Hello, I recently discovered the existence of this community and I loved the idea of joining and participating, the bad thing is that I am very inconsistent when it comes to gardening and land cleaning. If you are a bit detailed, you will see in the background of the image that the patio of my house is not very clean 😂
Although, I would still like to participate, so today I bring you something completely different and that I have not seen in Hive until now, a Bonsai made from scratch..
To begin with, it is necessary to clarify a little what a Bonsai really is, since there is a lot of confusion and little information about it. Bonsai literally means "potted", so yes, a bonsai can be absolutely any tree or shrub that is planted in a pot ☺️
Logically, there are varieties in terms of size, the type of pot and logically there are trees that give us very good visual characteristics when making a bonsai, small leaves, close together branches and rustic bark are usually the most desired, since visually they are they more closely resemble their counterpart in normal size.
So, with that cleared up, we need to go back to the beginning and talk about the other part of the meaning of the word, the pot.
Generally, the pots are made of clay and are an art in itself, although there is no exact specification of how it should be or what material it should be made of, so in my case, I am going to recycle the shell of a coconut that I bought few days. Art is very subjective and according to me, this will be perfect for the tamarind plant ☺️
One thing I'm going to do, since I'm rebuilding the coconut, is use a little bit of gold glitter on the seams. Referring to a very little known practice in the world of bonsai, where gold sheets are placed in the cracks of a pot.
I honestly don't know a bit about that tradition, I only know that it must be in pots that have been accidentally broken, in fact, it is illegal to do so on purpose. Within 15 days that I share the progress, I promise to investigate more about it and tell you what I learned ☺️
At first, I must confess that I thought it would be horrible, but after it dried it got better and I got the result I was looking for ☺️
The substrate that I am going to be using is a homemade one, traditionally a special substrate is used, based on annealed clay and volcanic stone. Although we return to the same thing, in the literary translation of the word bonsai, there is no specification in this regard.
So I took the liberty of using a mixture of black earth, gravel I picked up from the patio, crushed egg shells, coffee grounds from what's left in the strainer, bits of charcoal, and as an experiment some pine wood shavings, since I I would like to know if its strong smell keeps the ants away. What do you say?
For reasons of the materials that I am using, I placed a small plastic covering on the inside of the pot, logically I left its hole for drainage and I was worried that it would not protrude too much, that way I will make the wood last longer and that the glue does not become liquid again. We'll see in the next post how it turned out 😂
As for the seeds, I chose the tamarind, because I know that its tree has very small leaves that would help me maintain a proportionate design. Where did I get them? Well, they were left over from a juice I made last month and I kept them in the fridge, I know it's not optimal, although I assure you it will grow ☺️
And so we finish today's post, the only thing left for us is to talk a little about care and maintenance. And it's not like there's much to talk about really, bonsai are a plant like any other and need the same care as any other. Water when the substrate is dry, access to sunlight and fertilizer if necessary ☺️
From now on I will be taking pictures every 3 days so I can show you the progress every 15 days. In the next post I hope to talk a little about pruning and alternative cultivation methods, where we can accelerate the growth of our plant x3.
So, see you in 15 days. Thank you very much for reading ☺️