On top of my bonsai rack, I have also rented a piece of land to grow more bonsai trees. Teacher Wong always says that one is truly a bonsai artist only when she knows how to cultivate a seedling or a cutting into a beautiful bonsai tree from ground zero. And the best way to acquire this knowledge is by doing it herself.
While I have a very packed schedule and know that this is a long-time commitment, I couldn’t resist but rented a piece of land in the bonsai workshop and turned a new page in my bonsai world.
Trees grow much faster when they are rooted in the ground. By growing the trees in the ground, not only can I grow my bonsai trees faster, but I can also grow my trees into whatever styles I want them to be in a much shorter time. And once the tree has grown large enough (around 80% of the size I intend to grow the tree into) and more or less into the bonsai style I want, I can then pot the bonsai tree into a bonsai pot, and work on the pruning and training of the smaller branches, foliage, and details.
This is how my 10 ft x 10 ft land looked like before I started. It is covered with a piece of black cloth to prevent weeds from growing.
Plowing is tough, laborious work, and I am very happy that I have got Yik to help.
After all the lifting, turning over, and pulverizing the soil, we add a big block of peat moss and sand for good water retention, high air capacity, and good drainage.
After more plowing and mixing, we stored the extra soil mix in bags and covered up the land with the black cloth again.