Another of my hobbies

[Steve]

Here is the new ficus after repotting, pruning and wiring today. This is my first attempt at what is called a Windswept style, which is trained to mimic a tree that is standing against a strong wind such as on the top of a mountain and such. I still have some more pruning and defoliating to do but so far I am pretty pleased with the look of it for my first of this style. I also found some nice roots when I repotted it that I left exposed.

[Crfish]

You are one crafty and taleted guy! This would be an awesome thing to get into! Nice work as always  !

[Steve]

Well now comes the "patience" part of bonsai. I have a new one. This one was a Fukein Tea I picked up last recently. I transplanted it and I plan to do it as what is know as a "root over rock" bonsai. This one/style takes the longest. The roots are small now, but I wrapped it over the rock of choice and planted the rock below the surface in a training pot. Now the patience part....1-2 years from now it may be ready to repot as the root over rock I want where the rock with roots over it will be exposed.

[Kaia]

how neat!

[Steve]

Picked up a little Green Mountain Boxwood today to start it on it's pre-bonsai journey. Here's a before and after of it...

[mightieskeeper]

Can you make a bonsai that can be planted in an aquarium?

[Steve]

Can you make a bonsai that can be planted in an aquarium?

I actually have one in my 29g beta tank. It's not an actual living bonsai tree because it would not be able to live under water, but it looks just like one done this way. What I did was I took a piece of tap root from an old oak that had been dried out and cleaned, then bought a bunch of java moss and tied the java moss to the ends of the roots.  Here's a pic...

[Steve]

Thanks to Pete for the free 50g leaker tank  here's what I just finished setting up today for my tropical bonsai trees. For lights it has dual T12 40w 6500k daylight bulbs, plus a 24" "plant" bulb as well. The hanging incandescent bulb is to mainly just add some heat to the closed off tank. Also have a fan mounted up top to just move a little air around.

Mounted a thermometer/hygrometer inside it and the readings before water/heat were added (normal house readings) were Humidity-42% Temp-70F. After adding water and turning everything on it was Humidity-72% Temp-83F.

The humidity seems pretty good, it's enough to keep the front glass fogged, but I'm thinking about adding a small submersible heater in a pan of water to bump the humidity up a tad more be I'll give it a couple weeks and see how the trees react to this first.