Things are starting to grow again!

It's always exciting to see new growth coming onto your plants.  :)  I've been working so hard on the hardscaping that I haven't had much time to update or put any special care into any particular plant.  But now that the yard is mostly done, I can refocus on cultivation.

This baby agave americana variegated kept a red edge on it's leaves.  Unusual, and very nice.

This is my Shohin Bonsai bench.  Mostly traditional bonsai material with the exception of the fockea edulis.  Two of my rooted cuttings are doing well also.  One was a crepe myrtle from the tree in the front yard.  The other is a boxwood cutting.  Everything is super green.

Our E.G. Waterhouse camelia has petite bright pink flowers.

These are flowers from our Coral Bells Kurume azalea shrub.  The shrub is still a baby at barely over a foot tall.  It's a toughie but still alive!  :)

This is a flower from our Goldmine nectarine tree.  The flowers are very similar to cherry blossoms, peach, and purple leaf plum.  It'll be tricky to compete with the animals for some fruit.  Last year we lost.

My first Japanese Black Pine.  New candles are coming up.  I will work on energy balancing on this guy soon.  April is feeding time.

This is my third Japanese Black Pine.  I bought it specifically to grow and train as bonsai.  It was originally about 5 feet tall.  I chopped it to about 20".  It's got some movement going on in there.  I like it.

Squirrel 1 - Me 0.  Now we know who's taking one bite out of every avocado and running off.  He isn't scared of us at all.  I think he might have eaten the few we had last year nectarines too.  I think he's threatening me with his stiff tail.

This wisteria was a bonsai inherited by me from my Dad's original collection.  A family friend adopted it when my Dad was no longer able to take care of his plants.  I didn't have the space to take any plants at that time.  It turned out that the family friend was too busy to take care of it also.  That was when I adopted it.  When I first received it, it was just a bunch of tangled up vines that were about 5 feet long.  I didn't do much.  Just a little trimming and fertilizer brought this tree a long ways.  It's had a tough past but hopefully it'll be on it's way to recovery now.  Wisteria has a very strong and pleasant fragrance.  I really love this tree it was moved very close to the house so that we could enjoy it more.

Here we are enjoying a wonderful weathered Saturday afternoon after a good lunch at Porto's.  :D

Our Howard McMinn Manzanita is flowering tiny white flowers.  :)  Yay!

At 6" off the ground, they seem a little low for humming birds, but who knows!

Dad's Bonsai regathered

When my Dad had his stroke in February of 2006, his Bonsai collection was scattered among family and friends. The first one I inherited was from my Aunt on March 5th, 2011 when I visited her house. She gave me a plethora of plants, and the first of my Dad's Bonsai that I brought home was the Ficus Insipida below. I am waiting for the other two companion plants to leaf in order to identify them.

Besides my Aunt, a family friend offered to take care of most of my Dad's other bonsai trees. However, soon after he took them, his life got too busy and couldn't afford to give them consistent care. My Sister called him to ask if he could allow us to take one back since I was learning how to grow Bonsai. In the end, he decided to give us most of them back. We took ten trees back from him and my sister kept two. I offered my brother to take any that he likes but he didn't want to yet.

My Sister and brother in law drove eight of my Dad's trees to my house on June 25th. I ran out and bought some lumber and concrete blocks to make two 10' benches.



The bonsai has arrived. They were in my side-yard here but I've already moved them to the backyard where they are not visible from the side yard. I also built a new side yard gate that is 6' tall and put a lock on it for safety measures.



Ficus Insipida is below. This is the first one that I received from my Aunt. This was when the journey of gathering my Dad's Bonsais began.



The two little brown stumps are hard to ID with no leaves. My best guess is Cyphostemma Simulans or mestoklema tuberosa. It's a shot in the dark but it's hard to tell with no foliage.



The first thing was to do identify them. This is what I came up with. There could be some error because a lot of Ficus trees look similar to me.

Ficus Palmeri below:



The two little plants are Ficus Petiolaris and their roots seem to be attached to the Palmeri.



Below is Ficus Microcarpa.




Ficus Benjamina, also known as weeping fig is below.



This is a Holly tree but I'm not sure which kind exactly.



Finally an easy one; Wisteria. Same one in my earlier post of Dad's Bonsai. :)



And another easy one; Olive.



These are big bonsai! A couple of them are about 3 feet tall and wide. The smallest one is the Olive, which is about 18" tall. I cut them back a little since these photos to make them a bit more compact so that they can fit on the bench without too much over-crowding.

Ficus like lots of sunlight. I put the trees in an open space with full sun so the soil dries out quickly in the summer. I water the small pots about three times a week and the deeper pots twice a week. On very hot mornings, i give the leaves a light mist. There is new growth on every tree even though they are shaggy looking. They are very established and hardy plants so it's only a matter of time before they will look more consistently maintained. Once they are more healthy, I will change the soil, re-pot, and start fertilizing. It's exciting to be the care-taker of some of my Dad's plants. I am glad to be up to the task.

Dad's Collection

Dad had LOTS of plants! Euphorbias, cacti, traditional Bonsai trees, and even common nursery plants. Look at the amazing purple wisteria Bonsai! This was home to me for so many years until I moved out at the end of 1999. I don't ever remember a struggling plant. Home was always green, lush, and healthy. It was a mystery to me how he did it because I had no hand in it. It's funny because back when I was still living with my parents, I didn't know the names of the plants and now that I bought some for our own house it appears that we have the same tastes. I acquired many of the same kinds of plants my Dad had coincidentally. The only plant that I bought that I knew my Dad had was Old Man Cactus. I believe he had Old Man of the Mountains cactus, while I preferred Old Man of the Andes.

To the right with orange sticks on top is a tree form of Euphorbia tirucalli, related to the smaller sticks on fire shrub but this form will grow into a big and tall 15-20ft. tree if put into the ground. It is more green than sticks on fire also. Heat will make the sticks turn orange. On the left with the red flowers is Euphorbia Milii (Crown of thorns). Euphorbias will ooze a milky sap called latex when it is punctured or cut and that liquid is poisonous so don't eat it or rub it into your eyes.

Dad had plants I don't even know about.

Purple was Mom's favorite color.



Me and Dad. To the left in the back is Golden Bamboo. Between us is a Euphorbia Lambii. You can only see the top of it. To the right of the red leafed plant in the back is an Aloe plicatilis (fan aloe)


Look at the size of this beautiful Wisteria Bonsai!


This is called a Beaucarnea recurvata (bottle palm)

Growing up in this environment must have subliminally influenced my own interest and certainly gave me the seed of inspiration to create my own garden.