I live in London, a city sitting on a giant chalk deposit which formed in the Cretaceous period and stretches all the way to France (via the Eurotunnel)ref Chalk is a form of limestone made up of the shells of marine organisms, and is comprised mostly of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO₃).ref According to my water supplier […] Read more… >
I’ve talked about transpiration in quite a few different posts on this site, but a recent thread on http://bonsainut.com caused me to think maybe I should have a post dedicated to it, so here goes… Transpiration is the evaporation of water from the leaves of a tree. It’s actually a critical process for trees, because […] Read more… >
Living in London means that even though spring has blossomed forth, there is still a chance of frost all the way through to the end of May. And many of us will have learned the hard way that frost and/or sub-zero temperatures can seriously damage our trees. One of the key risks of frost and […] Read more… >
While many of us might simply use the hosepipe to water our bonsai, there are actually a range of options for recycling or collecting water for this purpose. I’ve looked into some of these below to understand how suitable water from different sources is for watering your trees. Dehumidifier water – good unless you have […] Read more… >
Unlike animals, plants do not have a digestive system, although the sustainable food trust makes a good argument that ‘soil is the collective stomach of all plants’ref Trees synthesise all of the substances they need to live and grow from 17 nutrients. It’s important to understand that plants don’t ‘eat food’ in the sense of […] Read more… >
The roots of your tree are *just* as important as the above-ground parts, with a lot of responsibilities which aren’t immediately obvious. I’ve summarised the main ones here but there is a lot more detail in separate posts with links provided below. So why are roots so important? Points 1 and 2 are fundamental to […] Read more… >
This is one you sometimes hear in gardening circles – that you might burn the leaves of your plants if you water them in the heat of the day – because the drops of water act as a magnifying glass, focusing the light onto the plant and theoretically burning it. I have never observed water-droplet-shaped […] Read more… >
Stomata are “microscopic pores which mediate the uptake of CO2 and loss of water from terrestrial plant leaves”ref The pores exist in the cuticle of the leaf (refer back to Leaf Structure to learn about the cuticle). You can see a scanning electron microscope image of stomata below: The stomata are the dark holes in […] Read more… >
They say that a lack of watering is the number one reason that newbies kill their bonsai trees. It is quite a surprise when you first learn about the hobby to find out that you need to water your trees *every day* and sometimes multiple times a day! It suddenly feels like more of a […] Read more… >
One of the first topics you come across when starting to study trees is the question of how they manage to lift water all the way to the leaves at the top of the canopy. Different organs play their part in this system, starting with the roots where water is absorbed into the xylem. Xylem […] Read more… >