My New Adventures In Bonsai.

So I had this Bonsai tree, and it was a fig. I had quite a history with this little fig tree, and it started just after I got it from Fred Meyer, AKA Kroger for those of you who have one of those instead. Anyway, this tree was in a Bonsai pot, and had been grow out, and then cut back so it had a thick trunk with a sort of "S" curve to it and a fair amount of healthy branches. The problem was the tag only said "bonsai", and gave no further description as to the type of tree it was.

Now some of you may not be familiar with bonsai so I will interject a bit of trivia for you: A bonsai is generally a tree, but not always, and is not a specific type of plant, but refers to the style. Bonsai is simply miniaturized plants. This is done either by cutting them down to size, or growing them to a certain size. This size is then maintained by keeping the roots in a small pot, as well as by regularly trimming the rots to keep them from "choking out" in the small pot. Some say that bonsai is the art of patients, but I like to think of it as a living sculpture.

Anyway...

I used something that I just sort of remembered from high school to assist in identifying this tree, I compared the leaves and trunk to other, large trees that had their name tag. Turns out this tree was a type of fig, although the exact type I never did conclude. This actually took longer than it seems, as most of the time the stores didn't have any trees like it whenever I went shopping, so when I finally made my discovery I felt like Sherlock Holmes, or at least what I assume Sherlock feels like when he's figured something out. I even turned to my son, called him "Watson", and announced my findings in a rather poor attempt of the "Sherlock accent".

Why didn't I just look in a freakin' book to find my answer you ask, well I could never find a plant book when I was at the store, and never remembered to go by the library to see if they had anything that would help. I did find a book eventually, but by then I had already figured it out on my own.

Now that I knew my tree was a fig, I knew how to take care of it a little better and soon had a healthy, thriving plant. Yet it seemed so alone on the shelf all by itself, so I soon sent for a dwarf cherry tree to even out the mantle. This new tree gave me all kinds of trouble and I thought it was going to die quite a few times. Well, several bug infestations later I finally had the cherry tree limping along and the fig doing just fine.

Then something happened.

It was just last December, and with it being winter, and the fact that I live in Alaska, it was cold outside. This was only a problem because the trees were getting blasted with cold air every time the door opened, and soon the leaves on the fig started turning black and falling off. Needless to say, I whisked the trees away to a new home and started nursing them back to health. Once again the cherry tree started to look like it was going to die, the fig on the other hand was perking up, and even showing new growth.

Before long even the cherry tree was coming back around and all was well. It wouldn't last. Soon the fig's leaves were falling off, and the branches were dying. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I had been watering the same, I had even gotten a plant light to make up for the lack of sun in their new, away from the cold, home. Nothing seemed to help, so when a friend of mine was bringing me my home-made birthday beer, who just happens to be a bonsai-ist, I enlisted his help.

Turns out the fig had gotten root-rot, and despite my best attempts to save it, the fig died. After all I had gone through with the cherry tree, it was the fig. The majestic "S" curved, abundantly leafy, my bonsai pride and joy, fig.

And then the other night I was at Wal-Mart, and I happened upon tiny little starter plants for less than a buck. It only took me about 2 seconds to figure out what one of them was, a jade. Jades by the way, are supposed to be very resilient. And there was an empty bonsai pot sitting at home where the fig used to be. Not to mention this time if it dies, I'm only out a dollar.