Okay, back to the plants! After my last post, I promise I won't "vent" for a looooong time (like Skynrd said
"I do not sing the blues" :) Okay, I
try not to. Anyhow, I discovered that I could go back to the older post editor on blogger, so now my posting should be back to normal-Yay!
Anyway....this
Schefflera is becoming kind of cumbersome as a houseplant, so I decided to do something about it. (Not to mention the poor thing hasn't been repotted in about 8 years-oops!)
Not nearly as rootbound as I expected. As you can see, I have three separate sections to work with....
....so let's start with the two big ones. I decided to try and weave them together to form a quasi-bonsai-looking houseplant "sculpture"...
....after fiddling with them for awhile, I came up with this....
.....held together at the trunk with some stretchy plant tape to maintain form.
I felt that it would be plenty content rather pot-bound, since it grew so large all crowded before. (Plus I'd like to try and keep it manageable.)
There! It still looks too large, and frankly scraggly too.....
.....time for a little "tough love"!
Presto! Hopefully the bare stubs will fill in and pretty it up, but I'm willing to sacrifice this specimen in the name of experimentation ;-)
I decided to expose some higher roots and wedge a couple decorative rocks underneath...
.....for another bonsai-ish element. Someday I'm going to try "real" bonsai again, but for now I'm content to amuse myself this way.
Our third subject will be potted up alone....
....and trimmed to sort-of represent a leaning bonsai form.
That was fun! Now what else can I bend to my will? :)
(This took place a few months ago...more updates from last summer coming soon.)
Fast forward: Here is our main subject just the other day...not too shabby, eh?
The smaller one still looks pretty much the same, maybe it's focusing on root growth?
....causing some plants to hang onto their lives-and blooms! (Like this borage, too bad my tomatoes couldn't survive this well!)
They're mixing with the fall foliage that's already been established....this is spirea 'Mellow Yellow'.
Of course the grasses are swaying in the breeze, showing off their flashy seed heads (this is 'Big Bluestem').
Indoors the Christmas cacti have been blooming rather early, like this red and white that my friend in Texas was kind enough to send (it's grown to 5X the original size! :)
And check out my cute little witch hazel! This tree is barely 4 feet tall, yet blooming more vigorously every year like a champ! (Always in fall, though many varieties bloom much later).
And finally, my own situation is "heating up" as well...the career choice is up for re-evaluation and I'm hoping to make big changes, my garden pics are scattered half on the web and half on my laptop causing continual frustrating confusion, and until I get a better connection than dialup, my blog posts will be fairly short (but not my sentence "structure" as usual :) But for what it's worth, I'm still here and looking forward to posting more frequently and with more substantive content. What's that, Gizmo? Bentley? 
Alright then...let's get on with it already!
....spinning a web of some sort...
...and taking issue with my attention!
Get back....
