Midweek Update 4/9/24

 

I've been going to this new studio, keeping myself busy. As a change, I've been working on frogs. Caricatures of frogs. Frog bonsai pots. There's no point in simply describing the process, so let's start with the pictures. 

This first picture is the concept of a caricature frog. Just this round thing with protruding eye balls. More of a pac-man frog:

Same Concept with this next picture, only with a tongue that sticks out and slightly more defined feet. I'm not really grooving on the feet:

Next picture is a frog shape, but more in usable small pot size. The details are lacking. I guess you'll have to wait to see the finished product:

Ah ha! A frog bonsai pot:

Moving on to more finished products, here's a broken egg bonsai pot with claws and tentacles in Plum. Honestly, this is not my favorite glaze, but it definitely has it's place: 

Sea Urchin Pot in Plum Glaze:

Crescent pot in Plum Glaze. I think it would have looked a lot better in Oregon brown clay body:

Found Semi-Cascade Crab Apple in Broken Egg Bonsai Pot Featuring Claws and Tentacles in Plum:

One has to understand that this crab apple may one day bloom. It will be a while before it does, but when it does, the plum glaze will look fantastic with the pink/white flower blossoms and the green/red of the developing fruit. The pot has a lively, youthful energy to it. 

One may say, wait, what flowers? What fruit? This is just a poor little sapling with wires. 

Where's the flowers?

Where's the fruit?

If you cannot see the fruit, you cannot see the flowers. Therefore you cannot see the little sapling. You can't even see the pot. And that's a shame as it really compliments the strange little crab apple. 

In it's own way. 

3/27/24 Midweek update

 I found another local pottery studio that I've signed on with. It's a bit expensive, but closer to home. Plus they have better firing schedules. They use buff white clay, which I'm not exactly a fan of. But hey, it's their studio, their rules. I'm grateful for the opportunity. It's called Fairview Lake Studio. They want all my pottery to be marked. Alright. I think I have my signature stamp somewhere. I'll use that until I create a new chop mark. 

My flea market supplies came in. Got my green apron and my spandex table covers. I think I've mentioned that I've received my airplants already.

I potted up at least one of my Fuji cherries. And at least one of my crabapples. I'll be potting up some more stuff shortly. But while looking for stuff to pot up, I 'found' a couple of crabapples! I wired them up and now we wait. 

Nothing else to note at the moment.

3/18/24 Weekend Update

It's Monday. The weekend was sunny and warm. Glorious! We're feeling a bit under the weather, so I was not able to do most of what I wanted to do. I did mow the lawn - first mow of the season! Somehow got into a mowing contest with my neighbor. I was able to work on the vine maples and some stuff for the flea market. So let's talk about that. 

Vine Maples. They finally arrived last week. I worked on half over during the week and the other half on Sunday. The roots were long, so I trimmed back the roots. I also applied some wire to give them some interesting curves. They're kind of small, so perfect time to start the wiring, I think. Even at their size, the wood is already pretty stiff. I don't think these were seedlings, per se. To me they looked more like root cuttings. I gathered all the roots I trimmed and planted them together in some dirt. Just one big mess. Probably a mistake, but I just didn't have it in me to individually pot up each root. I took the same approach to the Kojo no Mai Fuji Cherry Roots I had - I just potted them all up together. No reason why this shouldn't work. 

Stuff for the flea market - I got the 30 airplants I ordered. Dunked them in water and put them in the craft room. I ordered a green apron to wear at the flea market. And I got those spandex table covers. I'm going all in! I should also consider potting up some of my Kojo No Mai as well as the money trees I've been growing out. Come to think of it, there's a whole bunch of stuff I could be doing to get ready for the flea market.

 

3/11/24 Weekend Update

Just a quick write up to say nothing's new. I'm waiting on the vine maples I ordered last month. Winter is almost over and my trees are starting wake up. I'm still doing pottery, but not as much as I should. 

Pumpkin patch should open up next month. I should start getting ready for that. 

All for now. 

2/10/24 Weekend Update

I mentioned before that it's been a warm winter. I think we're going to have an early spring. My Kojo-No-Mai Mt Fuji Cherries have been on my mind. Specifically, I wanted to re-pot them before they wake up for spring. I noticed the buds are starting to swell, so they're already starting to wake up. Perfect!

