- 87
- 1 227 052
Harry Harrington
United Kingdom
Registrace 29. 06. 2007
Bonsai videos from Harry Harrington of www.Bonsai4me.com, professional Bonsai Artist and Author of 3 books. Connect via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter as well as CZcams.
Watering Your Bonsai With Rain Water
Watering Your Bonsai With Rain Water
Tap water contains many chemicals that aren’t great for bonsai; ammonia, chlorine and chloride being amongst the worst offenders. In hard water areas, limescale causes many problems particularly with the build up of limescale on the trunk, bonsai pots as well as a white film over the leaves.
Switching to rain water, and water obtained by reverse osmosis during the drier summer months isn’t that difficult and for a relatively small amount of money and effort, it’s possible to have cleaner, more healthy water for your trees, coming through your hose.
The most important thing is to have some kind of container to store rainwater whenever it rains. The larger the container, the better, simply because it will last for longer.
However, it’s possible to have a clean water system with just a single water butt connected to your down pipe, collecting water from the roofs of your house, and any outbuildings you may have.
In my garden I have anything up to 300 trees that require water at any one time. I have installed a large 900 litre water tank behind an outbuilding in my garden, and I use this to store water that falls onto its roof.
If you shop around it’s possible to get water tanks of all shapes and sizes; I’m restricted as to how big a container I can physically carry through into the garden so I have this narrow but wide water container as storage.
Inside the water container is a hose lock ‘waterbutt pump’ easily available from Amazon and other retailers that will pump water the entire length of the garden with very good water pressure, even with a 30 metre length of hose.
It’s simply a case of plugging it into a power supply, dropping the pump into the container and switching it on. The 900 litres of water will last me around a week to 10 days even in the hottest of weathers.
So what happens if I use up all of the rainwater in the container? That’s where RO or reverse water comes in. A straight-forward RO system is plugged into the mains water supply.
Around half of the water overflows out through a tiny pipe to the side of the container. The other half is pure, clean water that fills up my water container.
The RO system cost me just £40 and has so far lasted me a year or so between filter changes. The £20 filter sets remove all chemicals from the water and leave me with ‘pure water’
I keep running it 24/7 and it gives me around 24 x 7L watering cans worth of pure water every 24 hours. Enough to give me trees a good soaking everyday.
No limescale or chemical problems for my trees at all.
I am lucky, I also have two large much cheaper 240 litre water butts that are connected near the top of the garden and these tend to fill up faster being fed by the house and two garage roofs.
These waterbutts have a waterbutt pump that can be used to water my trees, or have the water sent down to my main tank that we’ve already seen.
So is it worth the effort? Absolutely. My trees are greener, healthier and they don’t have a film of limescale built up on the leaves by late summer, and better still the trunks of my trees and the pots are also free of limescale stains.
Lime-hating trees such as Azalea and Acer palmatum bonsai are also much healthier.
The downside is that some bonsai like some calcium and a higher pH than rainwater can provide, these are now being given calcium via Chicken grit and/or liquid silicone, dosed every month.
Species that benefit from rainwater but then require additional calcium from time to time include many uk natives such as elm, hawthorn, blackthorn and spindle.
Overall, switching to rainwater/RO water is definitely an improvement to the health and vigour of your bonsai collection.
Tap water contains many chemicals that aren’t great for bonsai; ammonia, chlorine and chloride being amongst the worst offenders. In hard water areas, limescale causes many problems particularly with the build up of limescale on the trunk, bonsai pots as well as a white film over the leaves.
Switching to rain water, and water obtained by reverse osmosis during the drier summer months isn’t that difficult and for a relatively small amount of money and effort, it’s possible to have cleaner, more healthy water for your trees, coming through your hose.
The most important thing is to have some kind of container to store rainwater whenever it rains. The larger the container, the better, simply because it will last for longer.
However, it’s possible to have a clean water system with just a single water butt connected to your down pipe, collecting water from the roofs of your house, and any outbuildings you may have.
In my garden I have anything up to 300 trees that require water at any one time. I have installed a large 900 litre water tank behind an outbuilding in my garden, and I use this to store water that falls onto its roof.
If you shop around it’s possible to get water tanks of all shapes and sizes; I’m restricted as to how big a container I can physically carry through into the garden so I have this narrow but wide water container as storage.
Inside the water container is a hose lock ‘waterbutt pump’ easily available from Amazon and other retailers that will pump water the entire length of the garden with very good water pressure, even with a 30 metre length of hose.
It’s simply a case of plugging it into a power supply, dropping the pump into the container and switching it on. The 900 litres of water will last me around a week to 10 days even in the hottest of weathers.
So what happens if I use up all of the rainwater in the container? That’s where RO or reverse water comes in. A straight-forward RO system is plugged into the mains water supply.
