So Far, So Good

The operation went very smoothly this time. Not even any pain on recovery. My surgeon has declared me 'fixed' and hopefully I will be ready for the last operation in about two or three weeks. I still have some swelling and a little discomfort on standing and walking, but I no longer feel like I have a ping pong ball between my cheeks. I see the doctor again next week for a followup and hopefully he will set a surgery date then.

Our perfect spring continues, continued cool, half inch of rain last week, with more predicted for Monday, then more cloudy and cool. Fantastic weather for us considering it can be dry as a bone and close to 100F by now. The plants are growing very slowly with no heat, but are looking very good. It should be a very good propagating year if this keeps up, the wood will be perfect and plentiful.

We managed to escape (so far) a damaging spring freeze this year, so the Japanese maples are absolutely gorgeous, especially with all this cool moist weather. The should be plenty of wood for cuttings and I am thinking of devoting a good portion of the propagation area to maple cuttings. It had been part of my long term plan to do a good bit of cutting propagation of these maples, but something has always got in the way. Now that the nursery is nearly done and I am downsizing the catalog listings, it's time to devote my efforts to more of the 'fun stuff' like cutting grown maples and grafted black pines. It would be fantastic to do some more cutting grown pines, but that will have to wait at least another year until the new greenhouse is finished. I am offering a few smaller cutting grown Japanese maples this year that should be ready by the end of June. They can be found HERE.

I think it's been two years since I grafted anything, so I am really anxious to get back to that. I have a good 400 Pinus thunbergii understock ready and waiting. This will happen in the fall. There seem to be only a few cultivars that are really popular, so I am going to just concentrate on those and let the rest go. I'm not sure what to do about the Japanese white pines. There are so difficult to keep alive here and so SLOW! They take twice as long as the black pines to grow to salable plant size. Most likely, I will stick to just a few and sell them in smaller sizes.

The crew is arriving for the big Saturday work day, so I have to go. More on the last surgery after I get a date.

Comments

[Jim]

Good luck! I'm following your news here. I stumbled onto all your writing while looking for bonsai info online. Your articles are about the best that exist online.

I am trying to learn how to keep trees alive in pots before attempting to really train them. Thanks for encouraging that approach!

I'll watch for more news, and I'm pulling for you for selfish reasons: I want to learn more from you.

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