My Side Project For the Year

[Edymnion]

My main project is the big three pepper merge graft, but who says I can't work on two things at once?



While digging around, I found another aquarium ornament I bought last year and promptly forgot about.  The ornament is this:



I've got a douglah planted right in the crook between the two skull peaks.  As it grows, I'm going to slowly pull the dirt away to reveal the mountain and force it to grow longer roots to stay in contact with the soil down below.  By the end of the season when I'm ready to cut it back, I should (hopefully) have a nice big trunk with craggly roots snaking down the mountainside (and I'll likely direct some into eye sockets and mouths as I go, while keeping the inside of the mountain filled with soil).

[Fredrik-flugarn]

Holy poop that sounds really evil!

[Edymnion]

What can I say, I love Halloween, and what better decoration than a living one? 

[tellie]

Wow, you have quite a big aquarium if that ornament was meant for the fish in a first place?

A stupid question but... why did you put mosquito net(?) on the seedling?

[Edymnion]

Its a couple layers of screen door meshing, actually.  I'm using it as shade cloth until the seedling gets bigger.  Its just big enough to cut the direct noon-day sun a bit, help keep from cooking the seedling since it's sitting on top of a big plaster heat sink.

[tellie]

Ah, that explains it I thought it might have something to with sun exposure but have never seen sunblock like that

[Edymnion]

Yeah, I'm sprouting pawpaw trees so I needed shade cloth.  Found some close up pictures of exactly what it was and went "Wait a minute, this is just glorified screen door mesh!".

After figuring that out, I just pulled some old mesh out of the utility room, cut some quick sticks to use as supports and made a redneck sunscreen in a couple of minutes.

[Edymnion]

Ooh yeah, this one was getting along pretty well so I decided it was time to start pulling the dirt down (to encourage it to keep sinking roots), and oh baby is this going to look good when its done.

[Edymnion]

You know, I wasn't growing this one to be a bonchi, but damn, it looks too good not to at this point.



Its a perfect trident shape, there is good root growth high up at the soil level that my hose watering over the past month of 100°F+ temps (38°C+) have exposed, and its just begging to be made into one at the end of the season.  I'm going to turn it into one of those 3 layer cloud bonsai (where you have three cloud bunches at different heights).  Can't wait to see how it turns out.

As for the Death Mountain bonsai, its going beautifully.



The roots have thickened nicely, and its about time to pull the soil level down again.

[Edymnion]

Scary mood lighting, or just waited too long for it to cool down out there to take a picture without a flashlight? You decide!



Actually, comparing it to the picture from this morning, I didn't really end up pulling the dirt any further down at all. I did end up repositioning the roots though so that they fan out more. Can also see where I had to tie the trunk to the side of the skull. It always comes loose when I mess around with it. When its all said and done, I'm probably going to superglue it down to the skull. Until then, a bit of twine keeps it in place while I push the roots back closer to the mountain.

[Edymnion]

Better pictures from today after I used a watering can to settle the soil down around the roots.  It pulled down more than I thought, which is good because I thought I had accidentally put it right back up even with where it was before I started.

[Toby]

WHOA! Can't wait to see the update, what it looks like now. Have you made any progress?

[Edymnion]

I'll grab some pictures in the morning when its daylight.

Still a couple more weeks until I pull the soil level down again though.

[Edymnion]

Yeah, not really much to report on here yet.

[Toby]

Yes there is! That looks even cooler than the last one. Take a photo after you've lowered the soil level.

[Kappu]

This is just awesome, keep it going dude.

[Edymnion]

Last pulldown, we are officially down to the base of the mountain.

[Toby]

Whoa! That looks so nasty!

[Edymnion]

I really wanted that left root to hook around between the two skulls instead of draping over the eyebrow, but nothing I did could make it stay up there.  I tried glue, hot glue, rope, hotgluing the rope, duct tape, nothing worked.  Finally said fine, let the plant win and positioned around that shape instead.

[Toby]

What?!   You can stop a car with a duct tape -wall, you can lift a car with duct tape and build a bridge from duct tape. But it's clearly impossible to attach a bonchi root to a plastic skull with duct tape.