [email protected]
All club meetings are open to the public and
visitors are welcome.
Sept 28: Sundamizu Bonsai Kai
Display at Aging Well Center,
Long Center, 1501 N. Belcher
Rd, Clearwater. Volunteers
needed. For more information,
contact Clif Pottberg: 353-424-
6000
Oct 5: Bonsai Bash; Moccasin
Lake Nature Park. Contact
Marty Rosen for more informa-
tion: 941-383-6656
Regional Events
2013, Issue 8 Page 3
And in the
Beginning… Thought I’d share with you how I got
started with this bonsai perversion.
Many of you have heard me tell of read-
ing Ted Sturgeon’s Nebula Award-
winning short story “Slow Sculp-
ture” (the title tells it all), where he talks
about the cooperation between bonsai
and grower. What a cool story! That
story is true, but I haven’t told you the
embarrassing part. My first plant was a
mail order yew, and it was grown on a
windowsill of our apartment in a
wooden salad bowl. In cased you missed
it, we were in Florida, and yews aren’t
viable there. But my love for bonsai
survived, and it’s still growing. The
yew, of course, is not.
In a new vein for the Journal, we offer almost a whole issue as a guest issue, as a reprint of the latest Mullet Wrapper, an occasional writ-
ing by Terry Davis, who has written articles here before.
This, we thought, was a particularly well written issue. It was also cogent since it deals in part with foliar feeding in an ancillary fashion at
our latest meeting, on irrigation and watering systems.
A small part of Terry’s issue is about two trees we cannot grow here, the Bristlecone pine, Pinus aristata, (not at all) and the Japanese ma-
ple, Acer palmatum, (at least not easily.)
However, in discussing this with him afterwards, he pointed out “As far as whether or no the aristata and Japanese maples are for your area
or not, I assume folks like to hear about trees in other places.”
We hope you do too, as a change from our normal routine and standard format.
The most important part of his issue is, perhaps, regarding foliar feeding, about which there is some unnecessary controversy.
Terry nailed it, however, and I hope you will take his words to heart.
I have added a few words about another aspect of foliar feeding which he doesn’t mention, but are not too important for the standard use of
feeding (as well as another useful adjunct practice to the rooting of cuttings). He too added some words and we include them as an adden-
dum to his article.
Here is the whole of Terry’s latest issue of The Mullet Wrapper.
He delves into many other aspects of bonsai here, too, and he enlarges on his well known expertise on azalea growing, especially the sat-
suki and their flower color patterns. As an aside, Terry was one of the teachers at our azalea conference, which we held a couple of years
The Mullet Wrapper July 2013 by Terry Davis
A Lesson in Due Diligence for Satsuki The plant in the photo is Gekkeikan (both
K’s are pronounced). Note the “red” flower
among all the striped flowers (I wish I had
taken the photo last week, when they were
in better shape). This is a case of “Akaten”,
meaning the growing top of the plant is red
(or even mostly red). If left on the plant,
the red color will take over the whole plant,
so after the photo was taken, that branch
went into the trash. Now, when you know
what the color distribution is, not next
month when you only think you remember.
I used to have a way of tagging branches to
reflect the colors, using various colors of
bell wire, but this is way too organized for
me to practice consistently. It’s an unnatu-
ral act. In my azalea course, I go into detail
as to why this color management step is
necessary. The same fate befell a Kaho
azalea a few minutes later. When growing
shibori azaleas, you have to remember you
are planning for the future.
Kaho
Gekkeikan
Preface by Clif Pottberg
2013, Issue 8 Page 4
I have often wondered if foliar feeding
really works. I hear lots of testimonials, but
the thing that bothers me is a lot of the
folks who claim success with it do so with
fish emulsion. (S’matter? It doesn’t smell
bad enough if you water with it? Ya gotta
aerosol it? I guess you are serious about
wanting that divorce!) I am reasonably
certain that the complex nitrogen in fish
emulsion isn’t taken up. As a scientist, it
makes no sense. I have never seen any fig-
ures on just what form the nitrogen is in
with this stuff, but I suspect it isn’t inor-
ganic.
