So, whats the update about? Tent stakes and jute twine, of course! The Laughing Buddha Peter Pepper bonchi has been having a growth spurt, and has some nice long branches on it now. Problem is, they're all going straight up, as peppers are want to do. I however want this bonchi to have a nice canopy so that it looks like its shading Buddha underneath, and peppers are not known for growing low flat canopies.
Problem number two, I don't like wiring bonsai. Sure, its great on bonsai trees that are rigid and have to be held in place for 6 months or even years at a time for them to hold their shape. Its the only practical way of shaping the branches. However, peppers are not trees. Their green growth is very flexible, plus I'm not interested in tying the branches into knots, I just want them to be more lateral. So, instead of spending all day trying to wire this thing again, I went for a... "less intricate" method.
I tied it down like a tent.
These are just super cheap aluminum tent spikes from Walmart that I had laying around, and some jute twine I bought from the craft department. All I did was put the spikes down in the pot, loop the twine through them, and tied the branches down with a simple square knot. If I cinched it a little too tight and pulled the branch too far down, I simply pulled the stake up a little bit until I got the branch angle I wanted.
Unlike trees, peppers can take this kind of extreme bending pretty easily with the new growth, although if you look closely you might see where I bent one a little too far and broke it off. No worries though, it was a small branch and I found a suitable replacement for it anyway. The biggest branch bent over easily, you can see it there quite well in the second picture.
Now I can just leave it like that for a while. The limbs will start growing new branches pointing up again as the main branch lignifies to where it will hold it's shape on it's own, and then I can do the same thing to those new branches to get a nice flat bottomed canopy. Added benefit, this jute twine is pretty thick, and not tightly coiled around the branches so it won't bite into them. No worries about scarring the branch this way!
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Other misc updates, the Reapers are still growing slowly. We've had some nights of low 50's to upper 40's which will stall pepper growth, but I'm hoping some slowed above ground growth will help promote faster root growth as they try to dig down for some warmth.
I have no idea if thats true or not, but its a more productive line of thinking than "they're just sitting there doing nothing".
I'm also hoping to see good results from the tent pegs used above to use on the Reapers later. I want a twisted trunk for the main Reaper bonchi, and tying it down with twine and stakes to pull it in the directions I want it to go is going to be a LOT easier than trying to wire it or digging it up to replant at an angle.
Also some disappointing results from the weird Halloween plant. Thats it on the bottom there, and you can see its quite green now. There's some black shading to the leaves, but they are no longer solid jet black. Mixed bag though, because one of the others (the one that is unfortunately in the shadow of my phone) is now displaying more black on the leaves, while the two on the left (the free growing on the far left, and the one on the skull in the middle) have no black at all on their leaves.
Might still be worth trying to cross pollinate the two darker ones. I might still be able to breed up some solid black ones, just doesn't look like I was lucky enough to get it for free in a single generation's worth of mutation.
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