Jalapenos, Habaneros & Cactus

The last weekend in March, I started two habanero chili pepper plants in 12 inch containers.  The photos are from last weekend.  These were small plants from a store, but they were already nice size.  The habanero plants have at least doubled in size.

At the same time I started five jalapeno chili pepper plants.  They were much smaller, hardly larger than seedlings.  They are coming along pretty good, although one plant is smaller than the restl  The squirrels have been digging in the dirt of the pots, and the smaller plant was once almost totally dug up.  The squirrels don't eat the plants, but maybe they are looking for food.  I was told by a friend to sprinkle just a little cayenne pepper powder on top of the soil.  The pepper gets into the squirrels paws and burns, then they lick their paws and get it into their mouths.  They haven't bothered the jalapenos anymore.

Nearly two years ago, Jo Richardson, one of the Political Science professors I work with, gave me three cactuses.  The three were in one small, 4 inch pot.  After about 2 months, I forget them in my old office, where they sat on the window sill without water from Sept to Dec 2007.  I brought them home in Dec 2007, and transplanted them into separate pots in the Spring of 2008.

Bonsai - Ficus microcarpa "Golden Gate"

On May 2nd, I attended the Louisiana Association of Bonsai Societies meeting in Shreveport. After a morning demonstration on a Japanese Shimpaku juniper and following lunch, people broke into different groups to work on various trees.  The President of the Shreveport Bonsai Society (http://shreveportbonsai.org/)  helped me with a small fig tree (Ficus microcarpa "Golden Gate").  

We pruned the ficus, removed most of the leaves (they should grow back within a few weeks), and wired the remaining branches to help the shape of the tree.  The pot is 5.25 inches long, 4 inches wide, and 2 inches deep.  The finished tree is 10 inches tall from the soil level to the apex. The wires around the base of the pot were added before I left Shreveport to help hold the ficus for the trip back home to Ruston.  I will probably wait a couple of weeks to remove the wire from the base of the tree and pot, but the wires on the branches will probably stay on for up to 6 months. If the wires begin to cut into the tree, I will remove them earlier.

This tree will take another couple of years to start getting real good.  Bonsai does not go fast!  I will post more photos of this tree in the future.