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!

Three Years Lead to This... Can We Pot It? YES WE CAN!

Okay folks, this was the big day.  Over the past week or two I've pulled the project Reaper from the beds, let it recover.  Chopped the limbs back, let it recover.  Now, I pulled the dusty old bonsai container I made for it WAY back at the beginning of this blog, nearly 3 years ago, out of the closet and went for it.

So, the question we're all dying to know the answer to:
"Was all of this worth it?  Does it look awesome?"

 Yes, yes it does.  It looks AMAZING.

Folks, this was all worth it, I've truly got a one of a kind bonsai here, and I love it.

Now, we're not done yet by any means, but this was a huge milestone!  Now we move from creating the bonsai to refining it.  To making the canopies fill out jusssssst right, and maintaining it.  But ladies and gentlemen, I present unto you...

The Living Death Bonchi

Up Potting

While getting ready to up pot everybody yesterday, I was digging through my used containers for something the right size, and wasn't finding anything.  I did however find the cat treat bins I had been saving.

Was saving them because I thought maybe I could make little hydroponic cells out of them, but I more or less got over my hydro kick, so, time to DIY up some soil containers!

Spray painted them all with some left over primer spray I had laying around (yeah, I have lots of weird craft stuff just laying around).  Roots don't like light, so never use anything transparent, you'll burn the roots and won't have a good day.

Then it was off to the store to buy some fresh new potting soil for everybody, and... I ended up finding really good containers for 98 cents each.  I think I used more than 98 cents each of spraypaint just covering those cat treat boxes, so I bought all of them they had.  Still had more plants to up pot than they had containers though, so I'll still get to use some of these I made.

Looks like I was just in time too.  This is the biggest of the Reaper seedlings.  It was just starting to get close to thinking about being root bound.  Lots of nice long, healthy, white roots though, which is exactly what I wanted to see.

And bam, everybody has been transplanted into a nice new container, much larger than the ones they were in before.  The Reapers (the good ones, anyway) got first dibs on the big heavy new containers, the ones I made got used for the blue tomatoes.

Everything is looking good, expecting to have plenty of big strong Reapers to choose from when it comes time to start the bonchi.

Full Scale Test Run

Its warm, and forecast says its going to stay that way for a while, so I've decided to run my first full scale test using the Halloween peppers I grew for this specific reason.

Now, I have an old skull prop that I used a couple years ago in a stem fusing experiment with three different types of peppers (they were a bhut, a scorpion, and a moruga, if memory serves) that ended up less than successful.  One pepper outgrew and shaded out the others before there was any meaningful fusion, so lesson learned there.  Anyway, I had this laying around.

Old photo I dug out because I again forgot to take a new one before I started.

What you see there is pretty much what you get with this one.  It was a hollow resin skull that I cut the back third off of so that it would lay at that angle.  Looks half buried, but the bottom is entirely open.  Had that laying around (if anyone is wondering, I run a haunted house during October every year, so yes, I have a lot of skulls just laying around), and figured I could use it again.

The dixie cup Halloween pepper has some good root growth.  Good enough that I'm actually a little concerned about the Reapers in the smaller containers.  They're probably good for now, but they're going to have to be up potted here ASAP if they're anything like this one.  Remember, the goal for them is to have good long roots that will be conducive to the root over rock bonsai style, so don't want to have them getting root bound early.  I'm using up the remainder of last year's left over potting soil for this, I'll need to pick a bag or two up when I go out next.

So, laid the Halloween out over the 2/3rd skull and spread the roots out.  Most of the roots are going over the front half of the skull, but made sure to send some across the back for good anchoring as well.

Now, instead of wrapping this one like I did the Buddha, I'm going to try just mounding a thin layer of soil up over everything.  Its maybe half an inch deep across the top and sides of the skull.  This is risky, that soil may not stay in place well when I water, and it will dry out quickly.  I'll have to keep an eye on it.

