Hi ya'll.
I'm hoping my picture is worth all of ya'lls consideration. I've Contemplated the possibilities for a considerable amount of time and I've come to the conclusion that this plant wants to be a bunjin bonsai.
OK, let me start at the beginning. I read about airlayering, so I tried it. I have a bunch of "Rose of Sharon", hibiscus shrubs behind my house and I like the flowers. I decided I'd try to take a thick branch off the back of the large (20 year old) purple shrub. It got to be late October and I figured I'd better grab it so I sawed the the airlayer off and put it in a pot(1 gallon, I think). Then it got cold. My airlayer had one root to speak of, I didn't hold much hope. BUT, low and behold the tree made it through the winter!
Now let's take a small break here. This "thing" where I'm at is a beautiful shrub with lots of wonderful flowers; that everyone (read: my neighbors) hates. It's invasive (please see
this thread by Will_Heath ), I don't know if it's in the list but; YOU REALLY CAN' KILL THESE THINGS!
I *really* like the flowers. I wake up in the morning from the middle of June through August and I look at these beautiful specimens from my window. I want one!
Now let's get back to winter with this. It litterally had one root coming out of the side of the airlayer site but I knew I had to cut it off. It was above ground, but not so high that I could ignore the frost warnings that were coming my way. I cut it and put it in a pot, then I buried the pot in the ground and I mulched the site.
Come spring I had high hopes. It wasn't the only tree I'd buried in my garden to ward off the cold
.
Now(
then actually as it still is yet to be determined whether I would have the guts to post when the tree's disposition was in question
), all of my trees have come out of their winter slumber, (I still have some doubts about my contest tree from last year; but it passes the scratch test) and my "Rose of Sharon" airlayer has begun to bud.
From the budding grew some braches and I confirmed my impression of a literati. Now I hope that you will pass along your opinion. I hope to learn from this and I feel I've been treated with kid gloves in the beginners section so I'm posting here. The background of the picture isn't great but I think you can see the tree.
My thoughts on the tree; I figure to change the planting angle to a more vertical position and I thought I might develope the lower branch to a second trunk, that would cross over (and almost hug) the primary trunk. The result being a multi-trunk bunjingi.
Any and all options that you might see in this tree will be considered (including the compost heap
). I haven't been up to this (bonsai) for long so
I hope to learn a lot from this.
Kind regards,
JP