Back from Hiatus, and Ready to Rock (and a terrarium review)

    Hello! I'm back from my months long Hiatus from this blog, so yay! Things got crazy because I visited Alaska for the summer, and I've just been super busy with school. So for my first post back, I decided to do something new. Instead of Writing and posting photos, which is always frustrating because of the way Blogger is formatted, I am going to post a YouTube video I uploaded. It's a terrarium, I used pretty much the same technique as all my other ones, so without further ado, here is the video! Hope you like it, and make sure to like, comment, and subscribe!

Japanese Maples Update 3

Hey sorry for the hiatus! For this post I'm just going to show some pictures and give you guys an update on the Acer palmatum (also known as Japanese Maple) seedlings. So without further ado, here are the pictures. This is the fifth week since I took them home.

Big Bubba

Sadly some of the maples did die, but a majority of them did make it through, and a couple have made giant leaps of growth since then! I think part of the reason why some of them died was overcrowding. I had them in 4" pots, and some plants were 2-3 per pot. I did transplant quite a few into their own pots, but not before some died. The one labeled in the pictures as "Big Bubba" definantly won the award for most growth. most seem to be at about the same growth as before, though several show little new growth buds, so that's good. I have been keeping them pretty well watered, though I try to let them dry out before waterings, which is what most tree like.

   Anyways, today is just a short little update, but I hoped you like it! I know I really love to see plants growth, it's just kinda cool to see things get bigger and change. Please share this post with a friend, anyone who might be interested. Thanks for reading, bye!

How to take cuttings from plants

     Hey Guys! Today I'm going to teach you crazy kids how to propagate from cuttings! Taking a cutting from a plant is super easy, and it's nice because the cutting is going to be exactly the same genetically as the parent. So if you have a plant that say, produces really sweet fruit, a cutting from a sweet fruit tree might just be what you need. Many plants can be started from cuttings, such as (just off the top of my head), Ivy, wisteria, jades, most succulents, tomato plants, african violets, bamboo, and many more!

     Steps

1) Find a plant that you would like to take a cutting from

2) Cut a new growth branch (not woody), at least three nodes long

3) Strip the cuttings leaves, leaving only a few at the top, 

4) Take the end that you are going to root, and slice diagonally, this helps to get as much area as possible for rooting.

5) wet the rooting end

6) Dip the rooting end in a growth hormone of your choice

7) Poke your finger, a pencil, ect, and make a hole in a container of potting soil.

8) Plant cutting in hole

Notes

     If you do not have a rooting hormone, it's ok. Just follow the other steps. Rooting hormones just help to make sure the plant roots, and can be a bit faster than without. I heard you can make a rooting hormone from honey, though I have never tried.

     A good medium to grow cuttings is a mix of peat moss and perlite. Half and half should do the trick, although I do suggest you experiment and find out your preference.

     If you're plant seems to be wilting, cut the leaves in half, this helps the plant to focus more on rooting, and less on leaves.

     Later this weekend I will make some posts about some succulent cuttings that I took, One that I took and while back and how it's doing, and some wisteria cuttings that I took.

     Thanks for reading! Please share this with a friend, and make sure to come back, I make a post at least once a week. Hoped this post helped! Byeeeeee!

   

     

Japanese Maple Seedlings 2

     Hey there! For this post I would like to post updates on the Japanese Maple Seedlings I got. For the most part, they are doing pretty well. On some the leaves are drying up, which can't be a good sign. I was reading and I've come to the conlusion that they are doing this due to stress of being potted and moved. I still have hope that they will make it. Also, some of the leaves are turning red, which they do in the fall when their leaves are about to fall off. I think this is also because of stress.

     Here are some pictures.

Dried-up leaves

 


















As you can probably see, some of the leaves have turned red. I am thinking that maybe they are not getting enough sun. The ones on top of my bonsai stand are doing well. They tolerate moderate shade, but I will give them more sunlight and see what happens.

Thanks for reading! I will make another post sometime this week. Comment what you would like to see me do a post about, anything with plants or mycology. Please share this post with a friend, it means a lot. See ya!

Japanese Maple Seedlings

Hey guys just going to make a quick post, I'm probably going to make another one soon because this one is just too short and more personal than informational. Regardless, this post is pretty exciting! At one of my schools, there is a Japanese Maple tree, and this week I found that by it were a lot of seedlings, just sprouted. Some of them had just gotten their first set of true leaves. So Today two friends and I dug them up, potted them, and adopted them! I'm a little anxious to see how they do, I'm hoping that at least most of them make it into sapling-hood.

Acer palmatum is a great tree for bonsai, and there are many different cultivars of Japanese Maple. I will edit this and put what type of seedlings I have when I find out. Here are some pictures.

These are the seedlings I took today. All 38 of them. For care I watered them, which is what you should do to most transplants, and I'm giving them lots of shade. I will try to transplant them into separate pots when they are a little bigger. right now there are 1-3 seedlings in each pot. I also gave them some Miracle-Gro liquid plant fertilizer.

Two seedlings

Two seedlings

These are two seedlings that I took earlier in the week. They are still doing good! The small one had only had it's first set of true leaves.

Two seedlings

Anyhow, Thanks for reading! I will try to come up with another post this weekend, since this one was more of a rant. I will post more updates on these seedlings, maybe like once every two to three weeks. Make sure to share this page with any friends who might like plants or mycology, and have a great weekend!

Two seedlings

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!

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!