The Golden Rain Trees

I’ve decided that I am not patient enough to wait years before being able to turn my seedlings into bonsai. So I again went to my good friend Mr. eBay. I searched around and couldn’t find anything that really caught my eye right off of the bat. So I went to the forums and began looking for unusual or not very common types of bonsai and I came across this picture:

I instantly fell in love with the idea of growing one of these myself. So I again went back to eBay and found a guy who was selling 3 year old trees in dormancy at a good price with free shipping. So now I am the proud owner of two Golden Rain trees, or Koelreuteria paniculata.

I went back to my local nursery as soon as my plants arrived, bought myself two appropriately sized pots, 4 medium sized clay pots, and a general purpose potting soil. And went back to the apartment to get those plants in the dirt ASAP. I took the clay pots and my hammer out to the courtyard and had me some fun smashing them to smithereens for the tray underneath the pots (add water to the shards to help generate humidity for the plants). Planted the mini trees in the dirt, watered vigorously and then left them to work out where they wanted to bud… for two weeks… ugh… I guess I’m gonna have to get used to the this thing called patience. But then over night they both grew out a few buds, and then seemingly immediately after that they have small branches. Here’s hoping that they will make good bonsai once they have grown out some.