Last year I'd put 2 tiny Privet into small pots for my 2 little girls - unfortunately their trees were among my losses from our vicious winter (and my poor 1st attempt at winterizing my trees). So, I replaced them with a few saplings from a large number of seedlings I planted last year. I thought these to be 'lace leaf' maple trees, but I'm now not too sure; The bark on mature trees peels like paper bark, revealing rich oranges and browns beneath. The leaves closely resemble a Trident Maple. I will work on the correct species. The seeds were collected from a local park with lace leaf trees that were loaded with ripe seeds in season last Autumn.
I'm using seashell material on 2 of the pots. We recently were on a family beach trip to The Outer Banks in North Carolina. While there, I thought that this light airy shell material might do well for soil for some bonsai! This is shell material gathered with the tides; any beach you can goto, if you dig a few inches down you reach this 'shell' layer that is crumpled, and quite fine. We'll see how they do compared to a more 'regular' pea stone w/ bark mixture (The shell plants also have some organic material mixed in underneath the top shell cover).
Not sure how these are doing now but be careful with seashells they are have high pH levels and can be bad for the trees.
ReplyDeleteSee this is why I wish I had or knew people around me that were also Bonsai nuts - I would not have ever known this! So far they are doing well and putting out a good amount of new shoots - I did mix in some organic material (mostly bark) that is under the top shell layer - this may be what is keeping things stable. I did rinse out the shell material well as I was worried about 'salt' and anything I may have brought back with the shells that wasn't plant-friendly (or just soaked to the bone with seasalt) but I see I also need to read up on what it can do to PH levels. Thank you for the insight Tony!
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