A New Bonsai Project and Maybe Frost

Nigel Saunders. Here the weather is changing. Tonight we are going down to two degrees above freezing pretty cold, so I’m going to have to bring all my Tropicals into the greenhouses just as a safety measure.

In case we get Frost, I’m going to clear up some space in the poly house here bring tropical trees in here, and I may put the heater on just overnight to keep it a little warmer I’ll have to do some repairs to the plastic too.

Just to seal it up, so if I do put the heater on it’s not just going out the holes, it actually heats the polyhouse up. So I’ll do that today. I don’t have a whole lot of tropical trees out on the benches here, but I’ve got.

You know some big ones so they’ll have to come in for the night. Just as a precaution, I don’t think we’ll get Frost, but you never know it’s better to be safe than sorry when it comes to your tropical trees and frost in the glass Greenhouse.

Here I don’t have a lot of space, but I can you know, there’s a lot of empty space on the benches here and there’s a lot of empty space. On the floor that I can fill up. I did put the heater on here last night.

We got down to 10 degrees Celsius. Was the cold temperature last night, the coolest point, so I put the heater on just to keep it more in the you know, 15 to 20 degrees Celsius range keeping these trees warm Tom from the YouTube channel grow and clip Bonsai for seniors.

Sent me a new book, the organic gardeners Handbook of natural Pest and Disease Control, and it goes through all the beneficial insects, organic sprays. It goes through all the disease, symptoms and cures.

It’S really really good, and then it goes specifics into trees and shrub diseases. Then your edible foods, like raspberries, Peppers, pears, flowering species – it’s just amazing. It’S a really really good book.

So thanks very much Tom Tom is always so nice, blue, jay Bonsai calls him Saint Tom and I think that’s a pretty fitting name. So thanks once again Tom, I used to think that all tropical trees could stay outside until the temperature gets close to that freezing mark.

But I discovered with my K-pop trees. They can’t go any lower than about 12 degrees Celsius. My cashew plants same thing: they’ve got to stay warm and there’s a couple other species that can’t go down to those cooler temperatures or they just die desert roses is another example, so I keep those in the heated glass greenhouse and then my other Tropicals go in The poly house – it’s getting really stormy out here – I’m gonna – have to work fast to get all my trees in before the weather really starts cooling down tonight.

For my Greenhouse repairs, I used to use the clear Greenhouse tape kind of an UltraViolet high temperature tape that I could tape up my plastic, but I found this tuck tape works even better. This is used in construction for sealing up buildings, in that it seems to last longer before it kind of gets on sticky.

So I’ve had tuck tape on here for a good year now, and it’s it’s lasted really really well. So, even though it doesn’t look as nice being this red color, it seems to do a better job of sealing up the poly house:

The Pali house is all taped up: let’s go inside and feel how warm it is. I didn’t seal it up in the summer because it was kind of nice having a bit of ventilation in here.

Oh it’s nice in here now. There’S no wind really really warm. In here, oh that feels good wow. Okay, so I’ve got to fill this up now with tropical trees. I’M going to have to clear up some space in the glass Greenhouse I’ve got to fit my Yucca forest in here my cyrissa they’re, both fairly large plantings.

There’S a little bit of space on the floor, but I think I can you know, cleared up a bit here: move some of the trees closer together and clear up some upper bench space. So I’ll work on that. I made a lot of room along this side.

You can see the trees are kind of packed in this section, so I was able to fit my portula carrier afroforest in here. My Franken Ficus also fit in here so yeah. This side’s pretty crowded, there’s still a bit of space down here for a few trees, but yeah lots of room for the other ones.

Now Laura’s putting the plastic back on her Greenhouse. She had it open for the summer, so the rain could get in and now it’s getting sealed back up. I have got all my tropical trees either in the glass Greenhouse or the poly house.

I’Ll show you how crowded they are they’re they’re, pretty full. All right here is the glass Greenhouse. Let’S see how full it is, so the benches yeah they’re I mean there’s a little space up there, but they’re they’re, pretty full, pretty busy.

Looking and then down on the floor down here. Wow, that’s pretty busy. Looking too it’s stuffed so yeah. These will stay nice and warm put the heat on tonight should uh should be no problem that cold temperature.

Let’S check in on the poly house now it is also quite full. So I use my aluminum step stool as a bench down on the floor here and you can see the benches are rightful in here too, so that should keep all the trees safe tonight, it’s nice to get that done it.

It took a while. I did have a bit of overflow here. I couldn’t fit these in they’re cuttings, um yeah. If they don’t make it, they don’t make it, but I put them under the shade of this tree here. So, even if we get Frost, I don’t think it’ll be a problem.

Why there’s some dark clouds over here nice? The sun, though Forest, looked fantastic with this back lighting, a large Forest, the Avatar Grove, my Cedar Forest [, Music, ], the elephant Forest and the Douglas first.

I moved all the pumps and pails and watering cans that I had in the greenhouse out here. I’Ll have to find some space for them. It helped clear up some space in the glass Greenhouse. I’Ve got the large Mall Ficus all covered up, keep the frost off them.

If we get Frost, it’s unlikely we will, but you know again better safe than sorry, so there at least protected and they’ve also got the tree above them. So I think they’ll be fine. There is a very famous Bonsai called Penelope: it’s a Nick Lentz creation, it’s a root over statue, bonsai, a Larch tree growing over a garden statue and it’s a very famous Bonsai – and I was talking to the owner at the last Royal Botanical, Gardens Bonsai club meeting And I was asking him: has anyone ever tried copying that composition and he said no, he says many have tried, but no one’s been successful.

So I kind of took that as a challenge, the woman in the sculpture is the sister of Napoleon Bonaparte. So here’s a picture I found at the thrift store of the statue pretty cool, so I thought I’d look online and see if there’s any 3D models of it, and there is so.

I got it. 3D printed. Here’S a look at the 3D print. It was printed in three sections and it was printed vertically like this. So there’s a lot of supports here that I have to take away I’ll, show you how it goes together.

So here’s the one side, here’s the other side and you can see the two sculpture is in the middle here, and all this on the outside here is supports that I have to break away. So that goes like that. This goes like that and then the end goes like this, and the printer ran out of plastic, so the end of it is in a different color, which is no problem, so my intent is to cast this in cement.

I’M going to use the mold making kit that Scott wintered from let’s do bonsai in the UK, sent to me so I’ll, be using that to cast a rubber mold around here then I’ll, fill it with cement and see how it turns out.

While I have the cement out I’ll also finish my to prom Temple that I started, I think two years ago I can really feel the cool wind blowing in now, but I’m all ready for tonight. I’Ve got all my tropical trees tucked away safe and sound in the greenhouses, and I got some cool projects coming.

I’Ve got Penelope here. I’Ve got my to prom Temple to finish and I’ll plant a ficus root over temple on that and that’s all for today. I’M Nigel Saunders thanks for joining me in the Bonsai Zone.