Page 38 - BSAM 2015 Q4

Photographed in September 2014. The pot is 6 inches deep, 22 inches wide, and 17 inches from front to back. Internal depth is about 5 1/4 inches. The tree blooms beautifully but has never set berries, even using fertilizer with a relatively high phosphorus content.
The photo in the oval on facing page was taken late September 2015. The pot is slightly smaller than the pot used in 2014.
This tip of a branch shows both berries and compound leaves. The leaves are four- and-three-quarters inches long, have ve to six sets of horizontally opposed lea ets with the longest about two-and-a-quarter inches, and grow out at about a 180-degree angle from one another.
180-degree angle from one another. e berries on this tree fall on the sidewalk, get stuck in the treads of shoes and get tracked into the house. To avoid this takes a conscious strategy suitable to the situation but it makes extra work. However, the trees are dioecious. e male (no berries) is available for people who like the tree but not the berries.
The Brazilian pepper bonsai shown above took about 30-35 years and two people to develop. Steve got it from B J Patterson, who planted the tree in a deep (15-gallon) plastic pot to develop the trunk rst. How does one develop a bonsai like this? With a lot of pinching back while balancing trunk and branch development. Using a tree that already has the correct trunk size means cutting the top o the tree to reduce its height. at results in either a stub that requires years to grow a new top or must be shaped to look as if it had been killed naturally, perhaps by lightning. Bald cypresses lend themselves to the latter treatment.
Why would one want to develop a bonsai like this? It’s sort of like the comment Sir Edmund Hillary made about climbing Mt. Everest. Politely expressed, it be- came “Because it was there.” What Hillary actually said was “Well, George, we knocked the bastard o .” Steve is a gi ed bonsai artist with an unusual ability to grow and design and this tree provided a real chal- lenge. So when he got the plant from B J, he set about climbing his own Everest. Steve doesn’t curse so he would not have repeated Hillary’s comment.
e usual requirements for bonsai are a tree, a pot, sun, soil, water, fertilizer, regular trimming (regularly
36 | BCI | January/February/March 2016
California, the landscapes are slowly being converted into xeriscapes. Many of the succulents being planted can survive on no more than a sprinkling of water on the soil. Some accommodation is made for yards that have trees–enough water is provided to keep the trees alive. e trees are kept for good reasons: they provide enough shade to change the temperatures in yards, they collect dust, take in carbon dioxide, throw o oxygen and provide seasonal beauty with owers and berries.
This tip of a branch, above, shows both berries and compound leaves. The leaves are four-and- three-quarters inches long, have ve to six sets of horizontally opposed lea ets with the longest about two-and-a-quarter inches, and grow out at about a