Bonsai Buck

I don't make any claim to being a gardener.  I have always been intrigued by bonsai plantings.  But they reputedly take much care and attention.  My life has always seemed too hectic to consider becoming responsible for a plant that has been confined to a small container and needs constant trimming, pruning, watering and feeding.  But a couple years ago (shortly after I retired) I got the bug to give Bonsai care a try.  I mail ordered a cedar from a nursery in Dallas, TX (just down the road).  It was reputed to require the least care of bonsai species.   It  arrived in the early part of the year.  It came with a planter, instructions  and food.  I created a place for it on the bathroom vanity top where I would see it every morning and remember to mist it and talk to it while I prepared for my day.

Well, I attended to it faithfully.for several weeks.  I even did some very minor trimming and a little shaping with the wires that were already entwined around the major branches.  I  fed and watered and misted, but it seemed to get more and more peaked.  Summer was approaching.  Suzanne said that it needed more sunlight.  I expressed my concern for it outside in the Texas summer heat, outside of my direct sight - I was afraid that I would not remember to care for it daily..  Suzanne said that she would look after it, since she has a number of potted plants that she has to water frequently.

Not to drag  this out any longer, it did not survive.  It dried up.  The photos above are of it when it was moved from the bathroom counter onto the deck.  It was started out in a classic waterfall shape.  I regret that it failed.  Or that I failed it.

So I went to the local nursery and bought some other plants that do not require a lot of sunlight.  I planted them in clay pots and put them on my vanity counter.  I fed and watered them faithfully.  Pffffffttt.  Gone!  Faded away like a weed in Round-Up.

Last November my old buddy, Alan, from Salem came down to Denton for a visit.  We happened to pass a road-side Bonsai vendor and I stopped to inspect her wares.  They were mostly those indestructible cedar trees that I had already tried.  I passed on making a purchase,.  Following Alan's return to Salem he sent me a bonsaied plant of Hawaiian origin.  It came with a planter, decorative pebbles, an evaporative tray, food and instructions. 

The directions said that it was from a tropical locale {HI) and needs misting daily.  I dutifully collected together a watering can and mister.  Since we had recently acquired a cabin about  a five hours drive away at which we planned to spend a week or so at a time, I prepared a  cardboard travel box so that we could take "Arthur" with us.  I thought that giving the Bonsai a name would enhance his/her/its chance of survival, since it would seem more a part of the family.  [You will please note that there are three stalks or trunks - count them - in this little Bonsaied planting]

The left-most trunk did not thrive.  After just a few months, its leaves and outer stalks began to wither and fall off.  In spite of my daily misting and regularly scheduled feedings, it just withered away.  I finally cut it off at the ground - I was afraid to pull it up because it appeared that the root systems of the three trees were too deeply intertwined.  Since this loss, Suzanne visited SE Asia where she tells me there are Bonsai plants/trees everywhere.  Frequently they include a figurine as a part of the setting of the potted flora.  So Suzanne recruited a clay duck that had been my mother's and placed it where the 3rd trunk had stood.  This is how it looks today.  Arthur and the duck.