Now how about inorganic nitrogen (nitrate
and ammonia)? I recently saw a study re-
ported in Callahan’s satsuki azalea book
where they used radioactive isotopes to
measure uptake, and it turns out that not
only is the nutrient efficiently taken up
(90% absorption vs. 10% for root feeding),
but it is taken up very rapidly. It is also a
good way to supply minor elements, if you
use liquid Kelp. But: this again may be
largely complex nitrogen, so maybe it
would be better to use inorganic fertilizer
like Miracle Grow for the macronutrients,
and some soluble minor elements such as
Watch Us Grow for the minor elements.
Miracle Grow claims to have a full comple-
ment of minor elements, but I am seeing
trace element deficiencies in some of the
plants I use it on. I am told there is a prod-
uct called Aqua Sol, which is intended for
spray application, but it is apparently only
available in Australia.
If you search foliar feeding on line, you
will find a number of studies of the actual
effectiveness. In short, these studies in field
crops (corn and soybeans) found the
method to be ineffective compared to root
feeding. The reason they cite is that so little
is applied (just enough to wet the leaves),
so even if it is over 9x as effective at deliv-
ery, the total quantity delivered is insuffi-
cient. Let’s quit talking theory here and get
down to nuts and bolts: Say, you give a cup
of fertilizer solution to a plant if you water
it in, and 10% of that is taken up by the
plant, and you give a plant 2ml when you
spray it (I’m being heavy-handed with the
spray here). Since there are 237 ml in a
cup, and about 24 are absorbed, you are
still delivering <1/12th the amount by the
foliar route. (What they are not counting on
is that we are aforesaid nuts, and would be
out with a sprayer every night).
To me, also, if the roots are iffy, foliar
might be the only way to deliver the calo-
ries.
blades on those big stones wears them un-
evenly (they are soft). I got them from a
local woodworkers’ supply, Rockler Tools,
but they are available from Amazon. The
three-pack is sufficient.
For tools like the concave cutter, where the
blades meet each other, a good test for
proper sharpening is to cut into a piece of
writing paper with them. If it doesn’t cut,
the tool is dull (duhh!), and if the cut has
gaps in it, then the edges need to be evened
Van Jensen suggested using a set of three
small diamond hones, “Eze Lap” brand L-
Pak for sharpening tools. I tried it, and they
are fast and very effective. My test for a
sharp tool is if they will cut Kleenex, and
they passed after maybe 5 minutes’ work (I
am not awfully patient, so this is a good
thing). I have a set of water stones I use for
my knives, and they work great, but they
are not nearly as portable as these little
hones, which are the size of tongue depres-
sors (say Ahhh!). And sharpening small
out. If you coat a piece of index card with
black crayon and bite down on it lightly
with the tool, it should leave black wax on
the high spots. Sort of like the dentist does
to check your bite.
These tools are stopped by a steel peg on
the handle. If the blades have been sharp-
ened a bunch, you may need to file down
the side of the peg a little so the blades can
meet.
Look Sharp!
Foliar Feeding: Hit or Mist?
section D, Stripes and Sectors, and it is
properly “Hanzome”, not Hanzone”. But
hey, I try to get it right. There are some
errors in parsing some of the names: the
plant featured on the cover, “Byakuren” is
listed in the book as “Bya Kuren”. It is
always tough to figure out how to do the
Japanese in English, but “Byaku” comes
from the character for “white”, and the
word shouldn’t be broken in half. May
sound petty, but if you let mistakes creep in
you end up with messes like Chinzan (often
listed as Chinzai, Chinsoi, Chinzen, and
whatever degraded cracker that all leads
to). That’s part of the problem Fred Galle
and I were trying to straighten out with his
book. And number 9, “Tsuma Beni”,
should be part of category C, “Dabs and
Daubs”. I don’t know how the mixup oc-
curred, but I suspect it was a brain-fart on
my part.
