Too many hobbies?: Bonsai lessons in the woods (11/28/2017)

When it comes to hobbies, I am multifarious.  My mother always complained that I knew a little about too many things: “A Jack of all trades, master of none.”  My mother was probably correct.  This is why our home is such a mess, there is always so much going on in our lives; but I guess that keeps life interesting.  We hardly have any time for TV watching.  I wrote about this a little bit in 2015, but after this weekend it is time to revisit this subject. 

My hobbies include nature and forest bathing, sailing, photography, bonsai, hiking and biking, to name a few.  This past weekend was Thanksgiving weekend and our daughter was visiting, which meant some intensive walking in the woods, or as we know it “#optoutside.”  Optoutside was started by an outdoor outfitter company as their answer to the shopping craze of Black Friday, where (I think) half of the U.S.A. goes absolutely crazy and goes shopping for deals and for Christmas gifts.  So, on Friday and Saturday morning we did a 3-mile walk in the woods, before lunch.

Taking the dogs for a walk, early in the morning before all the heavy walking later in the day.  However, it gave me the urge to look at the trail from the height of a dog's head.  Naturally they do not see red or green and have a greater sense of smell.

The two walks were a great excuse for me to combine a few of my hobbies:  hiking, bonsai growing, photography, nature and forest bathing.  The forest bathing part sometimes had to play second fiddle, my company became impatient at times with me lingering in the woods and taking it all up.  But I did have some time to assimilate it all, especially when they took our older dog on a shorter path home and I was allowed to take the longer trail with the younger dog.

During our walk I encountered this dead tree that was infested by termites and obviously, the woodpeckers had discovered them as well.

Jut a bit off the trail I noticed this tree with this large gall or growth.  At first I wondered if it was a swarm of bees or even a nest, but no it seemed to be solid wood.  I walk this trail a lot and it was the first time I noticed it.

I am trying to grow bonsai.  I wrote about that before, as well.  Some of my trees are as old as my daughter; they were started from seed by a friend of mine who was a native plant grower 30 years ago.  They are not perfect at all; I have ignored them for a long time and am finally getting back into them in the past 3 years or so.  They were root bound and in horrible shape; I am surprised that they survived my abuse (read neglect) for that long.  Some of my best specimens did die the 30 years of moving from New Mexico to Ohio and now the last 17 years in Virginia.  Since getting back into it, I have been following a few YouTube channels and blogs about growing them and learned a lot (I will post a list of the ones I follow below). 

In bonsai root over rock is a style.  During our walk we found a root over root.  Pretty cool how the dogwood roots are growing over the mature oak root.  I assume that the soil has eroded away, or maybe the oak root has pushed up as part of the growth process.

One of my favorite channels is the one of Nigel Saunders.  Nigel is very strong on developing a good evenly spreading root system and he encourages people to study the plants they grow in nature and try to copy them.  So, this weekend I spent a lot of time taking pictures of the bases of trees and studying how the roots come out of them (I also wrote about them before in that previous bonsai blog and in one specifically about roots).

One of my favorite examples of a well spread root system on an American beech.  There were lots of nice examples to look at during our walk.

Having little to no leaves on the trees, I was also able to study the branch structure in the canopy; although in our woods there is a lot of competition for light and the first 30 to 60 feet of most of the tree trunks are bare without many branches.  Still it was fun to look at.  Even in these situations did I see what Nigel alludes to about branching: the second set of branches coming out at about 2/3 the distance of the first set of branches; and that a trunk divides into two and then again divide into two, and so on.  All things to keep in mind when creating realistic miniature trees.  During our walk there was one slope where the trees had a particularly wild branching structure and I lingered in that area for a bit, and took a few pictures.

Last, a study photo of the branch structure in one of the trees during my walk.  Maybe something I can try to copy in the design of one of my trees.

After a long weekend like this I felt motivated and inspired to work on my trees.  I addition I feel rested but exercised, mentally recharged from being out in the woods, and I just feel good from bathing in the woods (figuratively that is, although I still would like to build an outdoor shower).  Naturally it helped that I got so many likes on some of the photographs that I posted on my Instagram site as well, for as the research shows even that give you an endorphin rush; you do not even need to go out into the woods and exercise to get a runners high!  However, nothing beats forest bathing.

Now for some of the YouTube channels that I follow:
Nigel Saunders
MikBonsai (he also has a great Facebook page)
Appalachian Bonsai 
Bonsai Talk
Bonsai & Killifish

Blogs that I follow:
Adam Levine (he has a great Instagram page)
Flemish Bonsai Blog
Robin Bonsai
Maros Bonsai Blog

I also love the work that Harry Harrington does.