Around half of the water overflows out through a tiny pipe to the side of the container. The other half is pure, clean water that fills up my water container.
The RO system cost me just £40 and has so far lasted me a year or so between filter changes. The £20 filter sets remove all chemicals from the water and leave me with ‘pure water’
I keep running it 24/7 and it gives me around 24 x 7L watering cans worth of pure water every 24 hours. Enough to give me trees a good soaking everyday.
No limescale or chemical problems for my trees at all.
I am lucky, I also have two large much cheaper 240 litre water butts that are connected near the top of the garden and these tend to fill up faster being fed by the house and two garage roofs.
These waterbutts have a waterbutt pump that can be used to water my trees, or have the water sent down to my main tank that we’ve already seen.
So is it worth the effort? Absolutely. My trees are greener, healthier and they don’t have a film of limescale built up on the leaves by late summer, and better still the trunks of my trees and the pots are also free of limescale stains.
Lime-hating trees such as Azalea and Acer palmatum bonsai are also much healthier.
The downside is that some bonsai like some calcium and a higher pH than rainwater can provide, these are now being given calcium via Chicken grit and/or liquid silicone, dosed every month.
Species that benefit from rainwater but then require additional calcium from time to time include many uk natives such as elm, hawthorn, blackthorn and spindle.
Overall, switching to rainwater/RO water is definitely an improvement to the health and vigour of your bonsai collection.
zhlédnutí: 3 507
Video
Larch Bonsai Partial Defoliation Of The Leaves
zhlédnutí 1,5KPřed měsícem
Larch Bonsai Partial Defoliation It may come as a surprise to some but healthy Larch bonsai can be partially defoliated through late May and June, once the new spring shoots have lignified or hardened off This is a great way to improve ramification and allows for much easier wiring of the new growth Make sure that the shoots have turned from their green spring colour or you will damage them. Th...
Dewiring Your Bonsai The Best Way
zhlédnutí 1,5KPřed měsícem
Dewiring Your Bonsai The Best Way! Many people see the wire cutting into a few branches on their bonsai and strip it all off immediately. This is wrong! Some branches swell faster than others and need their wire taking off earlier than others. Only remove individual coils that are just starting to cut in. Wait for the others where they aren’t cutting in to ensure they are set into position corr...
Wound Sealing Bonsai With Foil
zhlédnutí 1,4KPřed měsícem
Wound sealants/foil I’ve long been of the opinion that it isn’t necessary to apply wound sealants to the majority of trunk chops and wounds resulting from cutting branches. It just isn’t necessary and wound sealants are just something that beginners use to make themselves feel better about heavy pruning. However….i do apply a thin layer of Vaseline to any species that produce excessive sap, suc...
Bonsai at the UKBA ExpoBonsai Show UK
zhlédnutí 3,4KPřed 3 měsíci
Here’s a short video of some of my favourite bonsai from yesterday ExpoBonsai Show, just outside London. The Show had some very high quality bonsai on display, clearly showing the standard of bonsai in the UK at the moment. Information about each tree was limited and my apologies for not naming owners and artists. But now I’ll let the trees do the talking. My thanks go to Steve Hale, Mark and M...
Hawthorn Bonsai Landscape at the BonsaiExpo Show 14th April 2024
zhlédnutí 2KPřed 3 měsíci
A quick reel of one of the definite crowd pleasers at today’s UKBA EXPOBONSAI 2024 Show, 2 nicely designed yamadori Hawthorn planted within a landscape. I’ve seen similar a few times in the past year or so, but this was very well executed. Expand out the video to see all of the detail involved! Built by Jim Butterworth and Bryan Stone from the matsu bonsai school. #bonsai #landscapephotography
Repotting A Big Yamadori Scots Pine Bonsai
zhlédnutí 13KPřed rokem
Repotting A Big Yamadori Scots Pine Bonsai
Repotting A Bonsai Without Removing It From Its Pot
zhlédnutí 5KPřed rokem
Repotting A Bonsai Without Removing It From Its Pot
How To Grow Spruce Bonsai And A 40 year old Bonsai From Seed Sown In 1982
zhlédnutí 7KPřed rokem
How To Grow Spruce Bonsai And A 40 year old Bonsai From Seed Sown In 1982
Japanese Black Pine Bonsai Seedlings: How To Develop And Thicken Trunks Faster!
zhlédnutí 48KPřed rokem
Japanese Black Pine Bonsai Seedlings: How To Develop And Thicken Trunks Faster!
