Part 19 of a series by Eugene Howell
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Bonsai root pruning is the one task, above all others, that can cause the death of your tree very quickly. However, avoiding the task may also readily kill your bonsai. Let’s discuss how to properly prune the roots of a bonsai to minimize the possibility of killing it.
Periodically every bonsai begins to outgrow its pot. Either the tree becomes too large for the pot it’s in or the tree’s roots become too crowded. Of these two conditions, overcrowded roots is the one you’ll most frequently encounter and it means you’ll need to remove the tree from its pot, wash all the dirt off it, untangled all the roots and then prune those same roots. If this task is not done carefully and correctly, your bonsai can die within a very few days.
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Considering how little soil a bonsai tree lives in, fertilizing bonsai trees is especially important. But which fertilizer should you buy for your bonsai? When you look at a bag of fertilizer you’ll see a set of three large numbers written across the front that look something like “8-6-4” or any other combination of three numbers. Every bonsai enthusiast must know how to relate these numbers to the needs of each type of bonsai tree they’re growing.
Bonsai wiring is what gives the bonsai artist nearly total control over the shape and design of his or her bonsai tree. By using wire, we can implement a curve into a branch where there hadn’t been one before. We can force a branch to lean one way or another. We can even coerce branches to begin growing in a direction different from where they originally wanted to go.
One of the techniques that a beginner in bonsai learns early is that frequent pinching of growing tips is essential to the development of good ramification. The general rule is that when there are five to seven leaves on a branch; pinch it back to two or three. This is easy enough to understand, but is there any other reason for bonsai pinching, or a need to worry about when to pinch? What happens if you neglect this task for a few weeks? There are two answers to these questions.
In the previous post we began the discussion of how to start a bonsai by first identifying where the front of your new bonsai will be. The front of a bonsai tree is defined as the side of the tree you want to have facing the viewer when your finished bonsai is on display. By determining where the front is, you’ll then be able to perform the tree’s first styling. We learned that the root flair gives the first indication of where the front may be. We also learned that if the roots don’t fulfill this mission then we next look at the trunk. In today’s bonsai lessons for beginners, we’ll find out how the trunk can help us find the front the bonsai tree.
You’re a newcomer to bonsai, you’ve joined a club and attend meetings, you’ve looked through bonsai books and magazines, you’ve even attended bonsai demonstrations and yet despite all of this, when you look at your tree you don’t have the slightest idea where to begin or how to style it. Added to this is the fear that whatever you do might be wrong and may ruin it.
Bonsai pots come in so many shapes and sizes that it can sometimes be difficult to decide which pot to put your tree in. This is particularly true for people who are new to the art of bonsai. Some of the factors in bonsai pot selection are obvious, such as selecting a pot capable of holding the volume of roots your tree has. But there are several very important artistic considerations in bonsai pot selection that have been handed down through generations of experience and expertise from Japanese bonsai masters. By applying these rules you can have a bonsai tree that’s perfectly complimented by the pot it sits in.
Trees live a long time and many of us don’t have 30 or 40 years to wait for a seedling to grow into an impressive bonsai. For those who do, they may not have the patience to wait that long. Fortunately, in the art of bonsai, there are ways to shortcut the process. One of those ways is to create a bonsai forest. One of those ways is to create a forest planting. Typically a bonsai forest will use much younger trees that are not nearly as well developed as a single planted bonsai.
One of the techniques that beginning bonsai artists find hard to understand is how to develop leaf pads. Questions concerning this come up more than any other when we work with newcomers to the hobby. So let’s take the time to discuss a couple of the key points in developing bonsai ramification since this is key to having good leaf pads.
To be a good bonsai artist you must first understand how a tree will respond to what you’re doing. This means you must understand the basic parts and functions of a tree. Superficially this may seem to be an overly simple topic. After all, everyone knows a tree has leaves, branches, a trunk and roots. But don’t be fooled, understanding how these parts respond to pruning, wiring and cutting is a bit more complicated and deserves some discussion.