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Let's build a miniature landscape

A few weeks ago I started building a #bonsai #landscape, which could be termed as a #saikei. I started with a flagstone, rocks, and some mud.

Under the guidance of a fellow expert in rock design, I formed a mud wall, which she terms a mud dam which will be used to hold the soil where the trees will be buried to grow in. At the end I was a bit skeptical that this project will be able to sustain the heavy rains of our local climate.

Now a few weeks later I am ready to expand on my previous design.

If you would like to review my past work on this project, view my last post here.

Renovation Preparations

First I placed my project out on the deck to have a look at it. It is all dry now, and I am ready to expand the walls to greater heights.

Next I noticed that the rocks I placed around the walls were not going to be helpful to the view of the overall design. Initially they were helpful in providing support against the inner frame wire and the soft mud. Now that the clay has hardened, the support of these rocks are no longer necessary. When I add the bonsai soil inside the walls, that will provide additional support to the walls.

My goal is to build the walls up to become higher. With these rocks buried fully under the soil level, they will serve zero visual purpose. I would prefer that the rocks be a visual part of the design, as they will match the small proportions of the bonsai trees. So I'll be removing all the rocks, except for the featured flat rocks that expand beyond the height of the full wall. Any small gravel rocks or pieces of clay stuck to the middle of the flagstone floor will also be scraped off. This area needs to remain very flat for the third phase of this project. More about that at the end...

Reinforcing the Wall

After carefully chiseling out the rocks with my chopstick, there are many cracks and crevices forming around the base of the wall.

I have more fresh mud/clay which I will be applying. I can use some of the wet slurry to fill in these gaps. Any parts of the wall that are not firmly attached to the flagstone, I will be adding more clay around it to glue it down more firmly.

There are also some pieces of cork buried underneath the sides of the wall. I'm using a chopstick to scratch off the clay around the cork, so it can be removed. These will become the drainage tunnels. There are also some areas that might be blocking water from draining, so I'll be using the chopstick to excavate those areas, to provide additional drainage.

Moisturize

After doubling the height of the wall with fresh mud, I decided to use some fresh water to re-moisturize the older wall sections. This allowed me to smooth out the sides a bit, and also help bind the top of the wall into the bottom with a stickier layer of clay. I realized while I was doing this that any parts of the clay wall with a sharp edge would probably end up crumbling away from rain and heat stress. So I did my best to smooth it out. Natural hillsides usually have a smooth earth surface, due to mudslides, with only the rocks cutting through the landscapes.

Deep channel for soil, and water to flow through.

Now that the walls have been doubled in height, I think it should be tall enough to hold a small tree's roots inside the basin area. Approximately two to three inches of wall height. My future trees will hopefully be maintained very small (less than 8 inches max), to make sort of a forest design within this rock landscape.

As a last adjustment, I also adjusted the shape of the inside of all the walls, so nothing was beveled inward over the center. It needs to curve up-and-out from the the base (no inward lip), otherwise it will be impossible to remove the trees and soil in the future (for routine root maintenance) without damaging and breaking the hardened clay wall.

Observing Multiple Perspectives

Here are some glimpses of the new landscape as seen from different points of view.

Two sister mountains, chiseled into the #landscape from the side.

The ominous fortress of Angband, or Barad-dûr and Mount Doom in Mordor.

Multiple drainage tunnels along the sloped end of the flagstone.

This is the far right side. A cork was used to hold the space open under the mud until it dried.

On the right front side, I added an additional hole to the right, so water would not pool up on that side. The ring sort of bows around here towards the sloped end.

At the zoo, they used to have a pen that looked like this for the lions to climb around on. I have never seen a lion that lives in a cave in real life. Don't they usually live on an open savanna?

An additional hole had to be excavated behind the nearest mountain stone. This was an area that seemed to cause water to pool up, and should be solved by this new tunnel. You can see a slight indent here in the center, where I was able to drill through with my chopstick.

End Result

This is what it looks like so far.

There will be one more stage of work for this project, and that will involve the preparation of the bonsai soil, trees, and rocks to fill the inside. We'll have to wait for this to dry out again before that can be started.

Look forward to an update from me on this project in another week or so.

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Bonus

As you know, I love to share bonus random photo captures of mine to represent the dazzling phenomenons of the season.

Something as simple as flowers, which we often take for granted, are formed from the formidable efforts of trees, bulbs, and perennial roots that store up energy for this one-time annual display.

We had a professional tree care arborist help us to prune this overgrown pear tree. Now I am really happy with the results a year later. You can barely tell it was pruned aggressively, and he did a good job of not overdoing it to leave an ugly stump behind. There is still much balance and symmetry to appreciate.

Probably my best macro shot so far.

On a very tiny weed I happen to enjoy.

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Thank you for checking out my post. I am an amateur #bonsai hobbyist, #gardener, and #artist, and I love trying out new things, making errors, and breaking a few traditional rules to learn how to do things in a way that works for me.

Unless sources are cited, all images and information within this post are original works of my own. You are free to use my images so long as you provide a link to this post and credit back to me @creativetruth.

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Have a glorious week!
@creativetruth