So why am I doing it this way, and why am I doing it now?  Roots naturally avoid light, they will try to grow away from anything that might peek through the soil, so I'm hoping that will help drive them against the skull.  While the soil will dry quickly, the weather is just going to be in the low to mid 70's for the next few days, then mid to upper 60's following that.  So its not going to be baking summer sun heat, that will help slow the drying out.  I'm also still in the process of hardening everything off, so it won't be in prolonged direct sunlight either.  That should make keeping it moist enough to not die until it re-establishes much easier.

Now, seeing as this is still a young plant, I will not be pulling the soil down on it.  While I know from experience that it can survive that, the process stresses the plant and dramatically slows growth.  I want this Halloween ornamental to get as large as it can (which is one reason why its in this large ceramic pumpkin pot, the aesthetics of the choice were not lost on me however).  This should be more than enough for it to thrive in for the rest of the summer.

First Germination

I've been watching these baggy seeds like a hawk after an accident with the one in the soil (ahem, some alert readers may have spotted my cat in the background of some pictures, three guesses what happened), and although it doesn't really show up too well in this photograph, I do believe its reached the point where it has actually germinated, but not yet split the seed casing to send out roots and stem.

If I'm right, and I think I am, this is the perfect time to transfer the seed into some soil.  No delicate bits hanging out to be damaged by the move, and pushing up through the rough soil helps remove the seed case.  So, time to sterilize some soil!

Now, people will tell you all sorts of things about sterile soil, and it is very helpful to have it.  Thing is, lots of those people will recommend buying it that way or using some kind of inorganic mixture, and I don't like that.  Sterilizing regular old potting soil is quite easy.  I just put a bowl full of soil in the microwave for 5 minutes on high.  That much heat will kill anything, and you know you're good when you take it out and your dirt is literally steaming like a bowl of soup.  Smells like a potato when you microwave it too, makes me kinda hungry.  After I take the soil out, its fairly dry, most of the water having boiled off.  So, to prepare it for seeding, I wet it back down.  With hydrogen peroxide.  Anything the heat doesn't kill, the peroxide will.  Any buggers that can survive that double whammy deserve to have their fair shot at my seedling, they've earned it!

Anyway, the container of choice at the moment is this self watering herb container I got a couple years back.  The clay pot has no drainage holes in it, but is unglazed.  It sets into a larger fully glazed container that holds the water.  The raw fired clay of the inner container absorbs water and then transfers it inside, kind of like a chia pet in reverse.  It keeps the soil inside at a nice slightly moist level at all times without having to pour water directly on the seedling.  Little roots are easy to damage, so you don't wanna wash the poor thing away.

And for now we have a temporary setup ready to go.  Looks like I had better spend my day off tomorrow cleaning out a spot for the cabinet, I just might be needing it here very soon!  Its fully painted and ready to be reassembled, I just gotta make room for it, and I think anybody can understand my having put off cleaning the junk room!

Name... That... Pepper!

Okay, my nameplate has been finished and someone picked it up for me.  Apparently the engravers forgot to include my screws, but nothing a trip to Home Depot for some brass screws and a few minutes with a power drill to enlarge the holes in the plaque couldn't fix.

I should have expected trouble with this.  When I placed my order (in person), they asked what I wanted it to say.  "Carolina Reaper" I says.  "C-A-R-O-L-Y-N-A R-E-E-P-E-R?" Seriously, we're in eastern Tennessee, I can almost throw a rock and have it land in South Carolina.  And how can you not spell Reaper correctly?

Oh well, whats done is done, and I have my nameplate.

I originally wanted it to have the name of the project along with what kind of pepper it was, but seriously, these people couldn't figure out Carolina Reaper (they said "I thought it sounded like some kind of tree", so I guess they were at least somewhat close), so didn't want to have to try and explain "Living Death" to them.  Claimed they couldn't get it all on one tag anyway.  I don't know what kind of hardware they have for making these things, but you'd think putting a second line on this thing would have been an option, but oh well.

