All Things Change

Update on the original bonchi:

Things are looking kind of rough for the old girl.  Lost the middle arm earlier, and now its looking like the right arm is a gonner as well.  Luckily, there are some sprouts near the fork, so I'm going to be looking at encouraging that one to grow and pruning the deadwood above it back once it takes off.

Officially in unknown territory now, as I'm not sure how its all going to go, but hey, such is life.  All things change, and rarely do they go 100% according to plan!  Who knows, maybe in the end we'll end up with something even better.

While we wait to find out however, I went ahead and started up a new one.

This one is again using some aquarium/terrarium decorations I found at Pet Smart.  Small (dare I say child sized) skull and an arm with hand that matches for size if not entirely in color.  Side note, really, what is with all this stuff always being different colors?  Can't you make matching bones, Pet Smart terrarium decoration supplier person?  Anyway, hot glued the two pieces together (didn't bother with superglue, the gaps were too wide for that), and put an orange habanero on top of it.  Spread the roots around really well, between the fingers, into the eye sockets, so hopefully it will turn out well.  Should make a nice Halloween looking piece to have the almost pumpkin looking orange habs growing over this setup.

Update on the rib cage diorama, you can see the reapers are growing quite happily.  Going to let them have a few more weeks before we start on the pull downs.

Also a bit of a deviation for me, this one is an ACTUAL TREE!  Specifically, it is an olive tree as my wife loves olives.  Its too cold here to grow one outside year round, so if I'm going to have to overwinter it, I might as well bonsai it!

Bought the tree from a local nursery and pruned the top back by about half, and noticed that it had a small shoot coming out near the base, and then nothing but bare trunk up for the next 2 feet.  Said screw that, and started encouraging the lower branch.  Later, I'll prune the trunk back SUPER hard right above the lower branch to get it to have a nice bend/taper.

Heh, and just because I could, one rosemary from Walmart + 5 minutes with the snips = adorable herb bonsai!

Living Death Bonchi: The Next Generation

Okay, update on the original Living Death bonchi first.

We had some die back on the old girl due to aphids I was fighting all winter long.  The middle branch died back pretty much to the split, and I had to remove all of it.  We also lost some of the roots over the skull's face.  I'm afraid she just ain't as pretty as she used to be anymore.

I'm not giving up on it yet though.  There is a new shoot coming from the branch split that I'm going to promote.  With a little luck I can get it going well, and then prune back the two remaining woody arms and start a whole new shape!

But, just in case I can't, this year I've decided to start the second generation of Living Death Bonchi.  And this time, it won't be quite so simple!

Meet the new crew.

Yes folks, that is not one, not two, not three, four, or five reapers.  That is half a dozen of the little buggers courtesy of a local nursery that just started carrying them this year.  I bought at least a third of their entire stock they had set out for this project (because hey, reapers are a pain in the ass to sprout)!

Now, it wouldn't be a Living Death Bonchi without some death, right?  So what kind of bones are we growing on this year?  Found these little beauties at the pet store as lizard terrarium decorations.

Not gonna lie, kinda wish the skull had been just a big bigger, but it matches the rib cage perfectly so I'm going with it.

I've kind of gotten the raised bed spoken for this season with other veggies (like horseradish), so I'm going to do a container grow on this diorama piece.  Now, this comes with risks and potential rewards.  I've selected an old but large storage bin that is fairly deep.  It should provide more than enough depth to make the plants happy, but may end up getting really warm this summer.  I'm pretty sure this is the same tub I successfully grew corn in once upon a time, so it should be good.  It also means that there isn't a lot of room for anything to grow out sideways, which will help contain roots to only the area I really want them to be in.

First step, as terrarium decorations, these bones are hollow.  Gotta fill them up!

Pretty simple start there, mostly just making a pile of dirt where the ribs will go then smooshing it down on top, and then packing more in all of the holes until it was fairly solid.

For long time readers, I'm using the same process I did with the skull.  For new readers and/or those not familiar with root over rock bonsai technique, a quick rundown of what we're doing.

First, I ran the plant under an outside faucet turned up to a decent pressure to wash all of the soil from the roots.  Second, I place the bare roots down on the "rock" (in this case the ribcage model) and spread the roots out.  Some I push down into the openings, some I leave splayed across the tops.  Third (and not pictured because my hands were full), I packed a bit of dirt over the top of the roots to hold them in place (and keep the plant upright) while I moved on to the next one.

In total, I used this technique to start all six plants in their new homes.  Five on the ribs, one directly on top of the skull.  Once they were all in place, I simply bulked up the soil deeper all around.

Since I wasn't able to get pictures of it before I filled it up (the balance was pretty delicate and I had to hurry), I've overlayed images so you can see where things are.

So, the goal to this one is a "forest" style display with multiple "trees" growing in a thicket.  I'll use the same pulldown method as before to hopefully cover everything in a tangled mass of roots.

The biggest challenge for this is going to be keeping the individual plants healthy and happy at this extremely close range to each other.  Crowding will definitely be a threat, and they're going to suck up water and nutrients at a much faster rate.  Might even lose a plant or two if they get stunted and shaded out by the others, but I'll be keeping a close eye on them to try and prevent that from happening.

So, the old is changing, and the new are well under way.  Its going to be an interesting season!