Today I present to you my bonsai of the day. This is the fifth plant in my series. I have never counted all of my little trees before, so I am as interested as you are to find out how many I will reproduce in my tiny little yard. It really is an enjoyable hobby of mine.
ID: 0005
Nickname: Peach
Type: Chinese Elm
Age: 4 years
Grown: cutting
Last repotting: early summer 2017
Wired: never
Note: The green wire shows how not to wire a tree into a pot. At the time I repotted this plant, I did not know what I was doing. Now I know better. Sometimes it is a little bit trickier if there is only one hole at the bottom of the pot. There is a better way to do it so the wire doesn't wrap around the pot on the outside.
This tree I am naming Peach. Princess Peach to be exact. She rules the Mushroom Kingdom in the Super Mario games by Nintendo. Princess Peach is most well known for always being kidnapped by Bowser, and being rescued by her hero Mario. Luigi sometimes rescues her too, but Mario usually gets all of the credit.
Peach is actually a Chinese Elm. These trees, like Willow, are incredibly easy to grow and root from cuttings. Last summer I took two cuttings from Peach, put them in potting soil, and they both survived the winter and are thriving. An interesting thing about Peach is that originally it grew back as a cutting I discarded into my compost pile. The mother tree was the part I was maintaining but it died rather suddenly because most of the living wood was attached to Peach, the top half of the tree I discarded. Can you believe it? While the mother tree stopped growing leaves in Spring, Peach continued to grow thick healthy roots inside the rich moist compost pile. When I dug her out weeks later wondering what this mass of roots was, I realized that Peach wanted to be rescued, and so I replanted her into a pot of her own. Eventually the mother tree had to be discarded permanently.
As you can see, the roots on this plant are a bit all over the place. It has some roots up high along the trunk, and some roots much lower beneath the soil. Last year I decided to lift the tree up above the previous soil line, and experiment with a rock shape wedged underneath two of the high roots. I arched them down over the rock in hopes that they might grow thicker and start to hug the rock. So far that isn't working, and there is too much space between. It looks unnatural. One of the roots even snapped, and decided to sprout leaves. So Peach basically cloned herself into a second baby tree. Seriously, again? This was an unintended change, but I do like the way it turned out. The tree brings a sense of balance into the negative space and helps draw attention of the eye out of the heavy cluster of leaves on top.
Originally this tree only had three or four dominant branches, with leaves only growing directly against them. This year is has exploded with new life, and branches are coming out of branches in all directions. My plan to keep new branches as short as possible has really paid off. The growth looks more densely vegetated, and the branches are developing ramification into many smaller branches much better than the previous year. The few strong leaders you can see sticking up can be easily pruned at any time to maintain the height of the tree, and to encourage lower buds to form additional small branches.
Each week, I am noticing fewer and fewer new growth areas, and that tells me it is probably running out of energy for new growth this season. Peach is almost ready to head back into her castle for the winter, and wait for another Spring. This is a figure of speech. This is an outdoor tree, and will be overwintered outside only. I am just clarifying because new hobbyists often think a small bonsai can be kept indoors like a table ornament, and this tree will not survive indoors very long like that.
It is finally taking on a shape I am starting to like. I see four dominant branches heading into the four cardinal directions, each forming a nice cluster of smaller branches. There is almost three distinct branch levels, and a clear fourth level if you include the newly added baby tree branch below.
By the way, can you see all of the tiny flecks of ash on our decking? There is a huge fire raging through acres of precious woodlands nearby. Several nearby communities have been evacuated because the air pollution is so bad today. I am using a small cloth on my face to help me to breath when I am outside, as I do not want to fill my lungs with the micro-particles. It might make me sick. Later in the evening I was starting to get an headache between my sinus cavities and my left eye. It really does smell like an ashtray outside.
Today I have a fitting honorable mention to share.
Three peach sherbet roses. They look almost so good I could eat them. Almost!