My Big Bonchi Project for This Year

[Edymnion]

As a big Halloween nut, I enjoy things most people would consider to be, um, creepy?  Anyway, last year I got into making bonsai out my peppers, and ended up buying some neat plaster skulls during Halloween.  My plan was to somehow use them as flower pots or bonchi decorations.

This was the first thing I used one for:


Thats a NuMex Halloween ornamental pepper, supposed to grow black and orange fruit.  As you can see, right now it only has black on it (well, dark purple, but you probably guessed that already), and haven't gotten any more fruit to set during the cold dreary winter, but the plant itself is doing well in it's unusual container.

The second one of these I got I decided to cut at an angle, and I was going to graft three bhuts together, one coming out of each eye socket and the nose.  Graft them together as close to the skull as possible so that when they reached full size it would look like one MASSIVE trunk growing into the skull's face (I mentioned it I liked creepy things already, remember).



Might need to cut it little further so it lays a bit more flat though.

But then I got to thinking.  If I'm going to graft peppers together using this method anyway, why use just bhuts?  Why not make each of the three a different superhot?

Right now I'm planning on having one bhut, one butch T scorpion, and one... haven't decided yet.  I was thinking I have naga morich seeds, but they're too similar looking to the bhuts.  I could get a moruga or a brain strain, but those are again too close to the other two.  I've got some "lesser" peppers I could use, but if I'm going to be merging these together over a partially buried skull, I want each of them to be lethally hot on their own.  Maybe a Chocolate 7 Pod?

Anywho, I'll update as I go!

[Finprick]

 

So cool... I'm so gonna try to copy this, in some way at least
I've never been an artistic person, but now I can see a skull, on a light bed of sand (perlite maybe?), and a chili plant growing from it's eyesocket or mouth.. Pink habanero - too much?

Keep updating please!

[Edymnion]

Oh yes, I will update as there is something worth updating.

Right now I've got my three chosen pepper seeds (bhut, butch T, and a 7-pot douglah) in a self watering starter, and I've cut the skull back even farther so it lays flatter, but really nothing to report as of yet.



My current plan is to sprout the seeds indoors and intentionally let them get a little on the leggy side (but not too much) before transplanting them into the skull in a medium sized container.  Let that go for a while until they're bigger.  I doubt they could be simply pressed together to get fusion, so once they have stems a few mm thick I'll cut them and tape them together to heal and hope for the best.  I've read that for complete approach grafting success in peppers I'll need to give them upwards of 4 weeks this way.  Shouldn't be a big deal.  After that, I'll start seeing about pruning to get a nice tree trunk appearance.

My biggest concern at the moment is that the nose in the skull is somewhat small in size, and worrying about if it will end up cutting into the stem of whichever pepper gets that hole.  I'm hoping they will all be firmly fused long before that though, so hopefully it won't be a problem in the end.

[Edymnion]

Still waiting for my superhots for this round to sprout, and its getting to me.
So, in the mean time, I decided to fix up the first container.



Skull is stuffed with soil, and I've got some plugs of shade loving moss I harvested from the forest edge in there to hopefully spread around into a nice carpet by the end of the season.  Not only will it look cool, but it should help act as natural mulching as well.  Getting a kind of "body discovered out in the woods" vibe from it now, going to run with that.  Obviously this pot is not big enough for the final full sized Frankenpepper (which will be container grown so I can keep a greater degree of control over it), but it should do for the next several months while things get started.

The plant I overwintered last year was overall much healthier in it's potting soil than the bonchi I put in kittydama, so I'm planning on keeping this one in soil when I cut it back at the end of the year as well.  I'll need to see if I can find a suitably gothic/halloween/etc style pot of about this size to make a permanent home out of for it, so if you see one around the web that I could use, give a yell please.

