00:00:01
Speaker 1: Coming to you live from the Royal Adelaide Show, the final half hour for the day. Still time for you to drop by. We're here throughout the day. 8223 0000 is the number to ring. Lots of things to see and do at the show. I don't need to tell you that. One of the things I did take a look at as I came in was, and this is in the Jubilee Pavilion, the selection and collection of bonsai plants. Oh, okay. Okay. So, Andrew. Andrew, you're connected with the Bonsai people?
00:00:41
Speaker 2: People? Yes, I am connected with the Bonsai people.
00:00:44
Speaker 3: I'm also a councillor for the Horticulture Committee at the Royal.
00:00:49
Speaker 2: Agricultural and Horticultural Society.
00:00:53
Speaker 3: This is my second year as the councillor, so I think I might be off my L plates by now. Hit the P's and I'm still very much learning as I go with things.
00:01:03
Speaker 1: So what do you know about bonsai?
00:01:05
Speaker 2: I've been doing bonsai for nearly 30 years.
00:01:08
Speaker 3: I'm a national bonsai demonstrator, which means that I have the fortune of being.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: Able to travel around Australia.
00:01:16
Speaker 3: and talk and teach, and while I'm teaching, also learning from other people about bonsai.
00:01:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean, for people sort of saying, yeah, we sort of know about it, isn't that sort of miniature plants? So how do they become... You don't go and buy miniature plants per se, do you?
00:01:32
Speaker 3: No.
00:01:32
Speaker 1: You actually craft them.
00:01:35
Speaker 2: You craft them.
00:01:35
Speaker 3: So it's a combination of horticulture and artistry. The horticulture is about growing a plant that's strong and healthy... And the artistry is knowing to be able to reduce that plant by pruning and the fertilising process for it to be.
00:01:56
Speaker 2: Able to have it look exactly like a little tree.
00:02:01
Speaker 1: And people will sort of say, well, I've got plants and trees and I prune them. They don't grow small. So what actually happens?
00:02:08
Speaker 3: You know, with pruning, I mean, we can prune trees at the wrong time of the year. And, for instance, if you go out and prune your roses, they.
00:02:17
Speaker 2: Will regrow with vigour.
00:02:18
Speaker 3: And if you prune your deciduous trees in winter, they will grow with vigour into summer. If you prune them in summer and give them what's called a summer prune, they don't grow back with so much vigour. So what we do is we understand those horticultural side of things and we move that in to be able to manipulate a tree so that it has the image of a large tree. It has the root spread. It has the girth around the base of the tree. It has taper in the tree. The first branch is the strongest branch. The first branch, the strongest branch, is usually also the branch that follows out over the first major root that you're able to see around the tree. We've got other branches as well. We've got secondary branches and tertiary branches. It just follows through and we get all the twigginess on the tree. So if you were to sit in front of the tree and imagine that you were shrunk down to a little person's size, like a lily porch sort of situation, you would look up at the tree.
00:03:31
Speaker 2: and it would be a tree.
00:03:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I went over there and I had a look at the exhibit and you explained it perfectly. To all intents and purposes, if you took a close-up photo, it's a full-blown tree. It's only when you look at it in real life that it is, you know, a miniature.
00:03:45
Speaker 2: That's right. And that's what.
00:03:47
Speaker 3: You know, when we're looking at photographs of bonsai in international magazines or we're looking at photographs of bonsai on the internet, you really have no idea of the size of that tree. If it could be a tree... the size of my phone, it could be a tree as big as a person. So unless you put something next to that plant to be able.
00:04:12
Speaker 2: To tell the proportions of it.
00:04:14
Speaker 3: So a little packet of matches or a can of drink or something like that, you have no real idea.
00:04:21
Speaker 2: And it should be that because that's the artistry.
00:04:23
Speaker 3: You should be able to go, I can't look at that. And wow, it looks like a tree. It looks like you could go and have a picnic under it.
00:04:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, the one that I'm particularly looking at, I don't know, first price, second price, I'm not sure now, but a fully grown tree, how long would it take to get to that look and girth?
