In the Zone and other Mediations (06/24/2024)

The fence is in; while I have no illusion that it will keep the deer out of our yard, it should keep the dogs in. Now, a few days later I already notice that we spend more time outside than before. Part of the reason is that the dogs can finally spend more time with us in the yard. Before fence we felt guilty being out there without them, the dogs were either whining at the door wanting to join us, or we had them out with us on the long leash and then they would wrap themselves around out seats, our legs or a plant, prompting us to get up and save them. Now they can just roam and play. They play like crazy and pass out in the evenings.

My time outside is divided between working on my bonsai (looking, watering, and shaping), weeding, odds and ends, and just sitting. First, I needed to reorganize my bonsai area or what we call our Bonsai Zone, a term that I stole from Nigel, who has a YouTube channel called the Bonsai Zone. It appeared that part of my “Zone” was actually going to be located outside the fence. I had temporarily moved my tables and now it was time for the final layout trying to maximize sun exposure on my benches.

It was never productive to put plants in our yard. Deer would go for them as soon as they were planted. We finally felt adventurous enough to do some landscaping now we have a fence. I have already shared some of the work we have done in a previous post. We have been trying to add native plants to our landscape, plant that usually get hit hard by deer. The fence may hopefully discourage them from entering and be somewhat protective. However, because of the past, non-maintenance, the garden is overrun with invasive plants. It is now my daily chore to pull out Japanese stilt grass, and ground ivy.

My favorite activity is just sitting somewhere in the yard and observing. As I mentioned earlier, the fence made it much easier since the dogs have free reign now. I already just sat on my behind with friends, with my wife and just alone. We have a screened-in gazebo, and even sitting in it has been great especially in the evenings when the mosquitoes are out. It is better now because the dogs can just roam.

But I enjoy just being on my own, observing and listening to the world around me. I look at the birds, skinks, and just the landscape around me. It seems that every time I sit out and just meditate, I discover something new or different. We just heard the call of the yellow-billed cuckoo. Going back in time we determined that we have at least seen or heard 53 different bird species in or near our yard. Our property is slightly less than half an acre (2000 square meter), and the back yard is half of that. But we try to leave it natural and do not use chemicals there. The rich birdlife is our reward. We want to keep it chemically free as much as possible.

All things considered, we are very happy with the fence and so are our dogs Japer and Radar. It is wrestling mania at least three times a day. They greatly enjoy being out, and so do we. Temperatures are going to approach 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 Celsius for the rest of the world) this weekend and we’ll haven’t see how it goes. The yard is shady; maybe it will be bearable, but only time will tell; I hope I can still sit out there, meditate and enjoy our garden.

One of the two Buddha statues we have in our yard

Sassafras in the sun

Adventures in bonsai (5/13/2019)

As you may know, my blog posts are all over the place, which may be why I do not seem to have a large following. But then, they are partially a diary for me that I share publicly (at least that’s how it all started, as a photographic diary); partially a way for me to educate my readers in some of the things that I believe in, especially in the natural and environmental fields; and sometimes to bitch about the political climate in this country. At rare occasions do I throw all these three subjects in a big hat, mix them together and barf them all out on a computer screen. My posts are partially selfish and for the other part altruistic. However, I want to change the subject today.

I have been trying to grow bonsai for the past 30 years or so. This is the 12th post of the 363 odd posts in my blog where I mention bonsai. I started out in New Mexico with seedlings and eventually ignored them. I never really gave up, my plants traveled with me from two locations in New Mexico to Ohio and finally to Virginia. When people asked, I grew bonsai, but I never did anything with them; I ignored them except for watering them. A few of my plants died, I never repotted them. Most of my plants still looked like the seedlings that I started in the late 1980s. The poor Siberian elms, the New Mexico privets, the Japanese pine and the azalea that I had started in New Mexico were holding on to dear life. 

Finally, about five or so years ago, I was bitten by the bug, once more (or I really never gave up). I decided that I better take care of them or get rid of them. My poor trees were root bound; it was difficult to untangle the roots. I tried a little bit, but I was way too careful; afraid to kill them. I potted them up in the hope the roots would somehow sort themselves out. YouTube to the rescue. It were Nigel Saunders from “the Bonsai Zone” and Ikbal Khan from “Mikbonsai” who opened my eyes and showed me that you could really hack at the roots and the plants could still survive. I have been doing this now to my trees the past three or so years to get them in shape, and this is not what I really want to write about today, but it seems to be working. 

