Table Trees

[summer_jackel]

Here are some progress photos of the four little yearling-graft Japanese maples I brought home last summer.


The red dragon.






The red filigree lace. It's the only one of the four I'm doing any training with right now, but I have high hopes for its beautiful shape if I brace it this spring.


The rubrifolium in situ.


The waterfall, which is a little scruffy and slug-nibbled right now.


A little redwood in a pot.


These, clearly, are not trees at all, but meet my ducks! All five of them have reached maturity and are healthy, lovely ducks who are now living outside. The two drakes are Dutch Bill (after a local historical figure) and Onyx; the three hens are Silver, Steel and Labradorite, which shortens to Lab. Yep, I have a black duck named Lab, because I am that funny.

Comments

[kynekh-amagire.livejournal.com]

Awww, tree photoshoot!

And Dutch Bill is too huggable. Yay, ducks! Although you deserve to be pinched somewhere tender for Lab the Black Duck, I believe.

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

Dutch Bill is a big, cute, squishy duck who is only going to become prettier when he gets his sepia-toned mallard feather pattern in!

I think Lab the duck is brilliant comic genius. I am so funny.

Maybe the small trees should get more screen time.

[dhlawrence.livejournal.com]

Fantastic work on those maples.

Saw a duck yesterday--outside a subway station in downtown Toronto XD

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I am fond of my small trees.

LOL at the duck taking the subway...

[redknot.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. Those are lovely trees. I like the moss fruiting bodies in the first photo.

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That red dragon is such a cool little tree. I am happy that its mosses are so gleefully reproducing; I was careful to keep all of the moss that came with it when I repotted it, because I love my bryophytes. When the fruiting stalks first came up, some tiny little mushrooms came up in the pot as well...a perfect little miniature fairy forest. So pretty.

I have liverworts in the rubrifolium and elsewhere, because if there's any ancient, humble plant I love more than the bryophytes, it's the liverworts.

[tacet.livejournal.com]

I used to do Bonsai but I'm allergic to money trees! XD

Shy of cherry, orange, and dwarf pomegranates, are there trees that you can eat the fruit off of?

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

I've seen sloe, persimmon and kumquat made into lovely fruiting bonsai; there are a few stunning examples on this site, from a show: http://bonsaitonight.com/2011/12/27/enjoying-a-bonsai-show/

My garden is full shade, so I am not working with any fruit bearers; just the maples so far, which love it here. I put in the redwoods this month and just got an oak sapling that I'm going to try and shape a little bit. It's fun!

[smile-n-cuddle.livejournal.com]

That's gorgeous! It looks like bonsai. Is it?

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I think that the best answer is that they will be bonsai in a few more years, if I continue to train them. I've been hesitant to apply that term to my older maples, which I have shaped and trained in a way at least somewhat informed by traditional Japanese tea-gardening aesthetic, but which are larger container trees.

My plans are to keep these four at least somewhat smaller, and the filigree lace at least will not be permitted to get much taller at all, since it is already a beautiful shape. The brace is there basically to support a shape it already wants to take, so that it can grow enough trunk to support itself, while holding that ideal curve. I'll prune and repot it accordingly, and, if it ever gets so nice that it seems "finished," I'll put it in a bonsai pot. So I guess it's a bonsai...

[smile-n-cuddle.livejournal.com]

So cool! You're so talented!!

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks. I am a total amateur, though!