How to Get Your Bonsai to Leaf by Making Them Sweat! (Part 2)
A while ago I found information on the internet advising to make your bonsai sweat to bring them out of dormancy. I applied the technique to two of my trees to test it out. My oak and my hawthorn. I am sorry to say that there is still nothing sprouting on my two trees! I thought that they might both be dead. I did the scratch test to check the hawthorn and it looks pretty bleak all over the tree. I then took it out of the pot to check the roots. Guess what? The roots are growing on it! When I potted it up initially in the winter I did add a healthy helping of root hormone to get them growing back so I don’t know if that is whats kicking in or something else. Whatever it is, i’m happy it’s not dead. I would feel extremely guilty seeing as it’s a 50 year old specimen. The only thing that makes me feel slightly less guilty is the hawthorn’s pathetic root system consisting of one taproot and just two or three fine hair roots.
Yamadori Hawthorn - 50 years old
So even though nothing is happening up above it is slowly spreading it’s roots underground. The bad news is it’s progressing so slowly I doubt its going to sprout leaves anytime soon. I don’t want to take the oak out of the pot as they are very touchy about having their roots messed about with this time of the year. I will keep them in a corner of my garden and fingers crossed they will recover enough to leaf, but it may not be anytime this year…
on August 9th, 2007 at 10:55 am
You know what that say, “from small acorns large oak trees grow”
Be patient and I’m sure everything will be okay…