Villages Bonsai Club Learns Rafting
Bud Stout, a member of The Villages Bonsai Club,
talks about how he is shaping this ficus bonsai.
A ladybug hitched a ride to Paradise Center on Ray Borntraeger's prematurely aged jade plant.
"Oh, good luck," a smiling Borntraeger said, spying the insect on a succulent green leaf. "We'll just leave it there."
Borntraeger's plant was a mere 2 years old. The bonsai technique, however, had caused the plant - with its gnarled bark-like stalks - to look as though it was hundreds of years old.
"That's what's amazing about it," Borntraeger said. "They age quickly."
Sensing that others at the Friday afternoon meeting of The Villages Bonsai Club would like to have their own miniature jade plants, Borntraeger offered three potted root cuttings to anyone who wanted them.
Borntraeger was welcome to discuss his plant during the show and tell portion of the meeting. But the program for the day focused on the bonsai rafting technique.
As explained by Bud Stout, club president, rafting basically involves cutting away all but a few select branches of a bonsai tree and burying the tree sideways. At that point, remaining branches extend outward and upward from the soil.
"Pretty soon," Stout said, referencing a rafted ficus bonsai owned collectively by the club, "this is going to be a forest."
And the creation of a forest from one plant was the exact purpose of doing rafting.
Stout said he gradually would trim back the original root ball of the tree while the new root system develops. He estimated the original root ball would be eliminated in about two to three years.
Jill Sherman is a reporter with the Daily Sun. She can be contacted at 753-1119, ext. 9253.
"Oh, good luck," a smiling Borntraeger said, spying the insect on a succulent green leaf. "We'll just leave it there."
Borntraeger's plant was a mere 2 years old. The bonsai technique, however, had caused the plant - with its gnarled bark-like stalks - to look as though it was hundreds of years old.
"That's what's amazing about it," Borntraeger said. "They age quickly."
Sensing that others at the Friday afternoon meeting of The Villages Bonsai Club would like to have their own miniature jade plants, Borntraeger offered three potted root cuttings to anyone who wanted them.
Borntraeger was welcome to discuss his plant during the show and tell portion of the meeting. But the program for the day focused on the bonsai rafting technique.
As explained by Bud Stout, club president, rafting basically involves cutting away all but a few select branches of a bonsai tree and burying the tree sideways. At that point, remaining branches extend outward and upward from the soil.
"Pretty soon," Stout said, referencing a rafted ficus bonsai owned collectively by the club, "this is going to be a forest."
And the creation of a forest from one plant was the exact purpose of doing rafting.
Stout said he gradually would trim back the original root ball of the tree while the new root system develops. He estimated the original root ball would be eliminated in about two to three years.
Jill Sherman is a reporter with the Daily Sun. She can be contacted at 753-1119, ext. 9253.
posted by Davor Novakovic @ Sunday, May 08, 2005
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