Let's appreciate this creative bonsai landscape design. It incorporates a small miniature forest of Ash trees into a rocky landscape of stone and clay.

Drawing inspiration from mountain regions near the Austrian Alps where the rock slides can span for miles down the craggy crevices into wet grassy fields where the sheep graze freely.

The construction of the clay mud dam and the soil layer for this piece of art was crafted using simple materials of clay, rocks, and gravel. No tools necessary other than fingers that like to get dirty.

Check out my past articles to learn how it was made:

• Rock Hunt Treasure Trove
• Finding Rocks in Unlikely Places
• Developing Rock Landscape Ideas for Seedlings
• Let's Build: Bonsai Rock Landscape
• So you think you can graft an apple tree? (featured at the end)
• Let's Build: Bonsai Rock Landscape, Bigger and Better
• Let's Build: Rock Landscape, Final Touches
• Let's Make Clay

And now the fun part!

Let's see how the seedlings grew over the course of this past summer.

Timelapse

May 17, 2019

Initially, I became frustrated this year because the seedlings were growing everywhere except inside my #saikei landscape piece. More about this later.

The solution was simple. Pluck out some seedlings from the surroundings, and try not to damage the roots. Tuck them in between the rocks and bury the roots with gravel and clay.

May 21, 2019

There is a science to placing rocks and trees for ultimate #zen #feng-shui balance, but I really don't care about following other people's rules when expressing my own creativity in art. I look at pictures of how other people arrange them based on formal standards, and ultimately I decide to arrange my own work however I choose.

As a general rule, plant things in groups of 3, 5, or more because 4 is unlucky.

A secondary rule, arrange things into an imperfect shape arrangement. Equal distances, circular, square, and equilateral triangle shapes are landscaping designs made by people, and do not often exist in natural landscapes. For a truly natural setting, place some trees close together, others farther apart, and vary their heights so that the tallest trees are offset from the center. Find ways to incorporate the golden ratio for visual appeal.

This is what the seedlings look like in nature.

What I found out this year is that none of the new seeds that fell this Spring had sprouted. Is it possible for a tree to become impotent, dropping seeds that are not viable? I had the same problem last year. Can this change year to year? I know the first two years since we moved here, the seeds from these trees were sprouting everywhere! Why weren't the ones placed in the gravel sprouting?

The answer is complicated. In one word: #stratification.

Ash tree seeds do not sprout the first year after they fall. They take an entire year to germinate after they fall from the tree. The seeds have to undergo freezing temperatures, and then they germinate in the Spring when the temperatures warm up and the ground is wet.

Ash trees also drop far more seeds than they need to. Most of the seeds disintegrate from the hot sun and rains that rot away at the hull, and so it becomes fresh mulch over the soil. This adds nutrients back into the soil to feed micro-organisms that will fertilize the mother tree. Many seeds also become food for animals, which is also an important part of the ecosystem for these trees. Other seeds become buried in the litter. The lucky seeds that get buried will germinate. Those lucky ones will either starve, due to lack of sun, or grow up to replace the older trees when they fall, and benefit from the heavy logs as they decompose.

May 21, 2019

Originally the plan was to let the seeds grow inside the saikei from where ever they fell and germinated.

Mother nature sometimes has other plans. The squirrels last year were greatly enjoying the tasty flavor of these sun-toasted seeds during the scorching hot Summer.

My own mother also had other plans. She found all the brown seed husks laying on ground under the Ash trees and added them to the compost bin.

Since I had no more seeds available to stratify over the winter, I would have to speed things along in 2019 and start with transplants found growing throughout the rest of the yard. In the end, it's not really noticeable that I had transplanted these into the saikei, rather than nature that had planted them there.

We get thousands of these little trees growing in the yard some years, and it takes me hours to pluck them out as weeds. All that weeding of trees is one of the things that inspired this project. Why should I have to spend so much time weeding trees? I would rather spend less time weeding, and allow a few of them to grow into a thing of beauty.

The nice thing about the flagstone base is that it blocks roots, water, and sunlight. None of these lucky tree seedlings will actually root into the earth. It also smothers out any weeds trying to grow underneath it. At least that's a square foot of less land I don't have to weed.

May 23

Signs of wear and tear are starting to show.

The metal screen holding up the clay wall has been exposed to view. The clay has sloughed off the top edges in the rain.

Fortunately, I created my own batch of clay made using my own mucky yard soil. Soon these mud walls will be restored.

June 29

New clay has been clumped onto the wall edges. Bits of gravel stone are pressed into the edges. The basin can now hold more space for gravel, roots, and water.

Not a perfect match to the previous color of dark brown clay. The original clay mixture was tinted with a trade secret rock dye and a sparkly mica coating smeared over the outside. I'm pretty sure that's all washed away now. Nothing in nature is perfect. If I can build up layers of clay over the years, maybe I'll eventually find some age lines to mark the seasons with.

Unfortunately, the water has also caused some mud to slide over the drainage holes that used to exist at the base under the walls.

I'm not to worried about it. I have more clay to make repairs if needed.

Small crevices are forming in the clay, allowing water from on top to drain over the edges. Mini waterfalls!

August 13

Looks like all of the transplants have not only survived, but thrived!

Originally the trees were growing fairly straight and upright, but inside this landscape I forced them to grow in, they have had to take on new shapes.

It's compelling to watch the way the light effects the shape of the trunks. In some cases they have evolved by lifting their stems right off the ground to gain greater strength from the sun.

September 6

The gravel layers are nearly fully covered in layers of new seeds from above.

It will be interesting to see if these seeds remain through winter, and possibly sprout. The young forest will be filled with trees competing for space. Some will grow mighty, and some will die and wither, allowing new ones to claim their places.

Eventually I expect to find loads of mosses taking over the area.

For now, that's not an issue, but I'll keep an eye on how it progresses over the next year.

Wasn't this a fascinating project? Experimental art is a great way to foster both curiosity and creativity, because it encourages us to try new things. This is also a strong motivating force.

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Bonus

Found this peculiar bird relaxing in the sun.

These iridescent black birds usually hang out in groups, and fly around in a small flock, similar to crows.

Not sure if this bird was injured or dying, because it was resting a good thirty feet away from the other birds, and seemed to move very little. I'm wondering why it looks so bloated. It did not fly away when my car pulled up or when I opened the door.

I got as close as I dared to not startle it to capture the photo. This image is cropped to a 25% smaller field of view, making it look like I am much closer than I really I am.

These birds at the grocery store parking lot are likely scavengers, and a bit tame, expecting to find a free lunch wherever people drop their garbage.

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Photos in this post are all #originalworks by @creativetruth, unless stated otherwise.

Find me on discord and chat with other tree growers, bonsai enthusiasts, and gardeners. We have quite a few accredited experts filling out our ranks, and a helpful Spanish-speaking community.

#teambonsai

No memberships. Love trees. Make friends. Grow together.

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