If you are serious about satsuki azaleas,
better snap this one up while it is still
around. Stone Lantern has it on sale. It is
the work of a thorough scholar, and there is
a lot of good information in it. I did the
original translation of the flower patterns
that he borrowed from Galle’s “The Azalea
Book 2nd ed”, and it has been bothering me
that there were mistakes in the material. I
think I finally figured out what it was: pat-
tern 23, “Hanzone”, should be listed under
Speaking of Callahan’s Book
2013, Issue 8 Page 5
Bloody Bonsai! No, I am not talking about my kaffir lime, thorny as it is (I cut them
off). There is a book by Peter Abresh in which someone at a weekend
retreat featuring a bonsai workshop is murdered with a bonsai tree.
Overdosed on jin. It’s a fun read, and still available from Amazon.
Have you noticed a new bonsai on tv? There is one on John Stamos’
desk in “Necessary Roughness”. It’s a pitiful little thing: just a rooted
boxwood cutting in an over-large pot. And indoors. They won’t have
that forever. Why not get something decent, John? Don’t they pay you
enough?
Most of the bonsai you see on tv are pretty awful… I seem to remember
one Maura Isles has in “Rizzoli and Isles”. I think one of the clubs out
there keeps a list of bonsai in the media. Roy Nagatoshi tells me he had
to create six identical juniper bonsai for the first “Karate Kid”. Now
those were pretty decent. And six identical ones… what a feat!
In notes to me afterwards, Terry adds:
“BTW, you can't get around the dose with foliar feeding by upping the
concentration: past a certain point, osmotic pressure will resist absorp-
tion (concentrated solutions don't want to get more concentrated)”
Both the use of foliar feed, and its concentrative limits, has been known
by most, if they study the issue (which so many do not).
The most important use, in our practice, is for unrooted cuttings. It
speeds up the rooting nicely - and increases the take. Obviously, the
only way to apply food to an unrooted cutting is through the foliage -
and it works for us.
Btw, Jack's or Peter's general all purpose soluble fertilizer has minors in
apparently sufficient quantity. At least I've been using it/them on my
cuttings with no apparent deficiencies showing up.
One more point about taking cuttings: there is also a lot of controversy
about the value of Superthrive for growing plants and roots and keeping
them healthy.
Recently there has been a growing consensus that the most important
(or perhaps the only) value of Superthrive is for root initiation, and, for
bonsai, in repotting (when the roots have been damaged and cut back).
Thus, in our practice of rooting cuttings (of which we do a lot), we
foliar feed from the start, but carefully. There is plenty of evidence in
the literature that heavy fertilizer will actually reduce root initiation, so
we feed lightly, and carefully, so as not to fill the soil with as little fer-
tilizer as possible, and not feeding anything but the leaves, to the degree
possible.
Later, when the cuttings have begun to develop callus (from which root
initiation springs) at their base, we start applying Superthrive for a
while, and with the advent of actual rooting we start a more normal
practice of fertilization (but still lightly for a while).
I am into my second year after styling two small Pinus aristata
“Sherwood’s Compact”. These are cute little devils with nee-
dles <1” long, bluish gray. These things have responded to
pruning by popping buds everywhere, even on the trunks!
Since they have no resin blebs on the foliage, I think they are
aristata, not longaeva… these are the ones growing in Colo-
rado. These things are like Japanese white pine Zuisho, maybe
better! The non-dwarf longaeva don’t seem to break back as
well. I am told they are not consistently hardy in the ground up
here among God’s Frozen People. Heck, some of the rocks
aren’t hardy here! Of course now that I have found something I
like, the local nursery quit carrying them.
