February 2006 Meeting Notes

It was with his usual flare that Tim Kong started off our February program by introducing us to a little-known but fantastic bonsai potter named Sue R. Pipe. He explained that this potter worked over a hundred years ago and made some fantastic pots that are just waiting to be dug up from under all our houses, (and that they have a fantastic ‘patina.’) After this introduction Tim went on to say that the title of his program was ‘Getting off the pot.’

With the able assistance of his three helpers Steve Jang, Lawrence LeClaire and Paul Hrisko, Tim answered many questions about the particulars of placing trees on stones, slabs, and even interesting pieces of wood. Containers such as those manufactured by Sue R. Pipe need to have screen added to the bottom to make sure that soil doesn’t escape. This was true of the piece of wood as well and any rock or container that has a hole that goes through. For slabs, and stones containing closed-bottom pockets, drainage is provided by water running across the slab or through the porous rock pockets. For large slabs during wet weather the slabs can be propped up on one side to improve drainage further. For plantings on pieces of wood, the wood will last longer if it is soaked in water sealer, or Minwax wood hardener, but even after treatment the wood will most likely only last a few years.

Tim emphasized that anchoring the trees to the ‘container’ was very important and should always be accomplished with wire. The wire is anchored either by cementing or super-gluing the wire to the stone or by looping it through holes drilled in the stone or slab. Muck, a combination of shredded spaghnum moss, or peat moss, and fines from soil such as akadama, is used to complete the walls of stone pockets and to build a retaining wall around bonsai soil on slabs. On slabs, holes should be poked through the bottom of the muck walls to improve drainage, however this in unnecessary on most stones since they are porous and will allow water to escape readily.Tim spoke of the pairing of stones and trees and indicated that he

tries to follow aesthetic principles when pairing but is not concerned with whether or not the plant and stone come from congruent environments. Rugged trees should generally be paired with stones of a rough character. Trees growing more lushly might more appropriately be placed on a slab, with the precaution that the mound of muck and soil should not be excessively high so that it does not appear to be a knoll or hill but rather a meadow or field.

Maintenance of the plantings is minimal; watering of stone plantings can be accomplished by simply soaking the bottom of the stone up to the level of the roots in a tub of water. Repotting is not as necessary because the root tips cannot circle as they do in a pot. Refreshing the planting can be accomplished by removing the moss and top of the soil and replacing it or by cutting wedges of soil out and replacing them every few years.

Tim allowed his assistants to actually perform the transfer of trees ‘off the pot’ and then proceeded to offer constructive criticism of the results before the trees were raffled off. One of the demonstration pieces, a large boxwood, he indicated had been planted with a mound of soil on the slab that was a little too thick and too round, however this was partly because there had been a shortage of muck. He suggested that the winner would extend the mound in the future to be more irregular in shape and cover more of the slab. For the juniper that was planted on a stone, Tim indicated that he might have moved it to the center of the pocket a little to eliminate what he perceived to be a distracting negative space between the trunk and rock; however he noted that this is mostly a matter of personal opinion. He also indicated that he might have tilted the tree back slightly to move the apex up, although this could also be accomplished through wiring. Finally, some wiring was indicated for the over-wood planting to improve the placement of branches.It should be noted that there was a plethora of show and tell material at the meeting which helped to spark the imagination of all in attendance. Thanks are due to Tim for providing an interesting program, and to everyone who brought trees for ’sprucing’ up the room.

Tags: muck, Repotting, stone plantings