Struggling With Restraint

“I am a helicopter parent over my garden.”

The thinking was that having more trees may force me to dilly-dally over just a few. But I dilly-dally and do too much with most of these trees in development. For very very young stock that I’m developing for variety or early control, I am improving at fertilizing and larger pot to grow—but likely prune more than letting them grow out.

For maples and Zelkovas, if I let them go wild, then the result is long internodes that I cut off. I try to reduce bifurcation to two and eliminate odd angled branches or vertical branches.

I likely over water at the sign of dry top soil. While not soggy-feet watering, the tree will only be encouraged to grow roots when straining for water and nutrients.

Fertilizer OD

My next regret on a year focused on growth involved fertilizing. Mostly Osmocoat once a month, but then periodic spurts of Miracle Grow. My deciduous (e.g. maples) often had brown tips and then losing many leaves, and later learned that overfeeding with salt-based fertilizer pulls moisture from the roots.

I’m not sure what the remedy is—called (bonsai-doctor) Val.

Observation: my birch was doing well but the lesser of the trunk pair was too balanced and I partially defoliated to let the ready leaf buds to take off. Weeks later, they have not leafed out. The buds do not look brown or dead, but possibly overfeeding or over watering may retard the buds from emerging in Sept.

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Pests

Cotoneaster resulted in aphid, no damage, just during maintenance. Sprayed with soap insecticide and giving it more light. Was on the ground between taller plants.