My experiments with Pinus mugho“Jacobsen’s Dwarf “ con-
tinue to frustrate me: the branches die off for no apparent rea-
son. A lot. I questioned Iseli about it, but they didn’t answer.
This is a shame, as these things are (dare I say it?) pretty much
instant pine bonsai.
Dwarf Bristlecones
Leaves That Don’t Wanna Leave I notice that a number of dwarf Japanese maples (yatsubusa)
tend to hang onto the dead leaves in the winter. Looks messy,
and I think it is a source of disease (namely, Black Twig (deep
bass thrumming, sounds of impending doom)). This Spring I
used a jet nozzle on the hose to blow these leaves off. It got
most of them, so I could pick the few hangers-on. Next Fall, I
will do that before they go into the greenhouse. This last year
has been a banner year for black twig, as everything was
crowded together in the greenhouse in humid conditions for so
long after they leaved out (our Spring was long, cold, and
wet). I should have been busy with the copper spray. This is
bacterial, so fungicides don’t work. I am sure some antibiotic
works, but the plant industry isn’t about to address that. I can
tell you streptomycin (AgriStrep) doesn’t help. I am trying
Neem Oil, which is a good antibiotic (and antifugal, anti-
insect.) It seems to work on juniper blight. There are two new
sprays for the two juniper blights, but I can’t find them.
Wire Storage
I recently bought a wire reel for my aluminum made of
PVC. Big, awkward, and doesn’t work all that well.
And the plywood ones I see around are sorta chunky,
too, so I had this idea: Stone Lantern’s copper wire
comes in 6-7” rolls, so I made a box for them with ver-
tical dividers spaced 2” apart from cardboard. A 10”
box 8” wide holds eight rolls, dropped vertically into
the slots. I like the more compact rolls, and the box
keeps the wire neatly sorted and not getting banged
around in the bottom of my tool kit. Now if I could just
find someone with a radial arm saw so I could make a
plywood version.
2013, Issue 8 Page 6
Sundamizu Bonsai Kai News
Thanks, Marty and Dave for a great discussion about watering
and sprinkling systems! It was a
lively discussion with may questions
and lots of supporting help from
many.
Photos courtesy of
Todd Rosenthal
Aug 10 Meeting
Tokanoma—a tradi-
tional method of dis-
play usually containing
1 suiseki plus 1-2 other
objects, chosen with
great care to great the
desired atmosphere.
Several members will
bring in items and
share their approach to
these displays.
We’ll go to lunch fol-
lowing the meeting at
Johnny’s Italian.
Everybody is welcome!
Thanks to all who continue to bring in donations for our monthly raffle!
Keep up the good work! All that sharing is helping many of our newer mem-
bers build up a collection and the rest of us are getiing some good stuff too!
澄んだ水盆栽会
Sundamizu Bonsai Kai
the Greater Clearwater and surrounding areas
2013, Issue 8 Page 7
Sundamizu Bonsai Kai means Clear Water Bonsai Club
(Pronounced soon”da mi’ zu) Clif Pottberg: 352-424-6000
Lois Powell 727-742-3301
Meets 2nd Saturday of each Month
Moccasin Lake Nature Park
2750 Park Trail Lane, Clearwater
Directions to Moccasin Lake Nature Park
From Southbound US 19 or McMullen Booth Rd (CR 611):
turn west on SR 590 for 0.8 mi
turn left on Calamondin Ln for 0.3 mi
turn right on Edenwood St for 364 ft
turn left onto Beachwood Ave for 0.2 mi
turn right at Park Trail Lane
From Northbound US 19:
turn east on Drew St for 407 ft
turn left on Fairwood Ave/Park Place Blvd for 0.6mi
turn left at Park Trail Lane
Proceed to the back of the parking lot. This is closest to the
classroom. If you have large material/plants you are bringing,
we will open the gate for dropoff and then you can return to lot
to park.
Annual Membership is $24 per individual or $36 per family
and includes:
● Monthly meetings
● New friends
● Lots of fun