I got home about two hours ago from the Akron Canton Bonsai Society meeting.

A bunch of people had trees that they were doing some major work on and many of them were giving away cuttings.

As I mentioned in my last post, I haven’t had much luck with cuttings, but I decided to take what two of the people were giving out. (There was another guy working on a beautiful fig and I thought about taking some of his cuttings too, until I realized that his tree is horribly infected with scale. I DON’T want to deal with that.)

I also got a bunch of new tips from a couple of the seasoned members regarding how many leaves to remove (can’t really describe it in words; not too many, not too few, is the best I can say) and where to cut the bottom off (just below a pair of leaves that were also cut off).

I just spent the last hour potting all of them. I now have approximately two dozen cuttings. About a third of them are Trident Maples and the other two-thirds are ‘Deshojo’ Japanese Maples. A few are hardwood cuttings, but most are softwood.

Hopefully at least some of them take. But if they don’t, it’s no big deal. I won’t have wasted my time because I will at least know that whatever I was doing will not work the next time I try it (if I do try again).

Here are two photos by Walter Pall that show what a Trident Maple bonsai and a ‘Deshojo’ Japanese Maple bonsai can look like:

I just realized that I haven’t written about bonsai since May 8, when I wrote about the Satsuki Azalea that I got for Mother’s Day.

Well, since then, I decided to become a member of the Akron Canton Bonsai Society (ACBS) again.

I still only have one tree that could be considered bonsai, the Azalea, but I have five Japanese Maple seedlings (I have no clue what variety they are) that I collected/rescued from a neighbor’s lawn, that I plan to grow out for a few years to later use as bonsai. They don’t look to be in the best of health, but I think they’ll do okay because the soil they are in is very rich.

Also, it looks like I have established my first cutting. I’ve attempted to get cuttings from various trees over the past few years to grow them up as bonsai, but I’ve never had any success. The closest I got was with a Ficus cutting. It started to take, but then died. This time I took a clipping from the Azalea and put it in a small pot of approx half sand/half perlite, watered it, and set it outside in a shaded spot. I’ve occasionally moistened the leaves, but I’ve left the rest up to nature. I think the naturally humid summer of Ohio has helped quite a bit. I still haven’t tried to check the roots, but it’s been in the pot for over a month now and it still looks as green as it did when I put it in. So, I think it’s safe to say that it’s gonna be fine.

Earlier I said that I was going to visit a local bonsai nursery, but I still haven’t done that. I’d like to, but considering the fact I have a limited budget for bonsai in general and I still need to buy a bunch of tools, wire, etc. I don’t know if I’ll be going out there any time soon. I have no idea what kind of stuff they have and in what price range so I could end up going out there for nothing. And with the price of gas being so bad lately, I don’t want to risk it.

Later tonight I will be taking the Azalea to the ACBS meeting and getting some help from a guy who has quite a few Satsuki Azaleas. I think I’ll post something tomorrow to show it’s progression.