Rockspray Cotoneaster (Cotoneaster horizontalis)

• 31 May, 2009
• 2 likes

Collected from a hardcore path next to a toxic skip. Drought in summer, waterlogged in winter, chances of survival - nil. I recently found out the area where I collected the seedling has been demolished (chemical plant). The seedling was four inches long plus multiply tap roots of about five inches and not much feeder roots.

I planted it into a 3" pot of sharp sand, after shortening the tap roots, for four months giving the feeder roots time to develop. I then I repotted it into a 3" tall and 1 1/2" wide mame bonsai pot. Potting it up as a semi-cascade bonsai style it lived there for four years being root pruned and repotted back into the same pot, until a strong wind blew it off its stand and broke the pot.

Replanted her into a 6" x 8" seed tray on top of the rock you see in the final photo. She lived there for the next four years before being transplanted into the oval pot where she has lived since. Her age is estimated to be at least twenty one.

She starts the year by dressing in a pale green gown in the Springtime, by early Summer She has changed into a dark green dress and in June covers her dress with masses of pink/white flowers especially attractive to bees. Autumn sees her change into a red gown decorated with red baubles. The feathered denizens love her. Comes the Winter, She disrobes, removing everything except her baubles. By late Winter She dispenses with her trinkets and sleeps naked awaiting the warm kiss of early Spring that causes her to quicken, her buds to swell and finally burst forth...She awakens!