NEWLY DRESSED CYCAS REVOLUTA 2017

By: Norberto Betita



Every year I always have to cut all the leaves of my Cycas revoluta (Sago Palm) bonsai to look like being newly dressed and beautiful. Generally new shoots emerge in two to three weeks and new leaves grow like curled hair and very tender until it finally stretched to its normal size and hardness the tip of which is like a sharp pin.

My bonsai specimens of Cycas Revoluta (a species of gymnosperm in the family of Cycadaceae) were originally planted from a clone of basal offsets removed from several mother palms. These basal offsets usually grow at ground level next to the main trunk or on the elevated trunk of the cycad. These had been in my collections more than 15 years ago and had been transferred from one pot to another. I found it to be a very resilient plant. It can live in a very limited soil and with infrequent watering. It grows more and strong leaves during very hot weather. Its roots are not easily downed during rainy season as did other of my bonsai trees.

Despite very limited soil and small and shallow pots, some of my cycads had already produced basal offsets which makes it even more interesting.

Below are raw pictures of some of my cycads.

MY MOLAVE BONSAI MINI-FOREST

By: Norberto G. Betita

Through the years my Molave bonsai trees had multiplied as to become kind of a Molave bonsai mini-forest. Below are pictures of some of my Molave bonsai trees grown at our backyard. Molave (Vitex parviflora of the Verbenaceae family) is a medium sized tree which is very popular in our province of Surigao del Norte, Philippines generally used for timbers and furniture. It is known for its very durable and strong wood. Even the remains of its cuttings in the forest were made into beautiful drift wood furniture.
From my first specimen which I bought from a plant dealer, I have been able to plant more from cuttings. I have not been informed whether my first specimen was a seed tree or a cutting or was I really sure then whether cuttings will survive into beautiful bonsai trees until I tried it myself in the late 1990’s. This specie is one of a rock dweller. In my years of observation with my Molave bonsai, I found that these trees can live on rocks even without the soil, but through the years roots came out from the crevices of coral rocks where I have them planted as tiny specimens to the end that I was constrained to just put these rock dweller trees on a shallow pot with soil. Over the years of their growing some of the coral rocks were broken as a result of their enlarged trunks and roots inside.

The compound leaves of three leaflets can no longer be seen because of continued pruning. However, when I leave its branches to grow, particularly during rainy season, the branches grow taller and leaves become bigger and eventually the compound leaves are shown.

This Molave bonsai mini-forest are generally grown over rocks and some on very shallow pots with plain soil.