00:04:42
Speaker 3: Now, this is one of the things that people often ask in bonsai. They ask about whether the tree is, how old it is. And it really doesn't matter how old the tree is. It's about how old it looks. So we've got a very big jade plant. Many people know it as the money tree plant.
00:04:59
Speaker 2: It's a succulent.
00:05:00
Speaker 3: In the old days, it was actually declassified.
00:05:04
Speaker 2: As being a legitimate bonsai.
00:05:06
Speaker 3: And a lot of people in other places would say, no, that's not bonsai. But in South Australia, because of our very hot climate, it grows perfectly.
00:05:16
Speaker 2: But in South Australia, we can prune it back.
00:05:19
Speaker 3: We can get them to grow really fast and really strong and prune them back and get.
00:05:23
Speaker 2: Very heavy foliage pads all over the tree. And when we look at it, it looks like a tree, even though.
00:05:29
Speaker 3: It is not actually a woody species of plant. So that leads me on to normally with bonsai, you would be working with woody species. So this is the jade plant is one of those plants that breaks the rules.
00:05:46
Speaker 2: It's fine.
00:05:47
Speaker 3: It still looks as though it is a tree.
00:05:52
Speaker 2: If people working.
00:05:53
Speaker 3: With clay might not necessarily work with natural clay, they might work with polymers. But it gives the result. That's what they're looking for. And we're doing the same thing. So in our climate, we look for what is going to work very well. And we recommend to people who are starting in bonsai to get a tree that's almost... a fail-safe tree. And a jade tree is one of those.
00:06:21
Speaker 1: So obviously some work better to commit to bonsai than others. Are these from tiny little shrubs or plantlings?
00:06:29
Speaker 2: Well, you can start them.
00:06:31
Speaker 3: You can start a jade plant from a leaf that falls onto the ground or onto a pot. That will actually start a plant. But you'll be waiting a long, long, long, long time. The best way to start a jade, and I'm not recommending going out to to people and seeing parts of jade plants in other people's gardens but you know find look around and find very old jade plants that are growing around the place and there's a lot that are very overgrown and you can find a piece and it might actually be a branch so we're not looking for the bit going straight up we're looking for the branch going out And a branch, part of a branch which starts off wider and then becomes narrower. And it might become wider because that's one, that's.
00:07:16
Speaker 2: The primary branch.
00:07:17
Speaker 3: The secondary branch is narrower and tends to go on a different direction. Then the tertiary branch is thinner again and it goes in a different direction. So all of a sudden we've got a cutting that's a zigzag cutting. We can score around the base of that cutting and then place that cutting into... a potting medium, so that it grows. And then we grow all of the branches are actually grown onto it from there. It's a process that, you know, for that process might take two years.
00:07:53
Speaker 2: So it's actually quite quick.
00:07:54
Speaker 3: And then after that, the process to develop your tree might be another 10 years. But the outcome would be a tree that looks possibly 120 years.
00:08:03
Speaker 2: Brilliant.
00:08:03
Speaker 3: So....
00:08:06
Speaker 1: I mean, I find it fascinating. How difficult is it to start? Do you have to have a good gardening background?
00:08:14
Speaker 3: No. Look, if you can grow weeds, you should be able to grow bonsai. And the reason I say if you can grow weeds, you can grow bonsai is because in bonsai we use a lot of plants that.
00:08:25
Speaker 2: Would be classified as weed species in our state.
00:08:28
Speaker 3: But because they are not out being weedy in the wild, they are no longer weeds.
00:08:34
Speaker 2: So we use olives.
00:08:35
Speaker 3: So they are a woody weed in South Australia, but if they are kept under control and they are harvested, they're no longer a weed.
00:08:45
Speaker 2: Now, we use them in bonsai. They never fruit, okay?
00:08:48
Speaker 3: We actually go out to places we get permission to go and dig them, and that helps with the weed eradication from those areas. From those, we end up with a ligmatuber, the little chunky base of it, Mostly all the branches are removed, and then we regrow the branches again. And within about five years, you've got a respectable-looking bonsai. The jade tree, well, the fact that every piece of leaf that drops on the ground will regrow has the potential to become a weed. It's not seen as a weed in South Australia, but it has the potential. It grows beautifully in our climate. Chinese elms are another one. Chinese elms seed prolifically every autumn. Now, if all of those seeds were to grow, then we would have thousands of Chinese elms everywhere.