So this winter, I used what I learned from all those YouTube videos, Google+ (rest in peace) pictures and had some fun around our yard. We had this huge (8 foot tall) privet growing that we needed to get rid of.  Based on some of the pictures I had seen, it would make a great bonsai after a few years when carved, so here I went at it. One February weekend it took me two days to excavate the plant cut the roots with a saw; some of them were two inches thick. After that, I stuck the plant in a tub of water and covered it with a wet towel (I had to go to my regular job). Two days later, I bought a big kitty-litter box mixed enough soil and stuck the plant in there. My wife predicted it would die, and I figured she was correct. Little did we know. Just look at the pictures below. 

Here I have just finished excavating the plant in early February.   It is too heavy for one person to lift.

After some more soil and root removal I was able to fit it in this litter box.  We were absolutely thinking I abused it too much.

Loo and behold, by mid March there appeared to be life in the tree.  There was hope that I would have a few branches to play with.

By early May this is what I am looking at, the plant has gone absolutely crazy and I have more than a few branches to work with. 

The weekend after that I figured that I needed to get rid of a mimosa volunteer in my yard. I had killed the mother plant 17 years ago and I still had the root trying to sprout volunteers. One of them was very tenacious and it had a 1.5 inch trunk that we had cut at ground level over the years. However, it had sprouted back every year. So, I put a shovel in the ground and tore it off. To my surprise, a root came out that looked like a 2 inch thick carrot with a few small roots coming off it, including one long thin root. I thought, “Nothing to lose” and stuck it in a pot in my bonsai mix. Well look at the picture below! 

Here is the mimosa.   Part of the root is sticking out, but my pot was not deep enough.  I did not dare to cut more root off.

There is an old abandoned asphalt road in the woods behind our home.  It is a favorite of bikers and walkers, alike.  It is partially covered by leaves and plants grow in it.  Once the trees get old enough they die.  One morning in January this year, I just pulled a loblolly pine seedling out off the litter.  It's roots were spread horizontal all over the asphalt, looking for that crack where it could go through. Guess what?  As you can see in the picture below, it is doing great in a pot on my bench and we'll see how it develops.  It is thanking me for saving it from it's imminent demise.

The little pine that I picked up in January this year.  I have no idea how to train it yet, or what to do with it.  We'll see what comes from it.

Finally, we have a sassafras tree in the back yard that was throwing off root sprouts. Again, this winter I cut one off. It just had a few roots, but was still connected to the mother plant. Not expecting much, but remembering Nigel’s programs, I stuck it is a pot with my mix, and the photo below shows you the result. 

Finally the sassafras.  I have not yet seen a sassafras bonsai, so we'll see what we can do with this guy.  For one, it is doing fine right now.

Especially the mimosa and the privet seem very droughty. I really need to make sure that I water them a lot. This is most likely because of their limited root mass, but I have high hopes they will survive and make great bonsais or fun bonsais in the future.  Moreover, all the plants will need years to develop into credible bonsais, but that is the fun of this hobby.  I recommitted myself to working with my plants; it is fun again and I will continue. My major problem right now is the lack of sunlight in my garden.

In one of my next post I will write more about my azaleas, two years ago I dug two up and this year I dug up one; however, that's what I thought, but it ended up yielding four.  More in a subsequent post.

Yorktown (11/11/2015)

The leaves are falling!

The leaf of a sassafras tree/shrub; one of my favorite species.  I just love the trident shaped leaves and while I do not like the taste of root beer, I love the smell of the crushed leaves which smell like root beer.  Old folklore tells me that in the south people would crush the roots and make tea from the roots claiming that the tea would make them better able to deal with the heat and the humidity of the summers.

