Anniversary Haiku

     Princene and I celebrated our 13th anniversary today. As one of her anniversary gifts to the bonsaiist-to-the-core man she married, she composed a haiku for me:

Silvering hair,

Bonsai clippers placed with care -

Happy man content.

She has not attempted many haiku, but I'd say she did a fine job with this one!

Then our daughter NaevEnya took a picture to go with the haiku:

My wife writes a good haiku, and my daughter takes a good picture! (Tree is a Black Hills spruce.)

(For any who don't know, haiku is a Japanese form of poetry that, like bonsai, has come to be widely appreciated in the West. A haiku consists of just three lines, and traditionally contains 17 syllables, in a 5-7-5 arrangement, tho minor variation in the number of syllables is allowed. It need not rhyme, and usually evokes a mood and/or has something in nature as its subject.)

Thank you, sweetie! ☺

:-)  :-)  :-)

Almost as if the tree is enjoying itself!

     My mame veldt fig must be quite happy with the present regimen in the Bonsai Crate: lately it's been throwing a veritable blizzard of aerial roots! It almost seems like a new one appears every time I turn around. I thought folks might like to see a picture.

My mame veldt fig, a Christmas gift from my wife in 2009. How many aerial roots can you find?

Rivers, Wolves, and Bonsai

     Back in December I published a post on the debate about Turface®. In it I mentioned a principle that we all do well to keep in mind: One's soil mix, watering practices, fertilizing practices, and climate all interact, with each element affecting the impact of each of the others.

A few weeks after I wrote that, I came across an item on YouTube entitled "How Wolves Change Rivers." More out of curiosity than anything else -- after all, how could wolves change a river? -- I followed the link.

CD's and Nebari Development: Passing Along an Idea

     (With thanks to Adam Lavigne.)     

     Who doesn't have some lying around: non-reusable CD's on which you received software, or music that's now on your iPod, or even some advertising?

CD for a computer game that my daughter has now outgrown.

Many of us have heard of a traditional Japanese technique for enhancing a young tree's nebari: spread the roots over a tile, and then plant the tree with tile and roots a few inches deep and let it grow for several years. Adam Lavigne of Florida recently published a blog post about another way to achieve the same results: use those old CD's that are accumulating!

To see the post on Adam's blog, please click HERE.

To whet your interest, here is one of Adam's pictures from that post:

Photo by Adam Lavigne.

Adam and his friend used the technique on trident maples, but I think it would work just as well on other vigorous species, like many Ficus.

:-)  :-)  :-)