My Ta Prohm Temple, Day 7, The Bonsai Zone, Nov 2022

Somewhere in here Lost in the jungle Is an ancient Temple Tomb Raider Temple Hi everyone Nigel Saunders here it is The afternoon now last night I did a Little bit of Temple work and I've been Working on it all morning it's making Good progress last night I cast all the Blocks for the side entrance so there's One two three four five six pieces there And today I made the molds for the six Pieces that go on this side And I've cast another roof piece So I've got my roof pieces on here And then I'll be building it up With another piece like that which will Seal the roof up So that'll be exciting to get that done After that Um I'm going to have to work on a lot of Details They usually have some kind of uh Artwork on here one of the Sprites or Something a you know an imprinted 3D artwork maybe even on here something Lots of details to go I'm going to let these pieces dry for a Few more hours take them out of the Molds and then I'll have some more Plasticine to continue work I've got to Cast some more roof pieces and then some Detail pieces

In the plant room today I have a nice Hibiscus flower out in bloom Absolutely beautiful My yellow hibiscus over there The bloom is starting to fade but it's Still there nice and colorful And I have lots more hibiscus blooms on The way Over the winter I'll be working on all My tropical trees that are indoors Pruning them up cleaning them up getting Them ready for the next growing season So there's Lots of work ahead And it should be a lot of fun too I've been thinking a lot about what Trees to put on this Temple The temples in Cambodia the main trees The big thick ones you see growing on The temples are K-pop trees siba Pentandra I have one K-pop tree Here is my K-pop tree you can see how Tall it is The leaves grow in a cluster like this And they're the tallest tree in the rain Forest they develop a big buttress root System They're not very suitable for Bonsai I Mean you can grow them tall Cut them off and they re-sprout branches But they're not They don't get intricate branches like a Ficus or anything which might be okay I've thought about using these

It's a tough decision to make The other trees that you see on these Cambodian temples are ficus Generally Ficus benjamina Um You see them growing sometimes over top Of these K-pop trees so you'll see the Chunk of the K-pop and then you'll see All these And they'll grow like a Strangler fig in The branches of the K-pop and all the Roots will kind of reach down around the Trunk So there's two possibilities for trees I Could uh I could put Ficus here or K-pop But again I don't think the K-pop are Very suitable I think I'd just be fighting Keeping the miniature all the time and It never looked very convincing the Texture of the trunks would be good it Would match perfectly with the kapok Trees on the you know the real full-size Temples The other tree is the schefflera if you See the leaves of the schefflera they're Very similar to the K-pop They have that You know cluster of leaves So yeah it would be a good species to Put on top of the Temple The leaves don't stay that small on These schifflers

You know they get fairly large so it Wouldn't be totally convincing but They'd be pretty good you could Leaf Prune them manage the growth on them and You get fairly small leaves And most of the temple trees you know These k-pops they grow pretty tall They tall they're always cutting them Back because If they get Too Tall the winds come up And they can tip over and they can Actually break the temples apart so they Generally prune them They prune them when they get Too Tall Cut them off shorter and then they Re-sprout And so on so Yeah the schefflera is another Possibility and I can mix species on it Too I don't have to have just one type Of tree on the temple I could have Several Um Tiger bark ficus ficus is another one That would look good on here ficus Microcarpa The two little leaf Ficus benjamina Would look good Huh Yeah There's a lot of possibilities So I I have to think about it I've The natal Ficus is certainly one of the Better Ficus to use

Small leaves good aerial Roots fine Branching Cold tolerant That's another thing about the k-pox They don't like anything below about 12 Degrees Celsius or you know 54 degrees Fahrenheit anything below below that and They just die like very quickly So yeah they're not a very cold tolerant Tree I thought about you know the Willow Leaf Ficus 2 is another possibility Fine small leaves Great trunks look quite good You know there's a lot of possibilities You know even something like this Ming Aralia here Would look pretty cool but you know I Don't know how suitable they are either They would be all right My Ficus microcarpa gets nice small Leaves with uh You know good Bonsai techniques Tiger Bark's good Has a you know a Nutella Nutella Ficus You can see these leaves You know they kind of grow Almost like a cluster like the K-pop so That's one reason I'm leaning towards These as they do kind of look like a K-pop tree or they could be styled to Look like them Down here I have the pot that I'm Probably going to plant the temple in