Another thing I could use a hand with, decorations.  Since I'm getting a body in the woods vibe out of this, and I'll hopefully have a gnarled old looking pepper tree growing out of the skull, I think I want to keep that up.  I can take a hatchet with me next time I go hiking for a piece of deadwood to be a fallen tree trunk, or possibly a limb to stick in there as small dead tree, but I'm thinking I want something to balance it out on the other side.  Maybe an artifact of some kind, like half a pair of broken glasses sticking up, or... I don't know.  What kind of human artifacts (using artifact here in it's general form, as in an item made by humans, not like spearheads or vases) would work well with the theme, but still be small enough to be a decoration as opposed to the focus?

[tellie]

I tried the moss thing last year, probably even with the same moss you are using. It didn't end up as I hoped, tough. It was difficult to keep the soil moist enough for moss and dry enough for the chile pepper, so the moss dried and died in the end. I probably should have sprayed water on it every day, but that was waaaay too much work for me

How about a colorful can? Maybe a coca cola can, because of the red color. You could crumble it as you like and cut it smaller, so that it would look like a big part of it is under the ground and  add some scraping to make it look older. I think it would suit well for the theme!

I love the eyeglass idea too But eyeglasses are mostly made of plastic these days, so it might prove difficult to get a stylishly broken pair.

[Edymnion]

Hmmm... good point.  I pulled that stuff and replaced it with some tiny little things growing in the loose powdery gravel in my driveway.  I figure if it can grow on top of asphault in dust, it can survive a pepper's watering schedule. 

[Edymnion]

Okay, screw the weeds.  I found something MUCH better while out shopping today...

Elfin Thyme!

[Edymnion]

All three peppers are now in place in the skull, everything is moved to a bigger, fancier pot which will most likely be their forever home, and in my ongoing efforts to make this scene creepy/cool/halloweeny, some battery operated tea lights from Walmart with appropriately gothic looking holders.







Thats a Douglah in the left eye, a Butch T in the right eye, and a Bhut in the nose.

[Ryhis]

Looks scary!

[Edymnion]

Not much to see, but everything is still going strong.



The cotys on the t.scorp are drying up, but the true leaves seem fine, and its working on a second set of them, so not particularly worried about it.

[Edymnion]

I am now past the SIDs phase.  Long as nothing horrible happens, I should have some nice healthy peppers to twist together here soon.

[Edymnion]

Update, the big one is still on track.





Its becoming a constant battle with the two bigger ones (they've got a couple weeks head start on the nose pepper) to keep them from shading the little one out.

[Toby]

Wooow... the skull thing is sooo cool . I'd like to try that too! Ummm... where did you buy this skull from?

And sorry for my bad English. I don't speak English as my native language...

[Edymnion]

It's a plastic Halloween decoration I cut down to size with my dremel.

[Toby]

It's a plastic Halloween decoration I cut down to size with my dremel.

Ummm... where did you buy it from?
Did you buy it from an internet-store or an ordinary shop?
Was it expensive? Because if it's expensive I'm not going to buy it...

[Edymnion]

I got it from one of those seasonal stores that only pop up during October, then sell everything at half price on November 1st.  I think I paid $10 for it.

[Toby]

I got it from one of those seasonal stores that only pop up during October, then sell everything at half price on November 1st.  I think I paid $10 for it.

Thanks for your information! Maybe I'll by some decoration myself this year. From a season-store or what ever you may call it.

[Edymnion]

100/38+ degree temperatures (F or C, take your pick) have stunted this one a bit, and we just got the first rain in at least a month, but its still alive.  Couple of flowers on one as well.

[Edymnion]

Well, I have either started the final phase of the project, or I have killed all of the peppers involved. I'll let you know in a week or two.



Was pruning the middle leaves off the big two when I realized how lignified they were getting. Lignification = bad for merging and flexibility. It was now or never, and the little one was still too short to avoid being shaded out by the two bigger ones if I left the tops on them. No choice but to top them all and start weaving the new growth together into a nice bush.

They're peppers, they should respond well to aggressive pruning, but it always feels like I'm killing them to do something this drastic, even though I've done it before and they turn out just fine.

[Toby]

Ummm... sorry Edymnion but we can't see your latest photo.