Bonsai Trees

Becky’s Tree Square challenge

From Wikipedia

Bonsai (Japanese  ‘tray planting’, is a Japanese version of the original traditional Chinese art penjing or penzai. The Japanese “bonsai” only attempts to produce small trees that mimic the shape of real life trees. Similar versions of the art exist in other cultures.

The loanword “bonsai” (a Japanese pronunciation of the original Chinese term penzai) has become an umbrella term in English, attached to many forms of potted or other plants. In the most restrictive sense, “bonsai” refers to miniaturized, container-grown trees adhering to Japanese tradition and principles.

Bonsai

Purposes of bonsai are primarily contemplation for the viewer, and the pleasant exercise of effort and ingenuity for the grower.^] By contrast with other plant cultivation practices, bonsai is not intended for production of food or for medicine. Instead, bonsai practice focuses on long-term cultivation and shaping of one or more small trees growing in a container.

Bonsai can be created from nearly any perennial woody-stemmed tree or shrub species that produces true branches and can be cultivated to remain small through pot confinement with crown and root pruning. Some species are popular as bonsai material because they have characteristics, such as small leaves or needles, that make them appropriate for the compact visual scope of bonsai.

Bonsai

The source specimen is shaped to be relatively small and to meet the aesthetic standards of bonsai, which emphasizes not the entirety of grand sceneries but rather only the tree itself. When the candidate bonsai nears its planned final size, it is planted in a display pot, usually one designed for bonsai display in one of a few accepted shapes and proportions. From that point forward, its growth is restricted by the pot environment. Throughout the year, the bonsai is shaped to limit growth, redistribute foliar vigor to areas requiring further development, and meet the artist’s detailed design.

The practice of bonsai is sometimes confused with dwarfing, but dwarfing generally refers to research, discovery, or creation of plants that are permanent, genetic miniatures of existing species. Plant dwarfing often uses selective breeding or genetic engineering to create dwarf cultivars. Bonsai does not require genetically dwarfed trees but rather depends on growing small trees from regular stock and seeds. Bonsai uses cultivation techniques like pruning, root reduction, potting, defoliation, and grafting to produce small trees that mimic the shape and style of mature, full-size trees.

Bonsai

Traveller’s Tree

Becky’s Tree Square challenge

Traveller’s Tree – Mautitius

Traveller’s Tree

Ravenala is a genus of flowering plants with a single species, Ravenala madagascariensis, commonly known as the traveller’s tree, traveller’s palm or East-West palm, from Madagascar. It is not a true palm (family Arecaceae) but a member of a monocotyledonous flowering plant family, Strelitziaceae. The genus is closely related to the southern African genus Strelitzia and the South American genus Phenakospermum. Some older classifications include these genera in the banana family (Musaceae). Although it is usually considered to be a single species, four different forms have been distinguished. Wikipedia

Pear Tree

Becky’s Tree Square challenge

Pear Tree

Pears

Coconut Palm Tree

Becky’s Tree Square challenge

coconut palm, (Cocos nucifera), palm of the family Arecaceae, cultivated extensively in tropical areas for its edible fruit, the coconut. Coconut palms are found in tropical coastal areas nearly worldwide and probably originated somewhere in Indo-Malaya. They are the most economically important palm species, coconuts being one of the predominant crops of the tropics.


Physical description

coconut palm, (Cocos nucifera), palm of the family Arecaceae, cultivated extensively in tropical areas for its edible fruit, the coconut. Coconut palms are found in tropical coastal areas nearly worldwide and probably originated somewhere in Indo-Malaya. They are the most economically important palm species, coconuts being one of the predominant crops of the tropics.

Coconut Palm Tree – Mauritius

Coconut Palm Tree – Mauritius

Cork Oak Tree

Becky’s Tree Square challenge

Cork tree

Cork oak trees (Quercus suber) are native to the Western Mediterranean region, and are still cultivated there for their bark. These trees are slow-growing giants, eventually maturing to 70 feet (21 m.) or taller and equally wide. Woody and upright, cork oaks in the landscape have small, rounded leaves that are gray underneath. According to cork tree information, the leaves stay on the branches all winter long, then fall in spring as the new leaves appear. Cork oak trees produce small acorns that are edible. They also grow the fascinating corky bark for which they are cultivated commercially.

Learn About Cork Oak Trees In The Landscape https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/trees/oak/cork-oak-tree-information.htm

Octopus Tree

Becky’s Tree Square challenge

The Octopus Tree, Schefflera actinophylla also known as the Umbrella tree belongs to the family Araliaceae. It is native to tropical rainforests and gallery forests of eastern Queensland and the Northern Territory of Australia, New Guinea and Java.

The Octopus Tree Schefflera actinophylla is an evergreen tree growing to 15 m tall. It has compound medium green leaves in groups of seven leaves. It is usually multi-trunked, and the masses of bright red flowers develop at the top of the tree. It often grows as an epiphyte on other rainforest trees or as a lithophyte on rocky outcrops. The Octopus Tree produces up to 1000 individual flowers generating large amounts of nectar which attracts nectar-eating birds and insects. The thousands of fruits produced each containing many seeds are eaten by many birds in particular by Black Collard Barbets  and by monkeys, seed dispersal is predominantly carried out by birds.

Palm Trees

Becky’s Tree Square challenge

Weekend sky #35

Weekend Sky

Langebaan

Fever Tree

Becky’s Tree Square challenge

Vachellia xanthophloea is a tree in the family Fabaceae, commonly known in English as the fever tree.

 This species of Vachellia is native to eastern and southern Africa (Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Somalia, South Africa, Eswatini, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe). It has also become a landscape tree in other warm climates, outside of its natural range.

Malachite Sunbird in the Fever Tree

The name xanthophloea is derived from Greek and means “yellow bark”. The common name, fever tree, comes from its tendency to grow in swampy areas: early European settlers in the region noted that malarial fever was contracted in areas with these trees. It is now understood that malarial fever is spread by mosquitos living in the swampy areas that often support this tree species, and not by the tree species itself. This is because mosquitos often lay eggs in moist swampy areas, and they need blood to do that. Wikipedia

Fever trees in my garden

Lemon Tree

Becky’s Tree Square challenge

Lemon Tree Flower Buds

When lemon trees flower, clusters of fragrant, white flowers are produced at the ends of the stems. Most citrus trees bloom in spring and then set fruit that is ready to harvest in fall and winter, although you may see stages of blossoms, fruit growth and fruit maturity all year round.

Lemon Tree

Lemon flower