Rosemary Bonsai and Repotting In Summer
zhlédnutí 15KPřed 2 lety
Rosemary Bonsai and Repotting In Summer
A Bonsai Tree Created From An Old Hedge
zhlédnutí 10KPřed 2 lety
A Bonsai Tree Created From An Old Hedge
Elm Bonsai Tree From An Old Stump In 4 Years
zhlédnutí 8KPřed 2 lety
Elm Bonsai Tree From An Old Stump In 4 Years
Partial Defoliation of Japanese Maple Bonsai
zhlédnutí 4,9KPřed 2 lety
Partial Defoliation of Japanese Maple Bonsai
Bonsai Artist Harry Harrington Interview / Hawthorn Bonsai
zhlédnutí 4,8KPřed 3 lety
Bonsai Artist Harry Harrington Interview / Hawthorn Bonsai
Bonsai Artist Harry Harrington Interview
zhlédnutí 3,7KPřed 3 lety
Bonsai Artist Harry Harrington Interview
Partial Defoliation Of Deciduous Bonsai In Summer
zhlédnutí 14KPřed 4 lety
Partial Defoliation Of Deciduous Bonsai In Summer
Japanese Maple Bonsai Partial Defoliation Of Outer Leaves
zhlédnutí 8KPřed 4 lety
Japanese Maple Bonsai Partial Defoliation Of Outer Leaves
Bonsai Garden In Spring: Using A Black Bag For Yamadori Bonsai
zhlédnutí 19KPřed 4 lety
Bonsai Garden In Spring: Using A Black Bag For Yamadori Bonsai
Creating A Bonsai With Nursery Material And A Big Bend
zhlédnutí 14KPřed 4 lety
Creating A Bonsai With Nursery Material And A Big Bend
I would love to see a longer video of how you made this stunning piece. Keep posting ❤
I will try and put more together using still images in the future More to follow on jbp on this channel very soon ;)
Stunning ramification, beautiful tree.
So practical mate, love your space
Great video, thank you
Just looks like pure peace. What a beautiful place you created.
Amazing.
I’ve got 2 seeds that just started sprouting in the same tiny ceramic pot. They’re about 1.5 inch tall now. When do I separate them without harming them??
Wait u til they’re a little more mature, give them another couple of weeks. There are techniques where seedlings have their roots removed at just a few weeks of age to help produce a new better nebari. But it’s not something I’ve done before….however I’ll be publishing a new video from an expert on these things in the coming weeks ;)
@@bonsai4me2 thank you. I used black bonsai seeds I got in Kyoto and instructions had me bury 5 seeds equidistant in a very small pot a pinky’s knuckle deep. One sprung up 4-5 weeks ago and then another about 5 days ago. They’re very close and I don’t want them to bind together at the roots before I can put them in separate pots.
I some Western states like where I live in Colorado, it is illegal to collect rain water. Rediculous, but some people do it on the stealth...
Seriously??!!!
Which sort of Maple is this?
Mountain Maple/straight Acer palmatum
👍👌
As a tropical fish keeper of more demanding species like stingrays etc I’m seeing more and more people nationally losing their fish and finding out from local water authority’s that they’ve carried out work that pollutes the water . Something to do with descaling water pipes I use an HMA for my fish
And as you have to look after the water quality so your fish are healthy, we have to look after the water and substrate to ensure our bonsai stay healthy
I didnt realize sunlight was bad for the healing until now. Thanks Harry!
I use a koi pond carbon water filter fitted after my tap, have done for 10 years, it works great, most of my trees are maples, they always look great, I never water the foliage :-) I change the filter every 3 to 5 years of a single cost of around £130.
Harry could you do a video on fungus which attacks spruce, pine and fungus that causes brown spot on deciduous? I believe it's all treated with copper sulphate? Great video on watering. I use a barrel but carry cans back and forth 10 times haha
That’s what I didn’t want to end up having to do 😅 With regards a video on fighting fungal attack, it’s kind of hard to do because there are so many variables. If you’re suffering with a lot of fungal problems, it’s possible, as a for instance, that your trees have some underlying stress that reduces their ability to fight off pathogens themselves. I use beneficial fungal spray ( Maru) to reduce the possibility of pathogens taking hold. Copper will kill most pathogens but you don’t really want to have to keep using it routinely, particularly as it will kill all microbes, good and bad.
@@bonsai4me2 yeah I figured it's a tough subject to cover. All conifers in Alberta Canada and a lot of other provinces I hear are having a huge problem. Especially with spruce. (Wild). I just seem to have been battling it as well. ( Wild and bonsia). I believe it's rhizophaera. Or what one would call needlecast. I had a huge spruce die in my yard that I now have to cut down. Of course these are Alberta spruce or white spruce. Black spruce as well have been affected bad as well. Maybe a bad couple years for them here.... I don't know. Anyway. I enjoy your videos and Knowledge on bonsia. Thanks for the quick reply! I really appreciate it.
I havent got room for large water container like that you have although i do like the size of yours and could possibly make room for one like that. I have 3 water butts that collect water and one is underneath a shelf with trees so when i water the tees all the water runs to one end and goes back through mesh and back ito barrel to be used again. I have a water pump like you show here in each butt . The other thing i do is add my liquid fertiliser to barrels so feed and water at same time.
