Club News - October 2019
Meeting - October 18th @ 7pm
Ryan Nichols - ”Late Fall Work, Winter Preparation and Pest Management”
Ryan Nichols will present a program on foliage, disease and soil moisture management during late fall and winter for bonsai. This is a time when we may not look at our trees as often but we need to remember that pest eggs are overwintering unless we find them now. Some pests are so tiny we can’t see them with the naked eye. Sometimes we don’t know what we’re looking at. Is it the actual pest or its’ deposit? Ryan will help us learn to navigate through this “pesky” world. Ryan will also discuss whether you should or shouldn’t fertilize certain types of trees during these seasons.
Biography: Ryan earned degrees in Ornamental Horticulture and then Plant Biology at Cal Poly in 2010 and 2013. During his graduate studies, Ryan started landscape consulting. He began teaching in the Plant Science Department at Cal Poly Pomona. When not working as a turf and landscape consultant Ryan gives seminars on horticultural aspects of the art of bonsai, doing tree styling demonstrations and teaching a series of lectures at the Bonsai School at Lake Merritt in Oakland and throughout the West Coast. Ryan has also studied with Ryan Neil and was awarded first place in the 2014 Joshua Roth New Talent Competition.
Related Reading
Our Pest and Fungus Control Basics article provides basic information pests and diseases most commonly seen in our area. Our Pine-Specific Pest Control article provides more information specifically about pests that attack pines. For even more details you can check out “The Gardener’s Book of Pests and Diseases” from our library.
Monthly Tasks
Each month there are a number of tasks you need to do to your bonsai – from repotting, to fertilizing to spraying for pests. We have put together a checklist, customized for the San Francisco Bay Area to help you. This checklist is adapted from earlier work by Mitsuo Umehara.
This month: October Tasks
Time to Change Your Fertilizer
Now is the time to switch to a low nitrogen fertilizer. During the spring and summer trees grow a lot of foliage and branches. This type of growth needs nitrogen for cell division and the manufacture of protein. Trees seem to rest during the winter but actually the roots continue to grow during the fall and winter and need a small amount of nitrogen even during the winter. But we don’t want to over stimulate growth by providing too much nitrogen. See - Fertilizer Basics
If you’ve been using Osmocote or other granular fertilizers you can remove the old fertilizer by sweeping off the top of the soil using a brush. You might consider going a bit further, especially if the top layer has become compacted – either with excess salts (including fertilizer) or by soil breaking down. Either can cause water to run down along the edge of the pot instead of watering the entire root mass.
Using a chopstick gently rake from the trunk towards the edge of the pot about one-half inch deep to loosen the old soil and then remove it. This is also a good time to remove any weeds you see. While you’re at it, check whether you need to repot the plant in the spring. To do this, push a chopstick into the soil in multiple places. If the chopstick goes in easily then you don’t need to repot. When there’s a lot of resistance mark this tree for repotting. Now add new soil to the appropriate level and add the new fertilizer on top. Low nitrogen fertilizers are unlikely to “burn” plants and the rainy season will wash a lot of fertilizer thru the soil, so you can add a bit extra.
Additional Autumn Care Suggestions
Flowering Bonsai
Many species that bloom in spring create their flower buds in autumn. If you want flowers make sure you don’t cut the buds off during winter pruning. Flower buds are bigger than foliage buds and more rigid.
Fruiting Bonsai
On many species, the fruit will only develop on a two-year old branch. If you want fruit you’ll want to avoid removing those during winter pruning. Remember that allowing a tree to bear fruit takes a lot of energy so it’s best to get your tree to the shape you want it and in good health before allowing it to bear fruit. You can compromise and allow it to bear a few fruits.
Branch Placement And Styling
This is a great time to inspect your tree from above to make sure upper branches aren’t directly above lower branches, otherwise those will be shaded when the tree leafs out. This is the time to shorten any long shoots on short branches. You want to develop your branches so that the distance between new buds decrease as the branch gets longer. This is what makes the tree look natural.
Jin and Shari Work
You can make a new jin out of a living branch at any time of the year. But new shari should only be created when the temperatures are between 41°F and 68°F to prevent adding too much stress to the tree. When creating a shari the tree’s circulatory system is affected and it must adapt so it can continue to deliver water and nutrients to different parts of the tree. The tree must also develop a buffer zone between the dead and living wood to stop virus and bacteria from reaching and affecting the healthy cells. For a healthy tree, considerable energy is needed and in most cases the trees reserves are called into play. Newly created shari must also be protected from extreme weather changes until this buffer zone is established.
Cooler night time temperatures cause our trees to begin the transition to dormancy. Our trees stop providing nutrients to the leaves so the green colors disappear and the yellow, orange and reds become dominant.
