spiceoflife's Blog

I got Jack!
Aug 13, 2008 | 11:24 AM PST

Jackfruit sprout, that is. 

That's right, only two weeks after putting them into peat moss and placing them on the top of the refrigerator, one has sprouted!  If theyhave 80 pound fruit filled with seeds, and the seeds sprout this easily, then I wonder why the earth isn't covered from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn with jackfruit trees.

We'll see how it goes.

New Pre-Bonsai's
Aug 10, 2008 | 1:44 PM PST
Tags: pre-bonsai , New England Bonsai , Bonsai West

It's been a good week!

I went to both of the bonsai nurseries that I know of that are sort of near me and scored a few gems! Being fairly new to the subject of bonsais, and being fairly frugal (cheap) in general, I'm not ready to spend $20, $100, $1000 or even $15,000 (yes, they are out there!) on a plant with which I'm not very familiar. I want to be able to make some inexpensive mistakes before I make that kind of investment. All told so far, I've spent less than $100 on plants, tools, soil, pots and books; mostly books. And for that I have about 10 (pre-)bonsais that are doing well. Three of them are pomegranates that were started from seed, and one is the lotus seedling that I found in my sideyard. All of these were put into $.50 worth of bonsai soil and a $4.00 pot. Short money, huh!?

New England Bonsai in Bellingham, Ma starts their end of season sale in July at 50% off and the discount goes up another 10% every half-month. I also purchased a yearly membership for here so I save 10% on all non-sale items. On Wednesday I picked up two small pre-bonsais: a very small serissa foetida (tree of a thousand stars) and a small desert rose, both at 80% off, for a total cost of $3.20. In the interest of full disclosure, the 80% off stuff isn't their top of the line specimens, but I like, prefer and NEED the smaller specimens because I don't have the room for the larger plants. The desert rose had no leaves at all, but lots of buds. I'm confident that it will make a full recovery. The serissa's foliage was looking a little pale, but for $1.00 and a little shot of fertilizer, it's already looking happier and healthier. I'm extremely optimistic about both of them.

On Friday I stopped by Bonsai West in Littleton, Ma. I had been looking for an inexpensive natal plum and they had a couple dozen ranging from four-inch pots for $9.99 up to gallon pots for $19.99. I picked up one of the four-inch pots and chose the one I did specifically because it had an immature plum fruit on it. In a few months, after the fruit gets larger and ripens to a brilliant red, I can try growing those seeds as well. :-) As you can imagine, I'm really looking forward to that!

Both places are staffed by very helpful, enthusiastic, knowledgeable professionals and have a fantastic array of specimens. It's worth just going there for a walk-through. If the only bonsais you've seen are the ones in the small back section of the large home improvement stores, you need to check these places out and see what real bonsais can look like. They both also carry a full selection of pots, soil, fertilizers, wires and tools. They both also carry a small but significant array of specialty bonsai books and magazines that you won't find in the larger book chain stores. New England Bonsai also carry a very nice selection of Asian style stone garden statuary and lanterns. I wish I had some extra money to get one of them.

I highly recommend both these nurseries.

Regards,

<
p>Robert

PS: Just in case any of you are as cynical as I am, I'll say that I don't work at either of these places, and the only benefit I get from recommending them is the good feeling from knowing I'm letting other people know about them.

Once more for the cheap seats - Patience!
Aug 4, 2008 | 6:02 PM PST

Cool - One of my avocado seeds has sprouted, and with three stems! I've never seen this in any of the reports of sprouting avocado pits, but it's pretty cool. Maybe I'll have an avocado bush instead of a tree. And it seems like this one sprouted in no time. The last time it took almost 6 months for the seed to sprout. This time I think it took less than 2 months. It must have been all that extra heat on top of the fridge.

And, another pleasant surprise, I'm seeing sprouts on one of the malanga blancos in my front yard that I thought was dead. We'll see if it gets a chance to show any real growth before the hot weather starts to fade at the end of the month.

The lotus seedling is cute as a button now that it has recovered from having dried out. Everything else is good.

No activity yet on the jackfruit seeds. (What do you mean it's only been 8 days? Why can't they hurry up? What? What was that word again? Oh yeah, patience. Okay.)

My dad has been stopping by the local Shaws supermarket now that the fresh native corn is in season. Why? The store has a barrel next to the corn bin where the customers throw the corn husk shuckings. On his way past the market he'll stop in, pick up the bag of shuckings and drop them off at my house for my compost pile. How great is he, huh?

That's about it for now.

Regards,

Robert