Nice one!! I’ve resisted the urge to add anything like seaweed or fertiliser to the main butt, for fear of the butt getting heavily mossed up!
This is a very timely video for me. I have installed a recycled ibc tank to collect water from my garage roof. I placed it at 1M height and fitted a hosetap and thought id be good to go, but even filled with a 1000 litres theres not enough pressure to push through a hose. I've been trying to choose a pump from Amazon. Can i ask, do you think the hozelock pump would work inline, ie plumbed to the ibc tap? Not only is tap water chemically unsuitability its expensive! Great vid, thanks
Thank you Paul. No, the waterbutt pump mentioned here needs to be in the water. That said, there’s plenty of inline pumps about and anything that has at least the spec of this relatively small pump should be good enough to run a hose 30 metres or so
Very interesting. And nice to see some of your cool trees 👊
Thanks
SORRY BUT THIS IS ALL NONSENSE. TAP WATER IS FINE.....IT IS FINE FOR HUMANS.....SOOOOOOO....IT IS FINE FOR TREES. YES I HAVE GROWN BONSAI FOR 50 YEARS AND NO PROBLEMS WITH TAP WATER.
Gosh have you ever thought maybe you have good water in your area ? Or a difference in opinion . It's not nonsense at all ! It's science . Plus he's telling you what he has , he's not saying you have to have it . Ffs people love bringing people down . Sick of it go outside
😂😂 brilliant!!
@@Tailor8804 thank you for saving me the energy having to reply.
@@Tailor8804 So you are telling me I wasted my time at University doing Biology and Zoology. You have no clue what you are talking about. I don't have the time or inclination to educate you. You can listen to uneducated people if you wish.
@@johncaldwell3558 so John, do you find bonsai relaxes you?
Thanks for the video, do you treat your water, especially the RO since it has nothing in it, with any additives ? Thanks for sharing
If you’d got to the end of the video…I use oyster shell to provide some calcium to some species. I also use slow release fertiliser that feeds my trees each time I water
This is super helpful. I’ve been meaning to look into getting a rain water system to collect water from my house roof. Thanks for making this video.
Thank you, it’s great that it’s helped!
Hi Harry great useful video. I think I have been making a big mistake with my beech trees. I have been cutting the extensions off as they appear where as it looks like you let them all grow, harden off & then you take them off. Am I wrong to take the extensions off as I go? Thanks Harry
Allowing some extensions, even if it’s just for 2-3 weeks increases the vigour of the tree ahead of (partial) defoliation ;)
Have you tried just using adhesive aluminum foil tape rather than cut paste and aluminum cooking foil?
There are all kinds of ways to apply a foil covering, they all work for the same reason ;)
Great tip Harry .
👍👌
👍👌🙂
HUH! Well, that's a new trick to add to the bag! Thanks, Harry!
I didn't know that a partial defoliation can be performed on larches too. I will try it and shared this info wirh my bonsai club fellows. Thank you!❤🙏🏻
Interessting. Thank you. ❤
👍👌
Great tip!
Is it worth trying this on an existing wound that’s been healing for a couple of years? (Again Acer P) thanks
Was that a spider mite crawling up the middle of the trunk at about 3:20 into the video?
Thanks for the tip, Harry. I have seen it done several times already, but it is the first time I hear some explanation behind using foil.
What’s up Harry rhino man here. 😂😂 Thanks for the info 👊👊
as always it is a pleasure to hear your voice, thanks for the short, 🙏 /Jonatan
See you soon mate!
amazing tip man! i've been trying the vaseline i saw you describing on your books, so far it has been working really nice 😄
exellent thanks very much! and btw Harry sensei, when are you going to refresh the stock of the "inspiretions 1" (i already got the newbie book and insp 2) help me spread your teaching here in brazil 💪🏼
It will become available online next winter, but due to Brexit, there won’t be any more hard copies in the foreseeable future
Makes a lot of sense. 👍 I also much prefer to cut away the loops of wire rather than try and uncoil and save the wire. After all the cost of the wire (a couple of pence/cents) is considerably less than the cost of damaging the branch that has taken three seasons to grow, wire and set into place…
Absolutely…and those pieces of spaghetti wire are time consuming to mess around trying to use again 🤣
Spot on mate, thanks for your wisdom!
Great tip Harry for a newby like me. Thank you.
It’s surprising how often experienced enthusiasts remove all of the wire immediately after seeing one or two branches cutting in
Fantastic tree Harry
Great tree 👍
What a beautiful garden!
Awesome tree and pot 👌
Nice
I show my wife videos like this so that she tolerates my garden of stumps.
wow!
Nice whips 😀👍
Video way to short, would love to see more of your beautiful trees please.
Loved the sea stack Larches, a beautiful display!!