It's a clay pot it's the right size So I brought that in I'm hoping I can Try it out With the temple today Lifting the temple up for the first time Putting it in the pot I may have to Space It Up From the Bottom of the pot So it raises it a bit maybe putting some Wood blocks under it or something like That or a piece of plywood or something Just to raise it up to the right height In the pot so it's not sitting down on The bottom of the pot So it'll be interesting setting that up And I'm hoping to do that today Once I get all this cement work done I have the heater on the lowest setting And it's plenty warm in the plant room Here in fact it's It's quite warm in here So I think all this you know sealing up Of the room is really working well I Haven't noticed any condensation yet Which is really good Because it's very humid in the plant Room at the moment And I haven't noticed any condensation In the plastic at all and normally I Would notice it So that's a good sign so far The Roof System the ventilation system And the roof Is working I'm going to head outside now and have a

Look and see how the greenhouse is doing It's quite a nice day out today there's A light snow The Sun comes out every now and then Let's head in the greenhouse and see What temperature it is Foreign And it is It's About 16 degrees Celsius Which is Ah I'm gonna guess about 62 degrees Fahrenheit I'll have to check and see how accurate I was Yeah so these These trees in here Like the whole benches are full of trees And these are all the trees I have to Fit in the house plus some of the ones Down here So yeah I've got to make room Or Get rid of some of the trees I do have Some duplicates That I could Um I could give away I've got some Jades so I have too many Jades you know I've got My thick trunk one here so I might as Well give away some of my smaller ones Uh what else It's not too much else

Um I have one planting here with a Hibiscus Hawaiian Hibiscus and a Baobab I've got doubles of those Not too much else Oh boy oh boy I've got Fire Thorn cuttings in here but Everything else can be given away I've got doubles of this hibiscus I Could give one of those away Um I've got doubles of this um mingarelia One of those could go Now here's my other hibiscus here this Is the taller one so I'd keep this one Give away the others Yeah there's not too many other Duplicates Um And I do want to keep all my succulents I like those it's nice developing those Into you know succulent bonsai Over here is my silk floss trees these Are another siba or seba uh the kind That grow in rainforest these are the Ones that get the big spikes on the Trunks Really really cool Um Again they're not very suitable for Bonsai I mean you can grow a great root System You cut them off they grow again you cut Them off they grow again they don't get A lot of branches and even when you get

A branch like here If you don't really manage the Vigor of Both branches one will take off and the Other will die away so it always wants Kind of a single trunk line And they grow tall like this is right up To the roof of the greenhouse So yeah they're not a very good tree for Bonsai but they can be made into a Bonsai I've seen some really large ones That look good It's nice in here the sun's coming out You can see how low the sun is on the Horizon here now let me just show you That like it's the afternoon now And the Sun is just barely above the Fence here The bench here is in the shade This one's in the Sun Let's go have a look at some of the Trees with snow on them so here's my Birthday Pine the Scots pine Looks pretty cool with snow on it The large Forest here Quite a snow load on it Wow That looks cool Here's my little Bird's Nest Spruce Looks like a Dr Seuss tree My Austrian pine back here My Cathedral style Cedar There's my Juniper which is tipped over Oh dear Better get that upright

There's the cedar Forest I had in the Toronto show Just as a light dusting of snow The Douglas Firs here Cool Here's my bog Forest my Northern bog Forest Wow My Scots pine Root over Rock here it's looking nice The canopy looks really good there The Avatar Grove Wow quite a canopy of snow on that one Here's my Scots pine In shanny's pot Quite a snow load on that one too The elm Forest here It's lost all its leaves It's going to be really fun working on This rearranging the trees I think with The greenhouse Because it doesn't go below freezing I Can work On these trees all through the winter Like my hearty trees repotting them Keeping them from freezing and I think They'll do just fine so I can really Spread out that repotting season this Year It's so beautiful out here but I've got To get back inside I have a presentation To put together For tomorrow night's meeting I've got to mix up some Bonsai soil