Drilled the screw holes into the base, added some epoxy glue, screwed the bolts in, got it up on a table letting everything set up.  And with that, the container for the project is 100% complete!

Containment Status: 98%

And I think we're mostly done with the container, ladies and gentlemen.  Everything has dried and been sealed with a gloss enamel (including the moss), the facing has been decided on (ended up being obvious after I realized it had a facing that was more or less flat and attractive), and even the skull burial depth after realizing how much soil depth was available to work with.  This skull bonsai container is ready to rock!

I do have one final thing I want to do with it though.  There is a nice fairly flat overall area in the front at the bottom that would be perfect for a nameplate.  going to head over to the local plaque store and see how much it would cost me to get a nice looking brass nameplate with the name of the project and the type of pepper I'll be using to affix to the front.

In the mean time, enjoy this pencil sketch I found on the internet (no clue where it originated from) that shows the basic idea I'm going for.

Which End is the Front?

Playing around with the skull and the container now that I have it more or less finalized, and I realized something.  I've just been assuming one side was the "front".  Namely, this one:

Red arrow added for orientation purposes.

But then I started looking at it from other angles, and saw some interesting possibilities.

This one has been rotated 90 degrees clockwise, and its got an interesting combination of the higher built ridge (that forms a back collar in the original front assumption) being on the right, and the small jutting section being sent out towards the viewer.  Now, the build up on the right is interesting not only because it looks neat, but because I think I've about talked myself into trying the eye socket position for the plant, which would be on the left.  The higher bank on the right would help counterbalance the plant on the left.

Flip it around the other way, and the view isn't as dynamic, but it reads more like sitting on a log due to the grain in the jutting section that is now on the right, and there's something to be said for a skull sitting on a half rotten log.

But really, I think the choices are between the first two options, what I'm going to refer to for now as Portrait mode and Landscape mode.  Portrait mode is how I built it, with the back being higher than the front so that there's a lot of depth to it.  It clearly has a foreground, a midground, and a background.  Landscape mode though shows off more detail in the driftwood, and has a more dynamic foreground and midground, but no background at all.  But then, do we need a background?

I'm really thinking #2 may be the new front of this thing.  What do you think?  What makes a better bonsai display, portrait or landscape? Or the hidden third option which is half way in between the two, like I used for the blog header image?  Only problem there is that while it looks good in the picture, it feels kind of clunky in person.

And I'll Form the Head!

Finally had some dry weather to seal the bricking up and start final assembly of the container.

As you can see, I am using deck screws in the pre-existing holes in the driftwood (check back a few posts and you can see I got the pieces strung like a boa).  Forget glue, I'm holding the top of this thing down with good old fashioned steel.

Three deck screws in a triangle, each covered over with some wood putty that I can later paint to better match the wood make those nasty shiny screw heads go away.

And while I had the wood putty out, I went ahead and sealed up the inside gaps with it.  I'm not overly concerned about this part looking pretty since it will be below the soil line, it just has to be functional.  Once its thoroughly dried, I'll go over it with some sealant as well to make sure moist soil doesn't slowly rot it out.

That will be my third and final coat of sealant on this thing.  My general motto is that its organic wood next to moist soil, the ideal conditions for rot.  Better to have too much sealant (especially on the inside) and waste a layer than to not have enough and have all my hard work turn into a pile of mush in a couple years.

Since I was already working on the rest, I decided to go ahead and apply the moss to areas that didn't need any more attention.  Its pretty simple, just put some wood glue on the surface, and swirl it around with your finger to make a more or less even layer of glue, then push the moss into it.

I've got a lot of wet on here now between the moss glue and the putty, so its going to have to dry for at least a day or two before I touch it again.  Thats when I'll do final touch ups on the paint to hide the external putty, string out the moss a bit more where it looks too unnaturally clumpy, and then hit it all with one final layer of clear coat gloss enamel.

