English Ivy Bonsai (One Dollar Bonsai)

Ciao Bella! For this post I am just going to talk about a cool Ivy start that I recently acquired. I got it at the nursery where I take my bonsai class, which I recently started going to again. I was looking at the discount section of the nursery. I usually do not find anything really to speak of, but this time was different. After looking for about thirty seconds, I saw some Ivy in a four inch pot. The leaves were yellow, but it didn't look too bad, and I saw potential. The total cost for it was a whopping $1.08! That same weekend, I got a nice pumice container from my sister's adoptive grandma. Here are some pictures.

Pumice Pot

 These are the before photos that I took. As you can see the leaves look a yellowish-green. The Plant was doing better than when I got it though. I didn't do much, besides cutting some of the dead wood off.
 This is the Needlepoint Variety of English Ivy. They have a different leaf shape than regular ivy, and also is not really invasive, unlike most types. This is so because the aerial roots don't dig into the trees they grow on, therefor not damaging it. Just a fun fact. Here are some pictures of the plant after I planted and wired it.

 I personally think it looks pretty good! Hope the pictures are good enough. As you can (hopefully) see, I wired the two main branches, and made them cascade over the tall pot. This is a good look for ivy, and since ivy is a vine, this also plays to the way the ivy will grow. Eventually the Ivy will just flow over the container. That's my plan anyways. In the future I might remove one of the branches so there is just one main branch, though I am not sure.
Quick care tips: Ivy likes to be dry for the most part. Don't over-water. Though if your's is outdoors, and it rains frequently, it probably won't hurt the plant, though Ivy is prone to fungal disease in soaked soil. I live in Washington, and Ivy grows (literally) like a weed here. Though it is not the Needlepoint variety. Ivy also likes shade. try to put it somewhere away from the sun, you could use a north facing window, or if it's outdoors, put it underneath a shady tree (or something like one). The one thing that worries me about this bonsai are the roots, the roots took up quite a bit of the space, so I was not able to put a lot of soil for some of it. I am worried that the roots will get too much air. We will have to wait and see.

Thanks so much for reading! I hope you liked my post, sorry that it was kind of long. I hope it was at least slightly interesting, and that you learned something! Please share this with someone, weather it be friend,foe, a guy you met at a bookstore, whoever! I will come out with a new post next week, so come back then! Bye!

Fungi Basics: Mushrooms

             Hello there! for this post I will be talking about the fundamentals of fungi, or, the fungimentals (was worth a shot). There are so many things with fungi, and there are so many different types of fungi, but for this post I will be talking mostly about fruiting fungi, or mushrooms. Alright well lets dive in!
           
             Lets start below and work our way up. Most fungi start out with Hyphae, which are like very small threads that grow and branch out. when Hyphae grow bigger and connect, they make up mycelium, which in mushrooms, serve mainly as the roots of the mushroom.

Oyster mushroom ( Pleurotus ostreatus)growing in coffee grounds

In some fungi, they have a fruit to help spread it's spores, which are like the seeds of a fungi. the fruit is known as a mushroom. The mushrooms can be identified many different ways, some of which being color, texture,anatomy (e.g. gills, cap), and even taste ( usually only if fairly sure).

mushrooms can look very different, while others can look very similar. It's not always easy to tell a poisonous mushroom from a choice edible one. I like to refer to a field guide. I use the "National Audobon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms". it is very easy to use, and has many different mushrooms. It gives a brief description of the mushroom, whether it is edible, poisonous, or hallucinogenic, where it is located, season, and even look-alikes! Never eat a mushroom if you are not 100% sure on what it is.

Mushrooms have multiple parts, such as the stalk, which is the part of the fruit the goes from the ground up to the cap, the gills, which are the underneath of the cap, where the spores are stored, a ring, which is underneath the cap on the stalk, and looks like an extra layer of "skin" and the volva, which is where the mushroom sprout from the ground. not every mushroom has all these things. most shelf fungi don't have spores, for example.

              Thanks for reading! I will probably edit this post, to add more information has it occurs to me. Please share this with a friend or someone you know, hopefully one who likes plants and mycology! I will come up with a new post next week, until then, Ciao!

Bonsai: Trimming Chinese elm

A little crazy, Eh?

Hey guys, sorry for the late post, this week is spring break and I've been super busy. But better now than never, right? So for this post I trimmed a Chinese Elm Bonsai that I got as a gift a couple years ago. Sadly, I got uninterested in Bonsai, and didn't pay enough attention to the ones I had, so many perished. But this
Elm was a fighter. It was not doing too bad, besides needing a trim,and some tlc.

Giant dead branch, needed to go

Before

 The first thing I did was get rid of any dead branches, which besides the giant one (pictured left) there were not many of.

Before

Before

The second step was getting rid of branches that crossed each other (just get rid of one) and branches that went straight up. If there were any that went straight down, you would want to get rid of those ones as well, though on this tree I didn't see any. then you just want to trim any new growth back, especially in parts that you don't want to see growth in (duh). So if you didn't want the tree getting taller, than you would trim the top branches.

After

After

After

After

Leftovers

After

Before

It may not look that much different, but this "little" trimming not only makes the bonsai look neater and more aesthetic, but also redirects where all the plants energies are going. This in turn lets the tree focus on things it has, and not focus on things like dead growth (which would be counter-productive), and new growth (which would make it bigger). All in all, this makes the tree healthier.

Thanks for reading, come back next week for a new post, please share this with a friend, or anyone who might be interested, and Plant on!