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5-Apr-2006
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#1 |
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bonsaiTALK Craftsman
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good soil and fertilizer
Hello Bonsai enthusiasts, I'm planning on letting some of my bonsai 'go' and putting them in 1 gallon growing pots and start training them. Hopefully this will produce a thicker trunk,more growth,shape,ect. I have not mixed my own soil mix before and would rather just buy a good pre-made soil. I have a maple, juniper, seiju elm and ficus I'm planning on doing this with.
-Could anybody suggest a good bonsai soil for training(that maybe comes in a larger quantity)? -Where to buy this soil? -And a good fertilizer to use throughout the growing period? I've used some fertilizer/vitamin mix with O.K results, but would like to try something different. Thanks in advance  |
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good soil and fertilizer |
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5-Apr-2006
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#2 |
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Beginner
Join Date: Apr-2006
Location: Denver, Colorado
Country: US
USDA Zone: 5
AHS Heat Zone: 6/7
Posts: 62
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Hey, another Denverite! Hello!
I just did what you're thinking of, and I thought I'd put up what I did for you to think about and for other people to criticize. ;) BTW, I'm more-or-less a beginner, and I really wouldn't jump in and repeat what I did until a bunch of other people have something to say about it. After two seasons of really disappointing growth for many of my trees, I decided that this season I am going to go for bigger, healthier trees in more reasonable pots and more reasonable soil. I tried two varieties of retail bonsai soil that I didn't like very much last year and the year before. One (comes in a white bag) was mostly sand, and I found that it dried out fairly quickly, didn't drain well, turned the root balls into bricks, and the trees (junipers, maple) didn't like it much. I also tried the mix from the Bonsai nursery on Federal, and that was nice and granular, but it's pricey, and I found that it was really difficult for me to keep watered, especially during our hot summer last year (I don't have an automatic watering system). I wanted something that drained well, stayed moist all day or for two days in our dry summers, and didn't cost $5 a quart. This year, I got soil sieves (3mm, 5mm, 7mm) and made my own mix and repotted a couple of trees this weekend. If they do well, everybody else will get a new pot and new dirt this season too. I know you said you don't want to make your own, but the only stuff I could find around here is very expensive compared to $10 sieves and 30 minutes of sifting bulk components. Plus, I feel that if I make my own, I can watch how the trees respond and vary the mix as needed in the future. If you are set against making your own, I would go check out the mix from the nursery on Ferderal and see what you think. My mix is 60:40::drainage:organic. Everything is sifted, and I made a bucket of 3-5mm mix for smaller pots and another of 5-7mm mix for bigger pots. I don't know if that's really rational, but there it is. The 40% organic component is fine fir bark (sold as fine orchid bark, but I found 3cu ft bags of pretty much the same stuff at the nursery for $6). For drainage, I used 20% pea gravel (mainly for weight, very cheap at the nursery), 10% red lava (it's more expensive, and I only used it because it was on hand, but I probalby won't use it next time unless i can find big bags of it), and 30% Kanuma (weird yellow Japanese volcanic clay, popular for azaleas). The Kanuma was a bit of an impulse buy from the Tagawa nursery on Parker Rd ($25 for ~3cu ft). The healthiest tree I have is in a mix with some Kanuma, and I was really impressed at how that stuff and Akadama soaks up water and stays moist for a long time. You may prefer something else entirely, but I thought I'd give it a shot. Oh, and I really hate the look of perlite floating to the top of the pot when I water, so I suppose if I wasn't so biased, I use that instead of fancy Japanese dirt. The mixes look really weird, but I am shocked at how long they have stayed moist. I thought that with all the air space, I'd be fighting to keep them from drying out, but not so. We'll see how they do. I used shallow terra-cotta bulb pots rather than gallon nursery cans since I don't want to fight with deep roots later on in getting trees into proper bonsai pots. I have no suggestions for sophisticated fertilizer, I use regular miracle grow, and miracid for my azalea and maple. I don't think it kills trees outright, but I also can't say that it wasn't causing my disappointing problems last year. Anyway, I hope that gives you some ideas. I'm sure that the commentary that follows will probably be more helpful than what I've written. -J. Last edited by JR_Roosa : 5-Apr-2006 at 04:46 PM. |
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