Live And Learn

RonMartin(deceased)

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.

Attached Images

soil.jpg (60.1 KB, 702 views)

Advertisement

Jerry Meislik

OK Ron which mix for which tree?

__________________
Jerry Meislik
Whitefish Montana USA
Zone 4-5
http://www.bonsaihunk.us/

RonMartin(deceased)

Could have sworn that I said the new soil was in the pot on the left )
But here goes.
The pot on the left has a mix of (the new mix)
1/3 fir bark
2/3 crushed lava stone

The pot on the right has a mix of (the old mix)
1/3 Terragreen (or Turface) Both are just about the same thing ;o)
1/3 aggregate
1/3 pine bark

The Grey stuff on top of the soil in both pots is the Dynamite (fertilizer)

HB Smith

Ron,

Akadama used at 100% would be too wet at any climate. It would be like using pine bark or fir bark at 100% unsifted for your bonsai. Akadama is best used when substituted for the organic component in your mix. Used in this way it seems to really encourage root ramification.

I also have had great luck with crushed lava instead of aggregate. The roots seem to fill the whole container volume better. Perhaps this is due to the lava's better water retention than aggregate but in such a way that the extra water does not yield root rot.

Perhaps you might consider your mix with akadama substituted for the pine bark, and lava substituted for the aggregate. That is pretty much the mix I have had the best results with.

Below is a collected juniper in training with this type of mix. This is a native species of Juniper (ashe) which seems to easily revert back to juvenile foliage when stressed. I believe this soil mix is part of the reason I have had success keeping the foliage in mature form.

Kind regards,
Howard

Attached Images

small_ashe.jpg (71.9 KB, 570 views)

TreeBay

I've frequently seen conifers planted in 100% fired akadama by growers in Shikoku, Japan. It's a different animal than unfired.

Regards,

Matt

__________________

Want to be a seller on bonsaiAUCTIONS? Get authorized today!

bonsaiTALK: Over 100,005.36 Megabytes Served this Month!

RonMartin(deceased)

You bet there is Matt. A world of difference. Wished more people knew that. Unfired it isn't much better than kitty litter. (my opinion anyway) Unfortunately it is a lot cheaper and that is what the importers go for. Biggest bang for their dollar. Losing card for the consumer.
But what I tried was the fired stuff. Just wont work in my climate.
We get these horrendous thunderstorms that sometimes leave 1 1/2 inch of rain to contend with in a short time.
Now when I lived in the Napa Valley in California that was a different story. Worked just fine there.

RonMartin(deceased)

Matt
Just a little off topic here. Well maybe a lot off topic but necessary.
About half the time I post I never get notified when there is a reply to the messages I post. Even the one I just posted does not show on the GENERAL page. It does show on this page however.
I did get notified when you replied but not when others do. Any Idea what is wrong.
Hope all this makes sense to you.

TreeBay

I have never used notification, so I may be the last person to ask. The way I understand it is that the quick reply box at the bottom of the page will not affect notification you have activated previously in the thread, and that if you want to be sure you get notification, use the Advanced Editor and check the notifications box and don't use Quick Reply.

A small number of notification emails bounce because some users have free email boxes that go over quota. So the only time I deal with notification is to delete the bounces. Then I put the users in a category called "Bad Email Address" which disables their notification and newsletter to prevent the problem from recurring.

If you are in the Bad Email Address pool, notification would be disabled, not intermittent. The list is here: http://forum.bonsaitalk.com/showgroups.php?s=

Regards,

Matt

I don't know what you mean when

__________________

Want to be a seller on bonsaiAUCTIONS? Get authorized today!

bonsaiTALK: Over 100,005.36 Megabytes Served this Month!

RonMartin(deceased)

I have been using that quick reply box lately. Maby that is it.
Thanks for the help. I owe you