Fall is definitively here.  It always seems to hit hard in November (see my post from around this time last year).  It is around Thanksgiving that I rake, blow or mulch for the last time.  The roads in our neighborhood are beginning to be lined with clear bags with leaves that are going to be carted off to the county's composting facilities (I hope), and maybe next spring these same people will bring some of the leaves back in a different form to fertilize and mulch their yard; although I would not bet on it.

Many of these people mine their yards for nutrients.  In one of the classes that I teach I surprise my student with the little factoid that fall leaves contain a lot of phosphorus and by us carting leaves of to the dump or to the composting facility we are really mining phosphorus and depleting our soil.  This forces us to go buy fertilizer at our landscaping stores and put artificial fertilizer on our lawns and gardens which we basically cart off again next fall.  The fertilizer companies  (and the garden stores) love us, don't they?

Our neighborhood has them all, there is this one guy, I swear, he gets the blower out when he sees one leaf on his lawn or driveway (he's obviously OCD).  My wife and I call him "Jack the Blower".  He has the leaf blower going for at least two hours every Friday, Saturday and Sunday (we are not home the other days so we don't know if he blows those days as well); one wonders what else he does in life, or if he has a life.  I feel sorry for his neighbors; who have told me that they actually caught him blowing leaves into their yard.  When we lived in Cincinnati 20 years ago, we knew an equally OCD guy (an ex FBI agent) and when we walked by his property we made sure to bring a leaf and  place one leaf on his lawn, just to tease him.  Boy, we were mean in our younger years.

But leaves are important, as I mentioned, they recycle nutrients and organic matter, but they also are the home to a lot of insects and other critters.  It is a lot of fun to see towhees and brown thrashers going after bugs in the leaves in my yard.  They do it just like chickens scratching away in the leaves, throwing them all over.

I took this photo a couple of days ago behind our home and titled it: "Fall massacre in full swing" 

But there is more, all the mushrooms that are out there are fed by the decaying leaves and rotting plant materials, salamanders lizards, frogs and a lot of other critters need them.  The fallen leaves serve as natural litter that keep  the weeds from growing; although, in some cases to much litter may be a bad thing as I complained about in an earlier post.  There is too much litter in the woods behind our home, which in my eyes has suppressed the native weeds and forbs.  The only way to remedy that would be with a controlled burn and good luck in getting that approved.

But again, it is important to mulch the leaves back into the lawn and back into the flower beds.  The organic matter, nutrients, weed control, and habitat for our wildlife provided by those leaves is so valuable!

Newport News Park (11/18/2014)

Have not written much lately and not sure how long I'll be able to keep this up without making it sound like too much of a diary.  Moreover, I've been asked to write a (text) book and I assume that when you start writing for a living your armature writing languish.  We'll see.

Fall is definitively here.  Tonight we get a major frost (early for this time of the year) courtesy of another year with a polar vortex.  I expect that all or most of the leaves will start raining down tomorrow after a night time temperature in the mid 20s.  Taking the dogs for a walk this morning I was struck (as most falls) by the variety of leaves on the forest floor and all the different colors.  An absolute gorgeous sight, made even better by the fact that I don't have the rake these leaves.  Leaves that I saw included those of the sassafras, sour wood, maple, sweet gun and some of the oaks (all shown in the picture below) on top of pine needles.  Further down the trail you see black gum leaves, persimmon and the sycamore.  Naturally in the woods behind our home there are a great number of oaks: red, white, water, post, laurel, overcup, and swamp chestnut oak.  I probably miss a few.  To me a great publication is booklet by the Virginia Department of Forestry on our common Virginia trees (click here for the link).

Of all these trees I mention I have a sweet spot in my heart for the sassafras and the overcup oak.  I like the trident leaves of the sassafras, it delicate yellow flowers in spring and its yellow leaves in the fall.  On top of that, when crushed, the leaves smell like root beer.  Not my favorite drink, but the smell is indicative of the plant's assumed medicinal value.  I've read somewhere that, in the deep south, the roots were ground up and drank as a tea.  Tradition tells us that the tea makes it easier for you to tolerate the southern heat and humidity.  The leaves are also used in Creole cooking.  I like the overcup oak just because the acorn is almost completely covered by the cup, and because it grows in the wettest locations.  They have been fruiting copiously, and I am sure the deer just love it.