Because I'm doing a repotting Demonstration So I've got to have soil on hand pick Out pots My tree all that kind of stuff I'm going to be working on a tree for The temple planting So I don't know How far I'll get I may not actually Plant it on the temple but I might Prepare it for planting on the temple I don't know we'll see It all depends on what the root system Is like on the trees that I bring I can see a layer of snow on the plant Room roof which is a good sign that it's Not melting away rapidly it means the Roof is insulated quite well The trees downstairs are doing quite Well it's not all that cold down here Yet It stays fairly warm in the basement Here until it gets really cold outside And then the temperature kind of drops In the basement but for most of the year It stays quite Pleasant down here Certainly above freezing at all times That's for sure It is much later in the evening now it's Dark outside I think my pieces have Dried enough here that I can take them Out of the molds and assemble them to The temple all right let's start with This one so I'll try and

Crack the pieces off the side here Carefully So there I go there's my Pieces for the side of the temple here Now here comes my roof piece I only had enough plasticine to cast one Roof piece this will be tricky I hope it Doesn't break because this is a You can see the cement isn't really that White in color it's still pretty soft But I've got a I've got to get this on tonight And then make more molds for tomorrow Morning and that's it then I have to go To Toronto That's all the work I can do in the Temple Hasn't broken so far Oh look at that Nice perfect casting I'll take away all my Rubble here I'll be making lots of uh you know ruins All around this In the eventual planting So it'll look very uh run down looking But that'll be coming in the future So now I've got to rotate the temple So I can get Access to the side of it so here I go Out of the way Foreign Okay so here's the side I'm going to Build up I also need to just clean up the pieces

You see there's a bit of flashing from The mold there So I just kind of gently round the edges So it looks more like a stone block Okay here I go block number one All right I'm going to clean up this Area now The paintbrush Okay I think that's Cleaned up very well Maybe a few more little details To clean up in the end but I think that's basically got That section Complete as I can I have to get more of These roof pieces and cast before I can Finish it off I'm going to rotate the temple now back To the front I still haven't picked it up so I don't Know how heavy it is I know it's heavy but Hoping it's not too too bad I guess I'll find out eventually Here's a look at the temple now Foreign I've been working away making molds for The roof pieces so I've got five molds Ready for pouring of my roof piece and That'll complete these roofs I need Three sections here And two over here so that'll complete The Kind of rounded roof

So I'll get those poured let them dry Overnight And assemble them in the morning Piece number five port so I'll let that Set a bit then I'll scrape them flush at The top Make sure they're all Nice and level It's quite late at night now so I think That is it for tonight I got my remaining roof pieces cast They're drawing I was going to lift the temple up and Place it in the pot tonight I'm thinking Because I've just cemented all those Pieces And I did a little cement work up top And I'm not sure where else I don't want To pick it up and have pieces fall off So I'm going to wait until tomorrow I Know it's kind of last second but I'm going to lift it tomorrow And I'm going to put it in the pot try It out see what it looks like It'll be interesting I have no idea what Pot would suit this planting Yeah it'll be very interesting to see If worse comes to worst I can always Make a custom cement pot Um that would be interesting too But I think I think a clay pot will look good So yeah that is it for tonight I'm very

Very happy with the progress of the Temple I just hope it's strong enough to Pick up and move around And it's not too heavy I guess I'll find Out tomorrow There will be lots more Temple work Coming up I've still got a lot of Detailing to do in the temple I'm going To plan out where I put the trees maybe Even plant some I'm not sure yet but uh That's coming up so that's it for today I'm Nigel Saunders thanks for joining me In the Bonsai Zone