well these are not going to be true bonsai. let me clarify this a bit cause i think my initial explanation may have been confuseing. the plants are goi9ng to be in raised flower beds borderd with cement retaining walls, the on differance being that all the soil and every thing is conatien with in the limits of the pond liner so that all water that gravity pulls down through the beds is returned in to the pond system. to clarify this another step. in a natural pond setting or yas river area..... you have a high water table that is exposed to the surface in a low area, the open body of water( this is not always the case as you may have water that is conatined in a rout in a heavy clay soil and may not pass out into the surrounding ground. what im doing is creating an artifical water table with all the plant beds over that table. plants then have the option of extending their roots down int o the water table if their water requirements are more then what the current water situation is. the only plants i plan to dwarf are the mugo pine and the cypress and that will probaly be done through, pruneing. i do intend to prune the plants into desirable shapes but this is on a much larger scale then a normal bonsai would be.the wisteira wichis curently about 5 years old i believe it was 4 years onld when i bought it in the summer, will be trained up a hollowed out log that is about 6 feet tall,and will provide support for the wisteria wich will be trained to banch out over the top of the log like a tree, and alowed to spread out to about a 12 foot radius. the mugo and the cypress are the only things ill have to keep small, the mugo to maybe 3 or 4 feet depending on how it looks in proportion to the water falls it will be placed between, and i would like to keep the cypress to about no more than 7 feet. the cypress willbe lowed to get its toes wet while keepingits anlkes dry. the pther plants the rose of sharon the mugo and the wisteria i have decided to run on a differnt system. since i have to be able to remove plant material that floats downinto my skimer part of the pond, which until now has been leftto just detiorate, i have decided to put in a settleing tank that this material will fall into and be pumped out useing a trash pump. ok heres the trick. ill use a timer to pump water for about 30 miniuts to an hour once a week. wich is waht we would normaly recomend for watering trees during the growing season that are planted out side in the ground, wich is basical what these plants will be. i might have to reduce the watering time because there is a smaller area for the plant to be growing. when the plants are watered the pump will act like a garbage disposal, sucking up and chewing up any material that has settled in the tank( possibly even some fish who have gotten too curious and decided to swim over the falls, the fish have gone over the falls a couple of times) and way this material will be ejected on to the surface around the maple, wisteria, mugo and rose of sharon wich will accumilate into a nice loam. note: this will oly happen when the pond is awake i.e. in december when the water goes below 50 degrees farenhit the pondis put to sleep meaning the pumps are shut off till around march or april when the water gets back up to 50 or basicaly duriing the growing season. also since the plants are over a water table if they need more water then they are getting with the weakly watering they can grow their roots down to the water and absorb it from the water table wich is a natural thing for them to do. the whole concept of the pond is to keep it low maintance with the exceptin of occasional pruning to control size and shape of some of the plants

I thought I posted this on the gardenweb forum. Now it's houzz? Had to sign up for a new user name. Anyway soo - you can get the Naked Gardener Compost or Debco Premium Potting Mix from Masters (closing soon). Course Perlite is from The Perlite & Vermiculite Factory Myaree (much cheaper than anywhere else). Sand I got from a bulk landscape place (lawn mix) but you can get 10 or 20kg bags of builders sand at Bunnings. Zeochlor is in the pool section at Bunnings. Rock Dust I got from the manufacturer direct somewhere in Bibralake (called Natural PK) but I think but you can now get a similar product from Waldecks (in Myaree at least). Waldecks also sell bentonite clay. I still want to try the gritty mix but getting my hands on all the materials has proved very difficult when I tried last year. I found a Queensland company that makes course DE (for mopping up oil/chemicals) but they didn't have a distributor in Perth. Nobody I could find has pine bark in the right size - and even if they did I'd have to by a cement mixer and modify it with a fine wire to screen it. Honestly, if an agricultural company were to produce the gritty mix and sell it in bags I think they'd make bank - even considering how long it lasts.

I live in Kentucky, senior citizen with some restrictions about gardening in this sub division. My neighbors are also senior citizens, empty nesters. We all, when get old, children leave, we need to take care of some thing whether be a plant or a pet.It is a therapy. I learnt quite a few things from neighbors; one is from Okinawa, others from India and china. Some of their practices are cultural and traditional. I do not question or try to validate them scientifically or by the current knowledge base. All Asians like marigolds, Jasmines and mums. Marigolds- many believe are good Feng shui plant. Many burry them in the soil. Good for the soil, kill nematodes Etc. My neighbor, born in Okinawa ferments every thing in a 5 gallon bucket, feed grains, flowers, fruit peels, manure adds a little rice bran sauce( similar to Soy sauce).She says it is like a TV food trays, heat and eat---.and it is useful to the soil immediately. My Indian friends water in the early hours of the day. They never cut a vegetable or pluck a flower after sunset. Since this housing colony allows only 25 square feet for gardening, people readily adopted Raised beds, container gardening. Use 10 gallon totes from K mart. Some 18 gallon totes. Some one got a soldering iron, duct tape it and burn a drainage hole .No weakening of the plastic and edges of the holes stay strong. Some one said air bubble packing material is a better insulator and good and easy to remove mulch during heat wave, people adopted it. When the A frame trellis (Not anchored) blew away in a windstorm, MelÂs tomato towers gained favor. During the heat wave we used foliar spray.I think it works as perk up during stress periods like intravenous nutrition. I think whether a person is five year old kid or aged 75 years old senior citizen when he sees a seed he planted months ago is producing vegetables and flowers feels happy, feels some thing is accomplished whether he admits it openly or not.

3 of the plants Evve shows are Portulacaria, which have the same growth habit as Crassula. Is there any negative in issuing very shallow planters as opposed to taller ones with room for way more volume of soil? "Negative" is subjective in that the pot typically looks better, but shallow pots are more difficult to grow in because they typically have a much higher % of saturated soil after a thorough watering. This makes it essential to either choose plants very forgiving of being over-watered, or ensuring you're using a grow medium that holds so little excess water it makes it difficult to over-water. As you learn more about bonsai, you'll find practiced growers are very particular about their choice of grow medium, and alter the structure and components to suit individual plants. Most grow media based on fine ingredients (peat, coir, compost, composted forest products) are not good choices for shallow pots because they hold excessive amounts of water. For example, if you use a medium that supports 3" of excess (perched) water at the pot's bottom, using that soil in a 3" deep pot would find you growing in a soil that is 100% saturated after a thorough watering. It would be challenging for even skilled growers to maintain a jade or mini-jade (portulacaria) healthy in a situation like that. Notice how pot depth affects the amount of well-aerated soil a pot can hold after a thorough watering: The pots are completely filled with soil. The shaded area represents excess (perched) water. Note - if you shift your focus to using the upright form of portulacaria for your bonsai endeavors (or other trees with naturally small leaves), you'll be able to produce a much better likeness of a tree you might find in nature. This is due to portulacaria's leaf size which is more proportionate to the scale of a smaller plant. Al