My Ground growing bed

As the mirai forum seems a bit dead, I thought I would start posting some of my experiments in bonsai ground growing. Hopefully encouraging others to share their own.

As a relative newbie to bonsai, most my trees are young “wholesale” bonsai. I decided they all need thickening and also wanted to experiment with creating my own material.

Putting them in the ground seems to be best way to achieve this. I did some research on the internet, and listened to the telperion farm podcast about 15 times and set to work.

I started by turning over the soil and conditioning it with some fish bone meal. I then covered the area with weed control fabric.

I then used some stone to build a nice raised border.

Next I filled the whole area with corse pine bark

With the bed complete, I moved onto the trees. I bought some 12” root control bags and planted the trees in a 50% composted pine bark/50% pumice mix

And stuck them into the ground. My first experiment was to see if trees grow better in the ground, and whether the root control bags help or hinder growth. I planted 4 identical juniper saplings. 1 straight into the ground with no root control bag. 1 in a root control bag but Just sat on the bed, and two in the ground in root control bags. All four trees will get the same care routine.

My first finding is. Don’t use bone meal in the ground because it sends the foxes crazy who think I have buried a secret feast beneath my trees and this was the result

I will continue to monitor and report on progress

Cheers
Amit

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Hey @Amitdesai1978, how did this work out? I’m thinking about doing some raised (approx 12”) grow beds myself. I’m looking to do the fabric bags as well. Thanks!

The trees are growing well. It’s too early to tell if the bags are a pro or a con.

I think when it comes to extraction time, the bags will be a god send

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