An Ordinary Bonsai Story

This was my good old favored shui mui.
I can still remember how I styled it from time to time over 2 decades.

In the yr 2 thousand n 9. I was down with cornea ulcer in my left eye followed by cardiovascular illness.
Fighting the battle for almost 13 long months n managed to return to my bonsais with full heart.
But then many of my beloved bonsais just gone.

I hope I can still make use of these remains to create some Tanuki bonsai.
As for my good old shui mui, is now under salvation.


All bonsai buddies please do take care of yourself before u can take care of yr bonsai.

Good luck.

This post has been edited by Bonsailelong: Jan 21 2011, 01:11 PM

Year of the Rabbit is here!





HAPPY & PROPEROUS CHINESE NEW YEAR

This post has been edited by Bonsailelong: Feb 3 2011, 09:36 AM

wow. just found this topic. but it seems this topic is not that active. nevermind. i wanted to join u all guys. i had been training bonsai for 1 years ++ now. never have a matured one as i start from raw materials. later one, if i got some chances, i will post my ugly duckling here. hope they will turn into a beautifull swan later.

Welcome. Hope can make this forum more lively.

any of you had try japanese white pine before? i did. but then, died. i did some mistakes...

Japanese White Pine Black Pine or Chinese Black Pine White Pine are just too good to die in our weather.
Suggestion: save your money and efforts on those and turn to something local.
say "sleeping pine" and "toh jung"



"sleeping pine" still under training.

"toh jung" young trees under initial shaping.
These 2 type of pines have snake like trunks very slow in growing thick or never able to grow thick at all.
Only good for tall thin looking bonsai no way to compare to the black or white.

This post has been edited by Bonsailelong: Feb 7 2011, 10:06 PM

Nice

i have encouter a number of people confuse juniper and pine. Yous is a juniper most probaly juniper procumbren

Hi Chiang,
Thank you very much for pointing out.
For the species with Chinese name "sleeping pine" i think is Juniperous Rigida.
For the one Chinese name called "toh jung" i'm pretty sure is a pine species.
Hope some one can let me know its botanical name.



This post has been edited by Bonsailelong: Feb 12 2011, 03:47 PM

Juniper and pine share the same chinese letter word. But in English an biology they are two different they means different pant.
Junipers are coniferous plants in the genus Juniperus (pronounced /dʒuːˈnɪpərəs/)[1] of the cypress family Cupressaceae
Pines are trees in the genus Pinus (pronounced /ˈpaɪnəs/),[1] in the family Pinaceae.
Both of them belong to one big group called conifers

Thanks for sharing the knowledge.
Is "toh jung" pine or juniper?

The toh jung is a juniper it cannot be call a pine. I think it is Juniperus procumbens is a low-growing shrubby juniper native to the southern Japan, it closly related to Juniperus chinensis. There are more than 50 type of juniper.

I think you are quite right about "toh jung"
However I don't actually agree it is Juniperous Procumbens.
By looking closely at the specimen photo of "nana" I believe is the common of J Procumbens, the leaves are actually segmented.
Will try to find more info beside from Wikipedia Encyclopedia.
More inputs are welcome. (anyone?)

This post has been edited by Bonsailelong: Feb 13 2011, 01:51 PM

"nana" means a variety of the spesis in dwarf form, u got that in a few type of juniper.

J Procumbens is a prostrate plant meaning it grow sideway rather than up mabey that is why the chinese call it toh jung (lying juniper)

It is usual to compare plant base on the phenotype (the appearance of an organism based on a multifactorial combination of genetic traits and environmental factors) esp the leaf. But for clasification, the comparison on cone, flower or fruit are more reliable. Plant may appear in various form of phenotype or varieties but sometimes they can be of the same genotype hence the same spesis.

Wow!
Great info n knowledge!
I may got to ask u about other species too.

Thank you very much.

If u are staying in sungai buloh area that is from jalan hospital sungai buloh until kampung melayu subang, u can see so many type of inportat exotic plant, from japaness maple, mei or tao hua (during new year) ,holy ghost orchid,even the rare sabah sliper orchid, even many type of bonsai including black pine, and the list go on. So far the only flower that i like to see but not been around is botan or peony, . the best part is they at at very bargain price esp near around pusat kusta jalan hospital(do not worry abaout the kusta, you can hardly find someone with it) most ex patient mabey got a bit of deforminty but are cure and not infectious ( i work around there)'

You can buy prebonsai material to be made into bonsai.

Only just now i went just to look around and find a tree i think from conifer group, mabey juniper, the plant grow creeping, needle is a bit flat and and the tip is rounded abount 1.5cm long. the owner of the shop it is cal sui song, which is olso means sleeping juniper. hahaha rm130 per pot .

Ya,
Been there before CNY.
Black pines (from China) only rm50 per pot but don't look so healthy.
(Mind to show yr "sui jung" or sleeping pine/juniper.)

I gave up planting bonsai a few years ago n gave them to my brother becoz my job required me to travel out station a lot. but the year 2008 i move 2 sungai buloh my intrest revived after i encouter some black pine seedling 18 month ago,i bought 2 black pine (RM30) juz to experiment ( i kill 4 black pine in the year 1996), but this time i do a lot of reading n reshearch from the internet. The pine still surviving n doing well after 18 month, i got 5 now,( but i olso kill 2 because i experiment with diffrent planting medium) all of them seem to grow well. U can see them in my face book under my profil look my wall my hobby photo. juz type my name Chiang Cheng Kooi, e mail, utarid1964@yahoo.com. I have already train them in various shape, mostly my target is shohin bonsai, becoz i live in aparment an in the late 40ies, an juz like 2 see my result fast.
I did not buy the sui song, not very keen with juniper, hoverver i got 1 junier procumbren and 2 dwarf juniper(shohin). If u want to have a look at sui song u go to nursery near pusat kusta, look for a buddhist temple, oposite diagonally the is a nursery that got a lot of bonsai, u can see they sell black pine too (but not very healthy) ask for sui song. However it is not that impressive and not big but suitable to train shohin cascading plant.

This post has been edited by chiangchengkooi: Feb 16 2011, 03:57 PM

Good to know u.
u got interesting bonsais!
I got 2 China black pine before (bought from China bonsai trader) quite costly ones.
When I was sick, they got sick too. When I manage to recover to go back to my bonsais, they got only trunks remained.
I got many bonsais, mostly deciduous species too tired to take care of them all as I'm still in the recovering stage.

Suggestion to yr black pine: Do an air layering to one of yr long trunk tree, if done correctly u can get a shorter tree n another black pine.

(Harry Harrington gave lot of good tips n interesting articles at his Bonsai4me block that can actually be followed -80/90%)

]from what i read, black pine does not respond well 2 air layering, may take more thant a year, even the cut around the trunk can kill the plat, if u ever want to try, use bridge air layering technic or just tie a thick wire around the trunk without any cutting.
Other than black pine i olso like to plant bonsai with low light tolerence, i got 2 fig or ficus multi trunk, fuse by growing ariel root making it a 4 inch trunk but 8 and 12 in height and an umberlla plant. I olso love red leaf plant, maple is too expensive so juz try cotinus. if i can garenty survival for maple i do not mind bying, but maple is difficult b coz it need a period of long cold dormancy about 1 month othe wise it will die after a few years.