I did some test sprays of the enamel on some scrap moss and there was no visible change in it while it did stiffen it up quite a bit.  This is a good thing, as it will help make it nice and hard and hence more durable while still looking like natural growing moss.  Again, no point in doing it if its just going to fall apart in a couple years.

Then it'll be done, and I can fill it with soil and start working on skull positioning.  I'm debating on if I want the entire skull above the ground, or half bury the lower jaw so its mostly the top half of the skull showing.  I've kind of grown to like how that looks in some of the pictures I've taken for the blog here, so it'll be something to experiment with for a later post.

Impatience

I am entirely too impatient.  Odd for someone that likes doing bonsai, but hey, thats why I do bonchi with fast growing peppers instead of spending 10 years for an actual tree.

I just had to pull out the moss and do a quick mock up.  This is so going to work.

Frankly, I'd be out there spraying sealant on the wood right now if it wasn't raining.  Gotta remember to try spraying it on some test moss.  See how it looks, see if it hardens it up to make it a little more durable.

Bricking Up 2: Electric Boogaloo

Got the last of the bricking up done today.  Bit of slow going with that part as I wanted to use actual wood glue here to hold everything together.  Which meant doing one spot, and letting it dry enough that working on another wouldn't shift things around and make pieces fall out.  After a quick dirty stain (I just use dark brown apple barrel craft paint and water it down), the buildups aren't exactly seamless at this stage, but at least they aren't glaringly obvious.

I'll let the glue and the paint dry overnight to make sure its completely dry before sealing it over again.  After that I plan to use a drill and attach the driftwood to the base with actual screws.  I don't want to forget about it in a year or two, try to pick it up by the top, and rip the entire thing to pieces, so the big chunks are all going to get bolted down.  Then it'll just be a matter of flocking it with moss.

Oh, and I got the drainage hole drilled and sealed.

Might not look like much, but this is a showpiece container, its not going to be what the plant is left in outside in the rain.  It only has to be able to drain excess when I water, and a quick piece of broken pottery over the hole to keep it from getting clogged with soil means thats more than enough.

While I was out tossing some dead plants, I found one of the peppers I let freeze.  Although I was losing the light, I went ahead and grabbed some rough ideas of where to put the actual Reaper when the time comes.

(As usual, I'm using my iphone in place of an actual camera, so apologies for picture quality.  They look good as these thumbnails, just don't click on 'em.  I'm not bothering to do any editing on these things, just tossing them straight up from the camera, so they'll be blurry as hell at full size.)

1) Forehead

The most obvious choice for where to put the plant.  Means I'd get maximum roots over the front half of the skull, but may cause some trouble trying to get at least a few good roots going all the way over the back, which means there could be anchoring problems.

2) Eye Socket

This one would be a little harder to grow because of the need to get the skull buried at just the right angle during growing season.  Why would that be an issue?  Because if I go this way, I'd want to curve the trunk to give it a more windswept and active appearance, which means letting the trunk grow a bit at an angle before digging the whole thing up, rotating it to be flat, and then letting the trunk angle up again on it's own.  There would also be the potential anchoring issues of the forehead, only more so.  However, it definitely looks much more interesting as the plant seems to be almost devouring the skull as opposed to simply sitting on it.

I really have to admit, I'm loving how this looks, and the asymmetry of it really lends to that feeling of it being wild.

3) Party Hat

Didn't take any really good ones of this one because I'm not really considering it, but having it here for the sake of being thorough.  This one puts the plant directly on the top middle of the skull like a party hat.  This would be the easiest and the safest route, as it would give the roots an equal distance all around to cover, which means it would get a good tight hold all the way around the skull.  However, its the most boring and kind of dorky looking of all the options.  Kind of looks like a skull cupcake with a candle on it's head.  Which would have been good for the library book option if fate had so decreed, but not so hot for the forest floor theme I'm apparently going with.