Fall colors

[jp8127]

I live in north central U.S. and during this time of year i am always surprised at the many trees that I never noticed before untill they are so brightly colored it is impossible to miss them. Some turn bright red, some orange, yellow, and combinations and hues in between. One of my biggest focuses as a novice bonsai artist is to have a grand collection of fall colors, but I have noticed that many of my collected wild specimens (black oak, swamp oak, sugar maple, silver maple, red maple, black locus, honey locus, misc ash), (zone 5a/5b) have not turned colors at all, or have simply gone brown and thats it. I have made the observation that some of these species do not tend to turn bright colors, but I know that some of the others do. I know that there is probably more to the story than simple genetics, can anyone help me understand how nutrition and weather change plays a part?<br><br>Post edited by: jp8127, at: 2009/10/30 00:27

[nebraska]

Jp, great topic to ask about, I love the firey yellow/orange some of the local maples turn to that seems to make them glow in the fall...I have read up on the subject but cannot remember all of the information...One thing to be sure of to help is proper feeding, feed your trees every 2 weeks in a matter of high nitrogen in the spring, balanced through the summer and low nitrogen in the fall...also if your trees are at the stage when defoliation would be useful, doing so in mid summer will aid in your fall colors, proper feeding of all neccisary nutrients will ensure the proper pigments are in the leaves, then in the fall when it gets cooler and the tree drains the chlorophyll from the leaves you should see the brilliant colors you are looking for...I'm on my phone right now without copy/paste function, but I do have a blog post with all the needed nutrients (look through the labels for something like "bonsai nutrients") and how to help get them into your tree if you want to check that out, later I will get back on and can copy paste it for you if you want...I will also try to find what I read about fall colors and point you to the url

[nebraska]

ok here is the article I read a while back on bonsai4me
http://bonsai4me.com/AdvTech/Atautumncolour.htm

here is a link to the nutrients
http://trees-bonsai.blogspot.com/2009/10/bonsai-nutrients.html

[octoberust]

Nebraska, have you used a hydroponic solution? I imagine it would be great for bonsai regardless of wanting fall color or just great health.

[octoberust]

So after doing some searching for hydroponic nutrients their are hundreds of options. I have no idea where to start. Doesn't Super Thrive have the vitamins needed? If so then we would just need a micro nutrient fertilizer. Am I on the right track?<br><br>Post edited by: octoberust, at: 2009/10/30 18:00

[nebraska]

Superthrive has vitamins from what the label says, but...read all over that label and you won't find any of the nutrients that are listed as necessary for healthy plant growth. I don't know that superthrive has been actually proven to help plant growth, some people swear by it, others claim it's overpriced water...I use it but never actually tried to get proven results. I only use it occasionally though.

I have used hydroponic solution, both in hydroponics
http://www.bonsaitreeforums.com/forums/bonsai-trees-forum/17492-hydroponics.html#17492
and for malnutrition
http://www.bonsaitreeforums.com/forums/succulent-team/18205-adenium-disease-or-malnutrition.html

it is an easy way to ensure your tree recieves the nutrition it needs when growing in non organic soil, if you mix some organic soil into there, you shouldn't need to suppliment with hydroponic solution. or you can always get multiple ferts which cover all nutrients and rotate so they will end up with all the nutrients... mikey sent me some BC Grow and BC Boost a while back, the bottles last forever because you hardly need any of it to make a gallons worth.

dont know much about this site, just the first one I found on a google search for the product
http://www.wormsway.com/detail.aspx?t=prod&sku=BCBO405&AC=1

[jp8127]

Awesome, yes, I have noticed that the two sugar maples that I have de-foliated mid-summer have much brighter colors and they are all growing in the same place/ same fertilizer composition. The new leaves are also smaller.
By the way, has anyone tried to grow oak trees for bonsai?

[nebraska]

I have heard of it done, I don't know how well it works, but have one in my yard thats begging for a trunk chop in spring

[nebraska]

I have heard of it done, I don't know how well it works, but have one in my yard thats begging for a trunk chop in spring

[jp8127]

I have a few that are probably 2 years old or less, they did not grow much at all this year, might need more light than they were getting.