Create Your Own Bonsai
 Jun 21st, 2004
(Jun 22nd, 2004)
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Easy to care for
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Get someone to water them while you're on holiday !
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  xandie1
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Married with a son of 25, into music (ELO, Jeff Lynne, Joe Cocker, Gary Wright (Dreamweaver), Tom Pe...
Member since:21.06.2004
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Create your own bonsai using nursery stock. Photos at:
www.one2go.co.uk As there hasn’t been much said about bonsai, I’d like to show how easy it is to create your own bonsai, from a plant bought from a nursery or garden centre. I chose Taxus baccata adpressa “Variegata,” which is a long-winded Latin way of saying Golden Variegated Yew. I bought this conifer from a garden centre last May and took photos of the various stages of creation, and I’ve included a picture of how it looks today.
Firstly, bonsai can be created from any suitable variety of tree (suitable means that the leaves and growth habit should be not too large or vigorous – don’t attempt to bonsai a Buddleia, for example! – you’d be fighting nature instead of working with it). The idea that it takes years to make a bonsai, or that it’s an extremely skilled art, is, quite frankly, poppycock! Anyone can do it, there’s no right and wrong way to shape a tree, it’s a matter of personal taste. Look at pictures of mature trees, and trees in parks and gardens round about where you live. Notice how the branches grow from the trunk (as opposed to shoots sprouting from the trunk. – if you don’t want a branch to grow there, nip it out when it’s small, otherwise leave it to grow.) Notice how the branches are arranged, and
the twigs and leaves. It’s not often you see twigs growing downwards off branches – they grow up towards the light. Use nature as a guide. If there are two branches and you want to prune one of them, choose the one that’s facing outwards, rather than downwards. If you don’t like what you’ve done, wait until some more branches grow, and start again – you can prune quite hard, but always leave enough green so the tree can feed itself. If you’re pruning roots, and you’re taking away a third of them, prune a corresponding third off the branches. As for wiring, get some bonsai wire from the garden centre (the aluminium, anodised if you can get it, is better than copper – it’s softer and much easier to work. Once copper wire hardens, you have to cut it off – with aluminium you can unwind it.) The wire should be just slightly harder to bend than the branch or trunk you’re wiring. Use about one and a half times the amount of wire as the length of the trunk or branch you’re going to wire. Start at the bottom of the tree, push around 2inches of wire into the soil to anchor it, and wrap it around the trunk, at a 45 degree angle, up the trunk, and out onto a branch. You don’t bend the tree yet. For branches, start in the middle of two, with the middle of the wire, and continue to the ends of the branches. When you’ve wired what you want to, then carefully, covering as much surface area as you can with two hands, bend the branch to the desired shape. Be aware of how hard you’re bending the branch, don’t put too much pressure on it. If it doesn’t bend enough, you may have to do it bit by bit, over the years. As soon as the wire starts to dig in to the branch (this can happen after a month if the tree’s growing vigorously, or a year if slow-growing – keep checking,) take it off and re-wire.
Use secateurs to prune the branches, and a gardening hand fork or weed cultivator (a wicked-looking thing with prongs) to tease out the roots prior to root pruning. Use scissors or secateurs to cut the roots. Just trim off a third, (not yet though!) no harm will come to the tree. Repot into a mixture of John Innes No3 and grit, about half-and-half. When you repot, try to spread the roots out, especially if you’re planting into a shallow container such as a bonsai dish. Planting the tree at an angle helps if the trunk is too straight. Looking after a bonsai isn’t hard, especially an outdoor tree like the one you’re going after from the garden centre. Watering is absolutely vital though. Don’t miss a single day of checking to see if it needs watering. In the summer it WILL need watering every day, and sometimes twice, morning and evening. If it dries out it’ll die. If it’s a conifer, it might take several weeks to die after a shortage of water. If it does dry out, stand it in a bucket of water so the water is halfway up the pot, and stand it in the shade for an hour or so. Don’t forget to take it out again though – the soil needs oxygen. Leave it in the shade for a week until it recovers. If it’s severely dry, cover the branches with a polythene bag as well, to conserve the moisture.
Feed the tree fortnightly throughout spring and summer with any of these plant foods: Liquid Seaweed Extract, fish, blood and bone mix or specialised bonsai feed. Don’t go for Growmore or tomato food unless you want your tree to grow long gangly shoots! Trim the branches whenever you want, trimming induces the tree to put on a spurt of growth, and that way the branch structure fills out.
To find your tree, have a look around the local garden centre (outside) at what’s on offer. What you’re looking for is firstly an interesting-looking trunk which may have a natural curve or twist, or the bark may be gnarled or damaged, making it look old. Check out the roots, you may have to poke around under the soil to expose the root, sometimes they’re planted around 2inches below soil level. Avoid those with too-straight trunks, or too-long trunks. The branches are not that important, as long as there are a few evenly-ish spaced, better if you can spot one with branches that grow alternately, or are spaced out interestingly. Make sure the tree looks healthy, and isn’t pot-bound (the roots coiled round and round inside the pot and hardly any compost). If it’s pot-bound it’s probably had a shortage of water at some time, and this will place a severe stress on the plant when it comes to root-pruning – and I wouldn’t advise you to root-prune this late in the season. Best just to work the top and leave it in it’s pot until the autumn (November).
The photos show the various stages of the creation of the bonsai, (always a bonsai, never a bonsai tree, as the translation of bonsai is “tree in a tray”) and the pictures show the following: Taxus baccata adpressa “Variegata” fresh from the garden centre.
More trunk, and roots revealed below soil level.
Most of the branches now removed, revealing trunk and branch structure.
Trunk and branches wired.
Planted into a bonsai pot, with as little root disturbance as possible, due to the late season. The finished tree was kept in a cool, shady place for a couple of weeks, until the roots were re-established.
The tree in September 2003 The tree now (June 2004)
Some of my bonsai collection . I hope you have fun creating your own bonsai, it’s an absorbing and fascinating hobby!
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24.08.2005 16:26
such an interesting topic. I feel quite inspired, . Great review, rated Exp. All the best. Kim:)
30.06.2004 16:22
I love Bonsai trees! I gave one to my friend and think they are great! A lovely review and very detailed! Thumbs up on Ciao! Leila :)
27.06.2004 09:26
very intresting