Let's take a look at the next tree in my collection. Today I want to share photos of my Red Alder.

The camera on my tablet often produces a rainbow lens flair when I hold at the right angle. Here, I used that to my advantage to highlight my tree for a nice cover photo.

This Past July

Historical Information

ID: 0044
Nickname: Unnamed
Type: Red Alder
Age: 2 years
Grown: bare root
Last repotting: March 2020
Wired: March 2020

This tree was bent into the curved circular shape in hopes of forming the trunk into an interesting bonsai design.

Normally the trunk grows perfectly straight upright at this young age. The bark is very similar to that of an apple tree. Red burgundy and very tightly stretched. The wood is actually extremely flexible, and grows fast.

When wired, it has to be removed or adjusted after a month or so to avoid causing the growing wood to swell around the wire.

One experiment I attempted with this tree was to slightly bury the top tip along the surface of the soil. I wanted to see if it might form roots into the soil from the branch. No branch roots have formed though, so this tree is probably not so easy to propagate into cuttings.

Smoke Danger

Over the past week, my state has been suffering from the effects of widespread wildfires. The air quality has been listed as extremely hazardous.

Everyone has been advised to stay indoors as much as possible. Most people have masks, but not the right kind for helping to breath through smoke. I was often suffering from slight headaches and eye strain, because the smoke was also getting indoors. As I mentioned in my previous post, stores were also sold out of indoor air filters, making it hard for most families to avoid harm from the smoke.

The sun was almost totally obscured on most days, making the days feel darker and cooler. Yet the smoke made the air feel dry and muggy.

September, Autumn Begins

The temperatures outside suddenly changed from the upper 80's to the low 60's, and much cooler at night. With the smoke in the air, it caused many plants in nature to become sickly.

For most plants and trees, like my Red Alder, it simply meant that leaves would start to dry up and fall off. The smoke in the air has caused Autumn to begin a month early.

The tree does look healthy despite the dry leaves. There are still many healthy, large green leaves.

I usually pull off any sickly leaves as soon as I notice they look like this. New green buds have form as the base of the old leaves I tore off. I think those buds will probably swell and continue to store up energy all Winter. So I have faith it will flourish again next Spring.

Fortunately, recent rains have finally arrived. Wildfires have been suppressed, and the air is restored back to healthy levels again. I just went outside today and did a bunch of hedge pruning. Nothing to satiate my cravings to practice my bonsai skills like wacking off a bunch of overgrown branches on a full-sized hedge.

Photos in this post are all #originalworks by Hive account@creativetruth, unless stated otherwise.