00:09:45
Speaker 2: They don't grow, okay?
00:09:48
Speaker 3: They grow from cutting. Ash trees are another one. Up through Brownhill Creek, we used to go and we were part of the eradication team up there to remove old ash trees that had were there over many generations. Now the city of Mitcham went through and they eradicated further and there are no ash trees there. There's probably some ash trees that have redeveloped but they're not the old ones. But again another weed species and in fact at one of our annual.
00:10:16
Speaker 2: Shows a few years ago we had bonsai as.
00:10:19
Speaker 3: Weeds weed species that was the theme on our stage was about you know this is a weed but it's also a bonsai this is a weed it's a bonsai this is a weed this.
00:10:28
Speaker 1: Is a bonsai what about fruit what about fruit trees.
00:10:31
Speaker 3: Yes absolutely fruit trees now some fruit trees can be a weed so if you're looking at um plum trees for instance You.
00:10:38
Speaker 2: Know, the plums will come up all over the place, and.
00:10:40
Speaker 3: There's areas of Australia where fruit trees have got out into the wild. You might have seen them if you travel interstate by road. You might actually see them there. They are also particularly good for bonsai, but the fruit itself does not get smaller. So if a plum, if we're going to look at using a plum... The main reason we use a plum for bonsai is because it has a beautiful flower, okay?
00:11:06
Speaker 2: Right.
00:11:06
Speaker 3: Either a really simple white flower or a simple pink flower. There's a whole lot of different deciduous plants that we'll use for their flowers. Now, some of them, we do allow them to go into fruit, but we will take most of the fruit off.
00:11:20
Speaker 2: Right. So we don't tend to.
00:11:22
Speaker 3: And that's because by allowing the fruit to grow on a tree, it takes a lot of energy out of that tree.
00:11:28
Speaker 2: Right. So we don't want to stress our bonsai.
00:11:31
Speaker 3: We want them to be very, very healthy, and we want them to have the best possible life and opportunity for success. So, yes, the one with the fruit is a significant one.
00:11:44
Speaker 2: A regular apple, like if you've got an apple now, if you went along and.
00:11:50
Speaker 3: Bought an apple that was a grafted stock, that grafted stock is grafted onto rootstock, that is a strong rootstock, it will fatten up where the graft is. Often those grafts are done, they're commercial, and they are for commercial fruit production. If you want a tree, an apple tree, start it from an apple seed, okay? If you want a lemon tree, start it from a lemon seed. So don't go and spend a lot of money on buying a grafted stock plant Let that be put into the backyard for production, and if you're going to have a tree to play with, you decide, hey, I want a peppercorn tree. That's another weed.
00:12:35
Speaker 2: Species in South Australia.
00:12:37
Speaker 1: Amazing.
00:12:39
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of things there.
00:12:41
Speaker 3: But the annual show is a big thing where people can come along and find out more about the tree.
00:12:47
Speaker 1: I was going to say that there's no doubt people listening say, oh, I might have a crack at that, so... If they come along to the Jubilee Pavilion here, there'll be someone here that could give some advice.
00:12:55
Speaker 3: Actually, in the Gorda Pavilion, so down at the Goodwood Road end of the Gorda Pavilion, so Jubilee Pavilion is one end, and we're separated by the Duncan Gallery in the middle with the cookery and the cake decorating and the handicrafts. So on the other end, we've got a whole lot of landscape designs. We've got seven landscapers down there, a whole lot of garden clubs, and yes, there are people there. If you want to find out more about Bonsai, there is somebody there generally between 10 and 4 every day to chat to people about Bonsai and Fall and find out more information.
00:13:27
Speaker 1: Andrew, thanks for dropping by. That's quite fascinating.
00:13:29
Speaker 2: Absolute pleasure.
00:13:30
Speaker 1: All the best.
