Bonsai!

I bought this cute little canary palm to make a bonsai. I've never done this before with any plant, and there isn't much on the internet, an nothing in books about palms as bonsai. But I figured a mini-palm tree would be so cool, and if it dies, it only cost 6 bucks...

So here's my little pot-bound palm.

















I had to figure out what kind of pot to use. I didn't really feel drawn to any of the traditional pots I looked at. Yesterday I went out to Building Resources. They do a lot of very creative things with junk. I was inspired. (I also bought a bunch of stuff to make a water fountain.. more on that in a few days.)

I found this old lighting fixture for 5 bucks, turned it upside down, covered the hole with mesh and voila! a perfect planter!














So here we go... the first cut is the deepest! I read that you need to wash all the soil out of the roots and cut them off. I read a few books and none of them give much instruction as far as root pruning goes.















I may have gone too far!





























The one reference I did find online said that palms were super easy, and to just use plain potting mixture, preferably one with a lot of sand for support. I used the ubiquitous SuperSoil.















Here's the end result so far. We'll see if I killed it or not. Maybe I should remove a few fronds. I hope he lives because he sure is cute!