I am cleaning pots

All my indoor bonsai trees have these ugly deposits on the pots. I don't know if it is caused by the water or the fertilizers or a combination of the two. But happily I know how to take it away!

Kitchen paper is wet with vinegar and left on the rim of the pot for a few hours. Then it is possible to scrub off.

Meanwhile the tree is wrapped in plastic bags for protection.

The result - clean pot!

Natasja

Lindat några korta bitar och klippt bort några få blad. Nu börjar den likna nåt.

Ficus

13.00.  One o'clock.

A hot and sunny day, finally in the end of summer!

And I am happy to have time to take care of my ficus - it is totally overgrown and the trunk is hidden in all the leaves!

14.00.  Two o'clock.
(I must remind myself to not keep this tree so triangular, must make it more rounded, like a leaf-tree.)

15.30.  Half past three.

The sun is still shining - and now the trunk is visible again!

New pot, old tree

I have had this tree some years but not given it a proper pot. Until today!

It may not be the perfect pot, size, colour, shape etcetera, but better than the homemade concrete pot that I have used until now.

I know it is also not the perfect time for repotting, but I have only lifted the tree from the old pot and put it down in the new one. They are the same size.

(Below, the tree before repotting.)

Krukan har jag skickat efter från Bonsai & trädgård.

More vacation

 I have not been only to the wild nature of Swedish Lapland this summer, but also a trip to Stockholm.

There I could enjoy trees of sorts that don't grow in my home area, like all the large oaks. This looks like a dead tree, but it has still a few live branches. It's called "The oak of Karl XII" - king of Sweden 1697-1718, born in 1682. The sign by the tree tells me he played under this oak when he was a child!

The tree stands by the Karlberg Palace.

This year's vacation tree pictures...

 I have to follow my habit to look at trees as soon as I'm away from home! This time I have been to an area close to the Swedish high mountains.  (Hornavan-Sädvajaure.)   (My friends were mostly interested in fishing, while I was looking at trees and plants...)

There were some really old  pines, and they were all covered with these brown hanging lichens.

This pine is not only old - it's dead... But you can see how powerful it has been once.

The spruces in this area are tall straight with extremely short branches in the top. This way they protect themselves from being harmed by heavy snow in the winter.

Then there were the birch forests, the willows...

- and the mosquitos...

 Compare the look of these dwarfed birches with the proud ones along the birch avenue in my home area!

Bogbean

Menyanthes trifoliata

Vattenklöver

Kan man använda vide som bonsai?

July: The mosquitoes have come, it's difficult to be outside, I hate it.

The picture above is some sort of  a willow. Maybe it's not a perfect tree for bonsai, but guess what. I have discovered that there are hardly no perfect trees for bonsai. There are trees that work well for some people, but not for somebody else. There are trees that work well in one climate, but not in another.

For example, this willow has the negative characteristic that some branches always die in winter. (People usually say that about birch, but it isn't true for my birch!)

In return, the willow can stand the temperatures of this north Swedish climate, because it is totally native! It is now green and fresh.

Here is the opposite:

- My japanese maples. They were so green and vital in spring when I had them inside the house. They had survived the rat-attac and started to grow vigorously. Then  I took them outside, and carried them inside every evening - until I decided summer had come and didn't want to carry pots in any more. Maybe we had summer according to the calender, but the temperature dropped to below zero one night and the leaves were destroyed on these trees. They probably think autumn has come and will not produce any new leaves this year ??? Except for these small reddish ones you can see...

So these maples may be perfect for bonsai - but not for me.