Speaker 1: Coming to you live from the Royal Adelaide Show, the final half hour for the day. Still time for you to drop by. We're here throughout the day. 8223 0000 is the number to ring. Lots of things to see and do at the show. I don't need to tell you that. One of the things I did take a look at as I came in was, and this is in the Jubilee Pavilion, the selection and collection of bonsai plants. Oh, okay. Okay. So, Andrew. Andrew, you're connected with the Bonsai people?
00:00:41
Speaker 2: People? Yes, I am connected with the Bonsai people.
00:00:44
Speaker 3: I'm also a councillor for the Horticulture Committee at the Royal.
00:00:49
Speaker 2: Agricultural and Horticultural Society.
00:00:53
Speaker 3: This is my second year as the councillor, so I think I might be off my L plates by now. Hit the P's and I'm still very much learning as I go with things.
00:01:03
Speaker 1: So what do you know about bonsai?
00:01:05
Speaker 2: I've been doing bonsai for nearly 30 years.
00:01:08
Speaker 3: I'm a national bonsai demonstrator, which means that I have the fortune of being.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: Able to travel around Australia.
00:01:16
Speaker 3: and talk and teach, and while I'm teaching, also learning from other people about bonsai.
00:01:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean, for people sort of saying, yeah, we sort of know about it, isn't that sort of miniature plants? So how do they become... You don't go and buy miniature plants per se, do you?
00:01:32
Speaker 3: No.
00:01:32
Speaker 1: You actually craft them.
00:01:35
Speaker 2: You craft them.
00:01:35
Speaker 3: So it's a combination of horticulture and artistry. The horticulture is about growing a plant that's strong and healthy... And the artistry is knowing to be able to reduce that plant by pruning and the fertilising process for it to be.
00:01:56
Speaker 2: Able to have it look exactly like a little tree.
00:02:01
Speaker 1: And people will sort of say, well, I've got plants and trees and I prune them. They don't grow small. So what actually happens?
00:02:08
Speaker 3: You know, with pruning, I mean, we can prune trees at the wrong time of the year. And, for instance, if you go out and prune your roses, they.
00:02:17
Speaker 2: Will regrow with vigour.
00:02:18
Speaker 3: And if you prune your deciduous trees in winter, they will grow with vigour into summer. If you prune them in summer and give them what's called a summer prune, they don't grow back with so much vigour. So what we do is we understand those horticultural side of things and we move that in to be able to manipulate a tree so that it has the image of a large tree. It has the root spread. It has the girth around the base of the tree. It has taper in the tree. The first branch is the strongest branch. The first branch, the strongest branch, is usually also the branch that follows out over the first major root that you're able to see around the tree. We've got other branches as well. We've got secondary branches and tertiary branches. It just follows through and we get all the twigginess on the tree. So if you were to sit in front of the tree and imagine that you were shrunk down to a little person's size, like a lily porch sort of situation, you would look up at the tree.
00:03:31
Speaker 2: and it would be a tree.
00:03:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I went over there and I had a look at the exhibit and you explained it perfectly. To all intents and purposes, if you took a close-up photo, it's a full-blown tree. It's only when you look at it in real life that it is, you know, a miniature.
00:03:45
Speaker 2: That's right. And that's what.
00:03:47
Speaker 3: You know, when we're looking at photographs of bonsai in international magazines or we're looking at photographs of bonsai on the internet, you really have no idea of the size of that tree. If it could be a tree... the size of my phone, it could be a tree as big as a person. So unless you put something next to that plant to be able.
00:04:12
Speaker 2: To tell the proportions of it.
00:04:14
Speaker 3: So a little packet of matches or a can of drink or something like that, you have no real idea.
00:04:21
Speaker 2: And it should be that because that's the artistry.
00:04:23
Speaker 3: You should be able to go, I can't look at that. And wow, it looks like a tree. It looks like you could go and have a picnic under it.
00:04:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, the one that I'm particularly looking at, I don't know, first price, second price, I'm not sure now, but a fully grown tree, how long would it take to get to that look and girth?
