Bonsai Seed Myths

          For people new to the art of bonsai, the idea of growing your own bonsai tree from seed is often irresistible. In theory, growing a bonsai from seed can be a rewarding journey that allows you to give birth to your own ideal image of what a bonsai should be, but unfortunately, in practice, seed-growing is a journey which is fraught with frustration for the vast majority of beginners. It has been said that it takes 10 years of experience in bonsai before you understand how to grow from seed well. I share this not to discourage you, but to brace you for the challenge ahead. If you're a new reader, I would encourage you to check out the first post in this growing from seed series, "The Root of All Bonsai." In that previous post, we talked about the various alternative ways to start your bonsai and the advantages and disadvantages of each method. However, if you are dead-set on growing from seed, you're in luck! Drawing on my own 15 years of bonsai experience and the 60+ years of experience of my bonsai teacher Dan Robinson, today we're going to cut through the BS and dispel common myths about growing bonsai from seed before we proceed to analyze the essential concepts that will help you realize your bonsai-from-seed dreams in the subsequent weeks. 

         If you're looking to buy seeds for bonsai - full disclosure - I am writing this series with the intent to sell my own seeds for growing bonsai (see here). At the risk of sounding too sales-pitchy, I am sending an exclusive hard-copy version of this blog series to all my customers. The hard-copy guide will simply guide you through the complicated 10+year challenge of growing bonsai from seed. If you can't wait for our weekly release of future blog articles in this series, you will receive the full guide right away with your purchase of seeds. Thank you in advance for supporting my bonsai work!

Sections

1. Last Week: The Root of All Bonsai
2. This Week: Bonsai Seed Myths
      2A. "Bonsai seed kits are a great gift!"
      2B. "Bonsai seeds are rare."
      2C. "All bonsai are grown from seed."
      2D."Growing from seed is the best way to learn about bonsai."
      2E. "Bonsai should be pruned often and pruned hard to build their trunk."
      2F. "Growing from seed is a waste of time!"
3. Next Week...

Stay tuned to this series to learn how to transform these...

Left a Japanese black pine, and right a European beech. Both 2-3 years old. 

When to Repot

Source Material: March 2020

          It is crucial to prune roots in their optimal window because if roots are pruned at the wrong time, this is one of the easiest ways to kill your bonsai (aside from simple watering neglect). The repotting season also is a vague window that changes from year to year based on the weather, adding to the risk of confusion for beginners and tree death. For the bonsai beginners out there, after today you'll be able to repot with much more confidence that your tree will make a healthy recovery. If you're already a bonsai expert, I put some pretty bonsai pictures in that I think you'll find worth scrolling for either way.

Sections:

1. Optimal Temperatures for Root Repair
2. Swelling Buds
3. Advanced Exceptions, Caveats, & Disclaimers
4. Bonsai Bud Gallery

Japanese Maple/Acer palmatum waking up at Elandan Gardens.

"The Fruits of Our Labor"

Source material: 2017, February

          One of the most rewarding parts of my "apprenticeship" at Elandan has been the annual Northwest Flower and Garden Show (NWFGS) - America's second-largest gardening convention. Every year, some 60,000+ enthusiastic visitors fill the Washington State Convention Center. They come to see a variety of professionally landscaped display gardens, hear informative gardening seminars, and visit a wide variety of local vendors. Dan and his team from Elandan Gardens have participated in the show building display gardens every year since its creation in 1989. This year's Northwest Flower and Garden Show falls on February 20th-24th. As I prepare to help Dan and his son Will (also a landscaper and stone sculptor) set up this year's garden, I wanted to share my excitement with you all by highlighting the past years where I was able to participate.

Elandan Garden's 2017 entry into the NW Flower and Garden Show - entitled "The Fruits of Our Labor."

Spring at Elandan Gardens

Source material: 2017, April-May

          As you may guess by looking at my recent posts (or lack thereof), May and June were busy months for me. Unfortunately, due to weekends packed with multiple field trips for classes, the Puget Sound Spring Show (which I was on the committee for), a little collecting exploration in the Cascades, and a camping trip to Nevada to collect plants for my university's Herbarium, I was not able to make it out to the bonsai garden on the weekends as often as I would have liked and I did not take the time to put to paper the blog post ideas I have been accumulating. Fortunately, I have finished my exams for the school year and it's time to catch up on all things bonsai.
          I wanted to begin by sharing my photos of Elandan Gardens in spring so that anyone attracted by these floral views still has time to catch some of the late-bloomers around the garden (Bougainvilleas will flower periodically throughout the year, for example). Dan loves ancient and gnarly trees above all else - this is apparent even how he styled his Azaleas which in full bloom are almost offensively replete with flowers. Dan's passion made the garden into a unique setting to enjoy the changing seasons. Even trees that have gone through the cycle of the seasons a hundred or a thousand times still are willing to expend massive amounts of energy to reproduce - luckily for the sake of our enjoyment.

Dan brought in this giant cedar stump with a crane meant to handle multi-ton rocks. The stump is at least 10 feet in diameter.