Benito's Bonsai Blog

Sorry for the delay

2009-10-13T00:44:00.007-05:00

It's been awhile since my last post, been busy with a bunch of stuff. I had a hard drive go bad so I transitioned over to windows 7, so I spent a lot of time getting all my stuff back up and running among other assorted BS that affected my free time. So I moved my trees to the office. That way I get to see them. I'm a cheap bastard so I tend to set the heater to wait till its 65 before it turns on so they will probably be better off there anyway.

The Desert Rose is NOT doing good. I'll put up a picture of it later, but its lost almost all its leaves. Its been getting cold so maybe thats part of its normal behavior but I dunno....

These pictures I took last week. I'll probably take some more tomorrow and post them.

The Jade plant is doing good. It was dropping leaves anytime the pot was moved. It's stopped doing that now. The new branches and leaves are nice and firm. I pinched a few branches off to see what would happen. I'm still waiting for results.

My Homie Ted is doing pretty well. I think he may have picked up some bugs from the office though. I work with some dirty ass people. None in my group of course but there's some pretty grimey outsiders. I've noticed tiny cobwebs and a few spots. I'll hit it with some spray this weekend......Holy crap! I just compared this picture of Ted to the last one I posted a month ago. You can really see how much he's been growing. The other two haven't had this kind of explosive growth.

Mister Bond seems to be doing ok. Not much to say about him right now. He's just chillin.

That concludes todays long overdue post. Again these pictures are from last week, so I will take recent ones tomorrow.

Growth Check

2009-09-11T20:07:00.005-05:00

Goddamn Ted! You done been growin. I think I might do some trimming over the weekend. As you can see Ted's been growing like nobody's business over the last 10 days.

The Desert Rose is doing kind of meh, I pulled off one of the larger leaves, you can see the smaller leaflet has a wrinkled brown one. I'm not sure what shriveled brown leaves mean for this plant but I think it's from too much water, I have to do a bit of research.

The Jade is doing ok, It's been dropping more leaves than I would like but I think it's still recovering from the shipping. As we saw a few weeks ago UPS isn't exactly gentle on these guys.

And finally the Olive, aka Bond, James Bond. I think I waited too long to water it. There's some brownage in there. I watered this one with Ted last night so I'll be keeping an eye on it over the next few days.

The New guys, for real this time

2009-09-02T18:03:00.006-05:00

So first we have the Jade plant, this plant produces some really cool looking flowers. It needs a bit more growth before its appearance is presentable but I like the way the leaves are shaped. More information about the jade can be found at Wikipedia.

Next up is the Black Olive tree. This guy was the only one to survive UPS's tender care. Unfortunately the olive this plant produces can't go in my martinis. It's a shame. The lower branch seems to be naturally growing in what is called cascade style so I may keep it as is in order to experiment. More info can be found on the black olive at Bonsai Express.

Finally we have the Desert Rose. I hope this isn't what Sting was singing about because Sting is a bitch and I don't want a bitchplant. This guy is actually toxic, apparently native tribes in Africa use the sap from this tree to coat their hunting darts to kill their prey more effectively. The cats better stay the hell away from this one huh? More info on the desert rose can be found at Wikipedia.

Thanks again to joebonsai.com for their assistance and excellent customer service.

Yay New New bonsais!

2009-09-02T17:56:00.003-05:00

I spoke with Joebonsai.com and they offered to replace the bonsais with no hassle and no effort on my part. I didn't even have to call UPS to complain about their shitty service.

Before we get to those here's a picture of the schefflera....man that's annoying to type, I'm going to call it Ted from now on. Ted has been doin great and my lovely Debbie picked up this little chinese fisherman from somebody selling bonsai's out of a van in West Chicago recently.

I hate you UPS

2009-08-27T19:08:00.002-05:00

The new bonsais arent even worth taking pictures of.

Just a pinch

2009-08-25T15:47:00.003-05:00

I pinched off three fairly large leaflets today. The removal is circled below. I'm interested to see if I get multiple new buds at the pinch points or if nothing will happen. I'm expecting 3 new bonsai tomorrow as well. Can't wait to get them.

Bath Time!

2009-08-23T14:15:00.002-05:00

Being a tropical plant in a temperate area it's not as thirsty as it normally would be. Less moisture is lost due to evaporation. I fill my sink up and let the tree sit for a good half hour to allow it to soak up the water it needs. I do this maybe once a week. I find this a much better way to water it. Previously I was just adding water every couple days to the top of soil. This caused the plant to suffocate and the leaves would curl and turn black. I haven't had the dreaded black leaves since I switched to the sink method.

Growth Tracking

2009-08-23T14:09:00.003-05:00

Its been 30 some hours since the last post, and we can see there is already some minor difference in the size compared to yesterday morning especially in the top leaflets. I am currently debating whether to trim them and a few of the lower leaflets.

The Dwarf Schefflera

2009-08-22T01:00:00.005-05:00

Also known as the Hawaiian Umbrella Tree. I don't know why they call it Hawaiian since its native to Malaysia but it's still a cool plant. An advanced example of the plant is displayed at the top of the page here courtesy of Fukubonsai.com. If you'd like more information about the Dwarf Schefflera you can find it on Wikipedia.

Pictured below is my "Sheffy". I purchased it from Joebonsai.com and have been taking care of it since May 14th. I had it in my office for awhile but it didn't do too well even though the information I've found say it does great in the office. I took it home about 2 weeks ago and keep it outside on my back deck and it has been flourishing. Poor thing just needed some real sunlight instead of fluorescent lights from work.

I haven't yet decided which side will be the front. I want to let it grow for a few more months before I start trimming it. The books I've been reading say this plant is best trimmed during its dormant period in the winter months.

Welcome!!!!

2009-08-22T00:00:00.000-05:00

Hello there! I am Benito Juarez and this is my Bonsai blog. I have recently discovered the wonderful world of Bonsai and am throwing myself into it as deep as I can. The purpose of this blog is mainly for myself to track the progress of my Bonsai's. Any changes like nipping take weeks to produce the result so this will be useful for me to track what is working and what is not. I have no problem with you reading however, feedback and comments are welcome!