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Showing posts from May, 2012

Bonsai, it's a long and lonely climb (Post 400)

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Shang Chi here, at 47 days, is the only survivor from our pine seeds. Shang Chi appears a little lighter in some photos due to camera flash. He's grown with a curve about half way up his trunk, then continuing upwards, to a present height of nearly three inches. You can see the early plants retain the seed over their budding branches for a few days (the "hat" falls off or can be eventually removed by spraying or light grooming). Here we see the cutting has drawn the water successfully enough to sprout a leaf! We believe that the transplanting process, from the germination container to pot, was too much for the plants. With six of them sprouting successfully, the safe transplanting of each one became problematic. I later included an attempt to cultivate a magnolia from a cutting; it has remained green but has not shown root development. We keep it in a coffee mug. Shang here was taken up as an entire "root ball" fro