I have two cherries in 5-gallon pots; I decided to tackle the nicer one today because 

  1. It looks nicer and 

  2. There were lots of root suckers. 

I started early this morning, about 8am. The soil did not get a chance to warm up. Digging in the soil with my fingers was no fun! Regardless, I root-pruned and re-potted the tree. Here's what it looked like:

 

There's still a lot of work to do. It needs to be hard-pruned.  Wiring still needs to be done. All in time. The roots have been pruned back, the suckers have been removed and it's on its way to becoming a really nice tree.

I don't have practical experience with Mt Fuji Cherry trees. I don't know if hardwood cuttings will take and I don't know if root cuttings will take. I don't really know how suckers will do. Seems to me that suckers are just doing their best to be their own trees already, so I would think they would be a great propagation candidate. I've got nothing to lose by trying, so with that mind I started.

Like I've done with the Chinese elms in the past, I took some of the roots I trimmed off and planted them up with the top part exposed. The idea being that with luck, the exposed part will sprout. Here's a picture of some of the root cuttings: 

Not too impressive, I know. But I want to document the progress. I did four root cuttings today. I have more root cuttings I can do, but the soil was too cold. I buried the other root cuttings for later. 

Let's move on to the suckers! I'm including a picture of four or five suckers I dug up:

 

 

These had the best root development. They have a strong chance of survival. I decided to place these on the top shelf.  I have another 5 suckers that didn't have as much root development. They should be fine regardless, but they're still a lower-quality propagation source.

OH! While I noticed some of the trident maple seeds are starting to sprout! Go figure.

That's all I have for now. 

I Ordered 20 Vine Maple Seedlings

 Quick Update: I ordered 20 vine maple seedlings (Acer circinatum). These are tiny; they should be about 3-5 inches. 

Vine maples look very similar to fullmoon maples (Acer japonicum). They are native to the PNW and are supposedly fast growers. They grow in moist forests, They're very flexible and strong when they're young. I hear natives used it to create hoop nets for fishing as well as baskets.

The grower instructed me to give them lots of water and lots of fertilizer. I'm looking forward to experiencing how they grow for me. I'll include pictures once I get them. 

Also, I started doing some pottery. Just more of the same that I've been doing.

All for now!

Weekend Update 1/21/24

It's Sunday night. I had a long weekend. I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I want to go to sleep. But I need to document some pictures from the weekend. As they say, 'pictures or it didn't happen'.

With that, let's start. I think I previously mentioned there was snow. It started to melt so I had the opportunity to do some things I've been meaning to do. Like, calibrate the headlights for the Nissan Sentra. And one of my pallets broke. Perhaps from the weight of the snow. More likely the pallet was a piece of shit. At any rate, I took a picture of the pallet I replaced. Mostly to document the trees I acquired last year and how they look after fall's heavy pruning. 

Let's start with the pallet I ended up replacing. On it are mostly crabs, but you can see mugo pines and ginkgo trees on the left. Below the bench are cloth bags as well as an ongoing project with some bark.

Another picture of crab apples. Those are 3-gallon pots. 

This picture shows mostly crab apples, but you can also see some of my Japanese black pine (JBP) on the left.

Here's a close-up picture of a mugo pine. Yes, I know there's an awful lot of weeds in my trees. Don't judge me.

 

The JBP seedlings I ordered arrived. I was expecting 4-inch pots, ready for one-gallon pots. Instead, I received trees that were in 2-inch plugs and ready for 4-inch pots. Oh well. I wired and potted them up. Here's a picture of a sample JBP I received.

Here's another picture of the same JBP in a 4-inch pot. I sent this picture to the grower to let him know I was disappointed in the size. Regardless, I still think I got a good deal for the seedlings. Just not as good as I originally thought! :)

 

Group picture of the JBP's, all potted up in their 4-inch pots. I didn't include the picture of the 20 one-gallon nursery pots I purchased and am now not using. Yeah, I'm a bit cheesed. Just a little.

Anyways, that's all I have for now!