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Bonsai nare-do-well
Join Date: Jan-2003
Location: Summerville SC
Country: USA
Posts: 4,653
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Live And Learn
I am constantly amazed by how much a small change can drastically alter things.
Lately I have been testing a slightly different soil mix than I normally use. A few months ago I potted two small shimpaku in Mica pots and put them in the back yard and let them do their thing. One was in my old mix (terragreen,aggregate and pine bark) and one in a new mix (crushed lava stone and fir bark) I put a equal amount of Dynamite ( a slow release 13-3-3 fertilizer ) on both and put them side by side in the back yard. The lawn sprinkler system supplied all the water for them so as far as I can tell they did get equal amounts of food, water and sunlight.
Did not style them or anything. No trimming of any kind. Just left them be.
This is what they looked like as of this morning. The one on the left is in the new soil. The difference surprised me.
Originally there were three of these shimpaku in the test program. The third was in pure Akadama but it soon died . Could be that I screwed up potting that one but I don't think so. The Akadama just held too much water in my climate for the shimpaku to do anything else.
Just to make sure this wasn't a fluke I will plant more of the shimpaku today using the different soils. Come spring I will check the results again. If they are the same I guess I will have to change my soil mix. First time for that in years. But then I am always open to improvements.
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