Category: Bonsai How To

A Happy Bonsai reader asked me how do I attach aluminum foil on my bonsai trees when I seal cuttings (refer to post – Sealing Cuts of Bonsai Trees).   Although it seems obvious to me, it probably isn’t so clear for many others.  So here, I have taken a photo of the aluminum foil that I use for sealing cuttings of my bonsai trees.  Yes, these are aluminum foil tapes with a removable paper liner.

The aluminum foil conforms well to irregular and curved surfaces.  More advantages: waterproof sealing and heat reflection 😉

By following the general guidelines when choosing our rocks for our landscape bonsai, we will be able to find some decent rock material for the mountains and cliffs in our bonsai. However, unless we are very lucky, the rock material we find will not 100% seamlessly match with the plants, or the bonsai pot, or other elements we will use in our landscape bonsai. In such case, we need to shape the rock by ourselves.

Landscape Bonsai – Design Stage

After we have picked the rock we want to use for our landscape bonsai, we have to decide how we want to attach our tree to the rock  in our landscape bonsai. Do we want the trunk/roots of our little tree(s) to go along or within the cracks and holes of the rocks? Or do we want the roots of the tree to be wrapped around the rock instead? How about the height of the tree? Will it be too tall? Or is there somewhere on the rock that looks too wide which we rather have it chopped off? These are examples of some questions that we will ask ourselves during the design stage, before any action is taken.

Preparation

Before we work on the rock, mark our rock with a marker so we will know where to align the die while cutting/grinding.

Protect Ourselves

Put on goggles to keep our vision clear of the water and protect our eyes from any rock chips that may be thrown from the die grinder. If we want to keep our clothes clean, we better put on an apron (or use a large plastic bag with holes cut for our head and arms) to keep water from spraying on our clothes.

Shape the Rock for Our Landscape Bonsai

To avoid the metal die getting too hot while grinding, we keep a stream of water flowing across where the die touches the rock.

Clean Our Rock

After use, wash our rock. Be careful of any rock chip. Rock chips can be very sharp, so take care when handling them.

Recently, I found mealybugs on the cutting wound of the Fukien Tea bonsai tree. They were hiding right under the aluminum foil tape. I guess the delay of sealing the cutting wounds of my bonsai tree was probably a major factor of this peat problem. Due to a tight schedule, I had no choice but cut my bonsai tree on a rainy day (bad move…) and since the cutting wound was still wet, I didn’t seal the wound with bonsai pruning compound or aluminum foil tape once after I pruned the bonsai tree but only after a few days later.

When I first found mealybugs on my bonsai tree, I wasn’t sure if it’s a plant pest or a disease problem since I couldn’t find any movement in the white powdery clods on a cutting wound of my bonsai tree

What is Mealybug?

Mealybugs start as free-moving crawlers with the females becoming less mobile as they mature. While unlike many female scale insects, female mealybugs often retain leads and can move. Yet, nevertheless, the female mealybugs attach to a single spot and become less mobile.

While female mealybugs feed on plant sap and secrete a powdery wax layer to protect themselves (that’s how they begin to look more like some kind of growth than an insect), the male mealybugs do not feed at all as adults and only live to fertilize the females (hence, the male mealybugs are short-lived).

Get Rid of Mealybugs

The fastest and easiest way is to use pesticide, especially if there is a heavy infestation on our bonsai tree. Of course, this stuff is toxic and we must be careful during mixing and application. We will have to apply the pesticide again in 7-10 days as the mealybugs may have laid eggs on our bonsai tree. A few escaped mealybugs can repopulate a colony in just a few days.

Indeed, the land of a water-and-land penjing is very much similar to a forest bonsai (here is a post about My First Forest Bonsai).   It is the extra shorefront and water area that make a water-and-land penjing has a more complex composition.  The overall structural unity of a water-and-land penjing is critical.  Design elements such as trees, rocks, moss, water, figurines all need to be in harmony with each other and contribute to the design in a natural and meaningful fashion.  Hence, we have to be very careful when selecting our materials.  Besides the tree species and the number of trees to be used, we also have to think about the height and trunk angles of the trees, the type of rocks to be used, the size, shape, color, surface details of the rocks, the relative size and the compatibility of the figurines with the penjing, etc, etc…  In the end, each and every element in the water-and-land penjing should relate to each other so that the entire bonsai appears as one all-embracing, strongly bonded entity.

Continue from Making My Water-and-Land Penjing (Part 1), let me show you how to make the land of my water-and-land penjing in this post.

First of all, make sure the land part of the water-and-land penjing has a drainage hole.  (Sorry, I should have mentioned this earlier in Making My Water-and-Land Penjing (Part 1) for we would need this to be ready before creating our rocky shorefront 😛 )  Properly cover the drainage hole with a drainage mesh  so to prevent soil from falling through the hole.

We usually use odd number of trees in water-and-land penjing as well as forest bonsai.  When we pick the trees for our bonsai, make sure we pick trees with a variety of heights.  In the nature, there are trees of different heights.  There are some tall, old trees, while there are some short, young ones.  Plus, our penjing will look so boring if all the trees have the same height.   In addition, make sure we pick 1-2 trees that are especially tall.  They will be the “main trees” in our water-and-land penjing.

Trim off the root ball of our trees, or else our trees wouldn’t be able to fit into the shallow container of our water-and-land penjing.  Here, I trimmed off as much as 60-70% of the root balls.

Next, we need to design the tree placement to get the most natural looking arrangement. In general, we put the main tree(s) in the center area so to let it grab most of the attention.

Once we have confirmed on the placement of our trees, we add soil.  A chopstick will be very helpful here.  Poke around with your chopstick and make sure there is no gap in between trees that is not filled with soil.  And since we have cut off much of the roots, we need to trim off some foliage of the trees as well, so to make it easier for our trees to adapt and grow in their new home.

This is my water-and-land penjing.  Because the sun has been very strong in Hong Kong lately, I have already had my penjing in a shady area for 3 weeks, and probably will keep it in the shade for another week before bringing it out to the full sun.  Later, I will also trim and train the branches so to arrange the density of the foliage and make the penjing look better 🙂