I subscribe to the philosophy that there are great life lessons hidden within every discipline I undertake. The greatest example of this in my own life is my bonsai hobby. I can honestly say that, over the years, I have come to many realizations (IMO profound ones) about life, relationships, society, etc. from studying and practicing this art. OK, so maybe a better way to put it is that these ‘realizations’ are simply parallels that I’m drawing between the principals and methods of the bonsai discipline, and truths I have already recognized on some level; either way I think it helps me to understand the world and myself better, and I find it inspiring.
I have just added some new parallels. I killed a little more than half of my trees. The simple explanation is root rot that weakened the plants right before a massive heat wave. I had assumed root rot was impossible with the soil mix I use, so I didn’t really worry about it, and now I’m suffering the consequences. Here’s the complicated explanation: first, some back story; this year I starved my plants of fertilizer pretty much all spring long for a rather complicated reason revolving around manipulation of the annual hormone cycle of deciduous trees. In early June I started using an organic fertilizer often used in hydroponic systems called Age Old Grow. I’ll come back to this.
I built a pond in my backyard mainly for the purpose of watering my trees. My problem with tap water was that I was seeing massive, ugly mineral buildup on the rims of my pots and on the trunks and leaves of my trees. Tap water here is full of chlorine and other chemicals and lots of salts and other minerals. Pond water solves this problem because the chlorine evaporates and the mineral particles bind to eachother and settle to the bottom of the pond.
So, this year is the first year I watered my trees exclusively from the pond, and the first year that I tried an experimental nutrient program. This turned out to be a terrible combination. I have never had problems with root rot in the past because the chlorine in the tap water basically sterilized my root systems, which isn’t ideal but it works fine. So I removed this preventative against root rot, and at the same time fed my trees an organic nutrient known to promote root rot if used improperly. I was using it improperly.
The lesson to be learned from this is that by attempting to fix a problem that was basically aesthetic in nature, and definitely manageable, I created a whole new set of problems which were much more severe than the original issue I was trying to fix. I think this is something society does over and over again. It’s a rather unspecific principle that is difficult to learn from because of its own subtetly. Think of our foreign policy and how our government often attempts to fix a small, manageable foreign situation, and often ends up with larger problems as a result. Think of all the many subsidies given to different industries for a variety of reasons, which so often end up having entirely unintended consequences for the economy. Think of the current economic crisis and just wait for the problems that will arise as a result of the actions taken to artificially stimulate economic growth. I could go on like this for page after page.
As for my trees: I am feeding the survivors an enzymatic nutrient that breaks down the rotting roots and promotes healthy new root formation. I believe that it is working. I’m glad to be able to learn from my mistakes, and I think I see this disaster as an essential step towards mastering the art.