Recap of Our September Meeting
It was a warm evening for our meeting but all of us there were happy we joined Richard Phillips and Idris Anderson for an informative meeting on urban collecting and future goals of the club. Those who brought in trees included Donna, Mo, Michael, Lynne, Stephanie, Christine, Mark, Katherine Glassey, Barbara Shahinian, and Rita in addition to Idris and Richard. The types of trees included crabapple, maple, grape, prostrate juniper, bougainvillea, redwood, oak, Peruvian pepper, cherry, Monterey cypress and barberry. So it was quite a mix of trees. Some trees were dug up from member yards, neighboring yards (with permission, of course), family member yards from different parts of the country and “smuggled” home on an airplane or in a car, or purchased at various plant sales not necessarily bonsai focused.
Richard said that in the book “Gnarly Branches, Ancient Trees: The Life and Works of Dan Robinson – Bonsai Pioneer”, Dan states that lack of access to good material is the number one reason new people don’t stick with bonsai as a hobby. Richard and Idris went on to describe what they refer to as a “bonsai bank” as a worthwhile goal for the club going forward. The bonsai bank could be created as members actively engage in urban collecting, scout nurseries for bonsai material, air layer or propagate from existing material, and accept donations from fellow club members and the public. In order for the “bonsai bank” to be successful, the club would need members to sign up to perform these tasks and/or help “baby sit” material being matured for future use. The goal is to have a better process in place to create a “steady” resource for material for the club’s annual show sale, beginner workshops and demonstrations at the clubs monthly meetings. Usually this task has fallen on a small group of members who try and go out and find material in a more time-constrained manner. Richard pointed out that lack of good material being readily available is what’s limiting the club’s ability to offer beginner workshops to those interested.
Idris then asked us “What is yamadori?” and then explained that the main thing is it’s designed by nature whether from the wild or dug up from a neighborhood. Idris said that collecting yamadori makes her learn faster. When you collect a tree you have to decide early on what you should keep, what to remove right away, learn what the tree would look like in nature, and figure out how to keep it healthy and alive. Idris’s success rate is about forty percent. Idris also finds that she is more aggressive with urban collected trees because she hasn’t put a lot of money into it.
Next, Idris asked us “What is the characteristic of a great bonsai”. While she got some answers that were correct, the answers she was looking for include mature root flare, good trunk girth, movement/taper in the trunk and branches, mature bark on appropriate species, and the presence of deadwood on appropriate species. These qualities give the tree a sense of “age” and make it artistically pleasing to look at.
Idris and Richard then got into the basics of how to collect material in our urban environment. Richard suited up in some gear including his “Ninja” hat and night cover goggles but the best advice is to “GET PERMISSION” first. While you wouldn’t want to perform this task in the heat of the day, for your sake and the tree’s, you will want to take plenty of water for consumption and wear the appropriate clothing for the environment you will find yourself in. A pickaxe and tools for removing fine soil, scraping and shoveling dirt out (don’t bare root it whatever you do though) are definitely a requirement. Burlap or sphagnum moss for wrapping the root ball of the collected material is also a must. The wrapped root ball should then be placed in a plastic bag or bucket. You also need to keep the foliage of the collected material moist with 100% humidity. Remember that when you break the waterline to this material, you are then responsible for watering and feeding the foliage as well as its remaining roots. It is also critical that you consider the best time of the year for collecting the given type of material. For example, oaks are best collected in the month of May. Overall junipers are more forgiving and can be collected during longer periods of the year. Pines can be trenched now and dug up in the spring.
To collect a tree, first trench around the tree you want to dig up. The trench should not be too close to the trunk because you want to dig up a root ball as big as possible. If you find a really big root, stop and fill some pumice or sphagnum moss around it and leave it for another year before you dig it up. You want to enable the tree to develop fine roots in that pumice before you dig it up. For a native tree, you may want to perform this process over a three-year period and only trench around its roots one-third at a time thereby removing it on the fourth dig. When you do perform a final dig and are removing the tree, you will want to dig under the root ball the same distance as the distance of the trench from the base of the trunk. To prevent dirt/soil from falling off the root ball, get the burlap under the root ball before lifting it out of the ground.
If there are no fine roots after you have done a “trenching”, you will want to leave the tree in place and let the tree develop such roots before actually removing it. Otherwise, you are highly likely to kill the tree if you remove it on the first dig.
Michael Greenstein suggested growing your collected tree in a redwood box because the roots like that layer next to the wood where they can get air more easily and the finer roots actually bind to the wood.
While the art of bonsai requires one to have patience in developing the tree, patience is also needed sometimes when collecting material whether in the wild or in an urban environment.
Richard and Idris presented a well thought out program and the club extends a big THANK YOU to them for all their efforts. They also made it a fun event!