00:04:42
Speaker 3: Now, this is one of the things that people often ask in bonsai. They ask about whether the tree is, how old it is. And it really doesn't matter how old the tree is. It's about how old it looks. So we've got a very big jade plant. Many people know it as the money tree plant.
00:04:59
Speaker 2: It's a succulent.
00:05:00
Speaker 3: In the old days, it was actually declassified.
00:05:04
Speaker 2: As being a legitimate bonsai.
00:05:06
Speaker 3: And a lot of people in other places would say, no, that's not bonsai. But in South Australia, because of our very hot climate, it grows perfectly.
00:05:16
Speaker 2: But in South Australia, we can prune it back.
00:05:19
Speaker 3: We can get them to grow really fast and really strong and prune them back and get.
00:05:23
Speaker 2: Very heavy foliage pads all over the tree. And when we look at it, it looks like a tree, even though.
00:05:29
Speaker 3: It is not actually a woody species of plant. So that leads me on to normally with bonsai, you would be working with woody species. So this is the jade plant is one of those plants that breaks the rules.
00:05:46
Speaker 2: It's fine.
00:05:47
Speaker 3: It still looks as though it is a tree.
00:05:52
Speaker 2: If people working.
00:05:53
Speaker 3: With clay might not necessarily work with natural clay, they might work with polymers. But it gives the result. That's what they're looking for. And we're doing the same thing. So in our climate, we look for what is going to work very well. And we recommend to people who are starting in bonsai to get a tree that's almost... a fail-safe tree. And a jade tree is one of those.
00:06:21
Speaker 1: So obviously some work better to commit to bonsai than others. Are these from tiny little shrubs or plantlings?
00:06:29
Speaker 2: Well, you can start them.
00:06:31
Speaker 3: You can start a jade plant from a leaf that falls onto the ground or onto a pot. That will actually start a plant. But you'll be waiting a long, long, long, long time. The best way to start a jade, and I'm not recommending going out to to people and seeing parts of jade plants in other people's gardens but you know find look around and find very old jade plants that are growing around the place and there's a lot that are very overgrown and you can find a piece and it might actually be a branch so we're not looking for the bit going straight up we're looking for the branch going out And a branch, part of a branch which starts off wider and then becomes narrower. And it might become wider because that's one, that's.
00:07:16
Speaker 2: The primary branch.
00:07:17
Speaker 3: The secondary branch is narrower and tends to go on a different direction. Then the tertiary branch is thinner again and it goes in a different direction. So all of a sudden we've got a cutting that's a zigzag cutting. We can score around the base of that cutting and then place that cutting into... a potting medium, so that it grows. And then we grow all of the branches are actually grown onto it from there. It's a process that, you know, for that process might take two years.
00:07:53
Speaker 2: So it's actually quite quick.
00:07:54
Speaker 3: And then after that, the process to develop your tree might be another 10 years. But the outcome would be a tree that looks possibly 120 years.
00:08:03
Speaker 2: Brilliant.
00:08:03
Speaker 3: So....
00:08:06
Speaker 1: I mean, I find it fascinating. How difficult is it to start? Do you have to have a good gardening background?
00:08:14
Speaker 3: No. Look, if you can grow weeds, you should be able to grow bonsai. And the reason I say if you can grow weeds, you can grow bonsai is because in bonsai we use a lot of plants that.
00:08:25
Speaker 2: Would be classified as weed species in our state.
00:08:28
Speaker 3: But because they are not out being weedy in the wild, they are no longer weeds.
00:08:34
Speaker 2: So we use olives.
00:08:35
Speaker 3: So they are a woody weed in South Australia, but if they are kept under control and they are harvested, they're no longer a weed.
00:08:45
Speaker 2: Now, we use them in bonsai. They never fruit, okay?
00:08:48
Speaker 3: We actually go out to places we get permission to go and dig them, and that helps with the weed eradication from those areas. From those, we end up with a ligmatuber, the little chunky base of it, Mostly all the branches are removed, and then we regrow the branches again. And within about five years, you've got a respectable-looking bonsai. The jade tree, well, the fact that every piece of leaf that drops on the ground will regrow has the potential to become a weed. It's not seen as a weed in South Australia, but it has the potential. It grows beautifully in our climate. Chinese elms are another one. Chinese elms seed prolifically every autumn. Now, if all of those seeds were to grow, then we would have thousands of Chinese elms everywhere.
