Succulent Bonsai

Love those tiny flowers Tom.

I appreciate this thread being started. Like many of you it would seem, my start in love for plants began with succulents. I still have a much larger succulent collection than bonsai and I have been toying with trying to make a couple of succulents into bonsai and I'm going to make a 'penjing' arrangement using cactus/succulents in the near future.

Andre,
What a coincidence, I used to be the Secretary of the Haworthia Society in the '90s(see website for history). They are my favourite genus.
We were in SA in October last, but did not see any Haworthias in the wild, coach tours are not conducive to plant hunting!!
Just in process of updating my Haworthia talk to digital.

Better finish here or Jun will be after me!!!
PM me to discuss further
Graham

PS. multi trunked Pachycereus are bigger than many trees

graham walker wrote:Andre,
What a coincidence, I used to be the Secretary of the Haworthia Society in the '90s(see website for history). They are my favourite genus.
We were in SA in October last, but did not see any Haworthias in the wild, coach tours are not conducive to plant hunting!!
Just in process of updating my Haworthia talk to digital.

Better finish here or Jun will be after me!!!
PM me to discuss further
Graham

PS. multi trunked Pachycereus are bigger than many trees

Hi Graham.
I won't glorify that statement from you.
Sorry I won't go after you. I have stated my point enough.


PS.
Jim had sent me PM telling me in a way that if I wanted to say something or discuss points, I should only write it only one time as if every thing is written in one single post, and don't follow it up. otherwise it is not allowed anymore.-I respect the privacy of PM, that is why I won't write it word for word here. but I can enumerate the number of post/ thread here in IBC where lot of discussions were done this way- because this is a FORUM (for god sake) and Jim also argued many times trying to prove his point. Next time probably I will ask him what words should I post. And I don't recall uttering any bad word in this thread that requires admonition.

..no matter what they're classified as.

Hi Folks

Bonsai mean potted plant in both Chinese and Japanese i.e. plants grow on pot. So is it mean any plant that grow on pot is categorised as "Bonsai", I guess is matter of opinion. Anyhow thats not important and bonsai enthusiast will know what is true bonsai and whats not.

Cheer folks

Tom I like your Brighamia, is it family of the Cussonia, and does it form a caudex?

Jesse, I have also tried my hand at succulent penjing, here is one of my Karoo landscapes, most of the plants are indigenous, but there are a couple of American cactussus ( mammilaria plumosa, and some echiverias), there also used to be many more stones to enhance the plants,but as the plants grew the stones got moved to the side. I also left the dead adromiscus, to make it more Karoo like... makes your mind wonder even more about life and decay... This landacape planting is now 8 years old. Have got another landscape planting of the 'Thickets' on the east coast, but it is 3m x 1,8, will post a pic later.


Graham, nice meeting you!! will chat to you soon in private. We have got All the Haworthia species in our collection, an many of the varieties, I also LOVE them. And yes finding them in the wild is almost impossible!!!!

Rhoeda and Ndleong (phew what a name) thanks for commeting, I agree, the experts will know and aslong as we are having ~FUN!

Good day, Andre: I am pleased that you like my composition. Actually Brighamia is a perennial species belonging to the family Campanulaceae...I do not believe that it forms a caudex. Hope this helps....good hearing from you.

Regards,
tom

graham walker wrote:Andre

Interesting observations on root prunig. I imagine in your climate they will root up fairly easily?

Keep growing them well
Regards
Graham

Hi guys and gals.

My Aloe plicatilis bonsai blew out of the pot,....for I have pruned the roots a month ago, (its a winter grower)
but now you can see clearly that the pruned roots didnt grow adall. In fact they rot away. You can see two new roots emerging from the base.

Root pruning is the only way to bonsai tree Aloes. Most tree aloes are single stemmed, the ones that do grow arborete, like dicotoma and ramosissima doesnt grow crowns again if you cut below the leave line.
Ofcourse besides rootpruning, is underpotting and underfeeding also 'good' for Bonsai Succulents... ( O gawd here we go again... )

Andre Beaurain wrote:She's 11 years old, never fruited!!

This is actually Musella lasiocarpa, not your typical banana. It has a really odd flower like a big yellow artichoke and doesn't produce anything like typical grocery store bananas.

Yes I know, The Golden Lotus banana.

Do you think it wont flower as bonsai?

That's a good question Andre. If it has been at this for 11 years and you haven't seen anything yet I'd begin to wonder. Personally, I've never found any of the larger bananas to be happy in a pot for very long but some of the smaller ones like this and 'Siam ruby' (a true Musa) seem better adapted to pot culture.