Assurance of new growth

The longer I do bonsai, the more I feel I can trust my trees to make it to the future.

1,813. That’s the current figure on a tally clicker that I jokingly call my “reasons to live counter.” For two years, I’ve been counting daily doses of joy and satisfaction with one of those gadgets that ticket-takers use to keep track of crowds. Little and big joys. A nice-smelling flower or a new client. There’s a sliding scale. Some moments merit more clicks than others. I got the idea from Tiktok, of all places, and figured it could remind me to appreciate the little things and the good that inevitably mirrors the bad. I reset the count on New Years Day, and while I don’t remember 2022’s exact figure, 2023 has seen a significant increase in clicks.

The number doesn’t matter, of course. I’m not looking at an analytics dashboard. It’s that the numbers accumulate one by one. No matter what news comes my way, or however badly a brain with depression and anxiety makes me feel, the numbers can’t roll back. They’re fixed in one direction. They’re recorded.

Remember this ficus microcarpa banyan? When we saw it last December, it looked like this.

Until I pruned it back to this.

For 2023 I’ve let the tree grow out and recover. When its roots filled this bonsai pot, I transplanted it to a larger plastic colander. We’ve had some setbacks from pests since then, but the tree has bounced back. I’m trying to fuse several cuttings to the back of the tree to round out the root base, and they’d grow faster if they had more light, so I decided it was time for a trim.

The new growth is leggy but vigorous. The tree is actively pushing new buds.

I want to make three wide, spreading tiers of foliage on this tree. The main branches for the lowest tier are coming into place. I’ve just begun tier 2. In another year or two, the tree will be ready for tier 3, the apex, where the branches increase in density and converge to a point. I struggle to make convincing apexes on my trees. Maybe by the time this ficus is ready, I will be, too.

The longer I do bonsai, the more I feel I can trust my trees to make it to the future. Trees can’t help but record their growth—it’s written into the rings. The assurance of new growth makes me more confident in my styling decisions.

It’s been three weeks since I turned this umbrella tree houseplant into the beginnings of a clump style bonsai.

The trees have anchored themselves into their new substrate, and they’re already pushing new growth. I like this design. I think the branching looks convincing, and it should only get better in time. Once the trees recover, I’ll remove the extraneous forward-facing branches and try rooting them as cuttings.

A spur-of-the-moment project, and I made it into something almost respectable. That’s at least two clicks on the reasons to live counter.

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Tree reading

Mulchfest is on! This annual initiative by the New York City Parks Department helps New Yorkers recycle their Christmas trees into valuable wood mulch. [NYC Parks]

Maybe don’t deck the halls with boughs of invasive English holly. [High Country News]