00:09:45
Speaker 2: They don't grow, okay?
00:09:48
Speaker 3: They grow from cutting. Ash trees are another one. Up through Brownhill Creek, we used to go and we were part of the eradication team up there to remove old ash trees that had were there over many generations. Now the city of Mitcham went through and they eradicated further and there are no ash trees there. There's probably some ash trees that have redeveloped but they're not the old ones. But again another weed species and in fact at one of our annual.
00:10:16
Speaker 2: Shows a few years ago we had bonsai as.
00:10:19
Speaker 3: Weeds weed species that was the theme on our stage was about you know this is a weed but it's also a bonsai this is a weed it's a bonsai this is a weed this.
00:10:28
Speaker 1: Is a bonsai what about fruit what about fruit trees.
00:10:31
Speaker 3: Yes absolutely fruit trees now some fruit trees can be a weed so if you're looking at um plum trees for instance You.
00:10:38
Speaker 2: Know, the plums will come up all over the place, and.
00:10:40
Speaker 3: There's areas of Australia where fruit trees have got out into the wild. You might have seen them if you travel interstate by road. You might actually see them there. They are also particularly good for bonsai, but the fruit itself does not get smaller. So if a plum, if we're going to look at using a plum... The main reason we use a plum for bonsai is because it has a beautiful flower, okay?
00:11:06
Speaker 2: Right.
00:11:06
Speaker 3: Either a really simple white flower or a simple pink flower. There's a whole lot of different deciduous plants that we'll use for their flowers. Now, some of them, we do allow them to go into fruit, but we will take most of the fruit off.
00:11:20
Speaker 2: Right. So we don't tend to.
00:11:22
Speaker 3: And that's because by allowing the fruit to grow on a tree, it takes a lot of energy out of that tree.
00:11:28
Speaker 2: Right. So we don't want to stress our bonsai.
00:11:31
Speaker 3: We want them to be very, very healthy, and we want them to have the best possible life and opportunity for success. So, yes, the one with the fruit is a significant one.
00:11:44
Speaker 2: A regular apple, like if you've got an apple now, if you went along and.
00:11:50
Speaker 3: Bought an apple that was a grafted stock, that grafted stock is grafted onto rootstock, that is a strong rootstock, it will fatten up where the graft is. Often those grafts are done, they're commercial, and they are for commercial fruit production. If you want a tree, an apple tree, start it from an apple seed, okay? If you want a lemon tree, start it from a lemon seed. So don't go and spend a lot of money on buying a grafted stock plant Let that be put into the backyard for production, and if you're going to have a tree to play with, you decide, hey, I want a peppercorn tree. That's another weed.
00:12:35
Speaker 2: Species in South Australia.
00:12:37
Speaker 1: Amazing.
00:12:39
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of things there.
00:12:41
Speaker 3: But the annual show is a big thing where people can come along and find out more about the tree.
00:12:47
Speaker 1: I was going to say that there's no doubt people listening say, oh, I might have a crack at that, so... If they come along to the Jubilee Pavilion here, there'll be someone here that could give some advice.
00:12:55
Speaker 3: Actually, in the Gorda Pavilion, so down at the Goodwood Road end of the Gorda Pavilion, so Jubilee Pavilion is one end, and we're separated by the Duncan Gallery in the middle with the cookery and the cake decorating and the handicrafts. So on the other end, we've got a whole lot of landscape designs. We've got seven landscapers down there, a whole lot of garden clubs, and yes, there are people there. If you want to find out more about Bonsai, there is somebody there generally between 10 and 4 every day to chat to people about Bonsai and Fall and find out more information.
00:13:27
Speaker 1: Andrew, thanks for dropping by. That's quite fascinating.
00:13:29
Speaker 2: Absolute pleasure.
00:13:30
Speaker 1: All the best.
