Electric Avenue
Heres a photo of an avenue of lime trees I took at Westonbirt early last spring.
Bonsai Art is styled as a blog, but it's actually a megasite containing all the info you need for styling bonsai trees.
New articles are added all the time to help you with caring for your little bonsai trees.To find what you are looking for:
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Repotting Trees from Nursery Stock
When buying a tree from a nursery it may have been growing in the same pot for quite a long time. This poses a few problems.
The first being that the root ball will be very dense and compacted. Luckily this problem is not too difficult to fix, as roots can be pruned at any time of the year and as much as a third of the roots can be removed without any mishaps.
The other thing to think about when repotting a tree is that it may have been planted deeper than usual to stop the tree or shrub blowing over in the wind so much. What we need to do is explore under the soil surface to find the true base of the trunk. This will be the point at which the first roots appear from the trunk, and hopefully you will get a nice flare at the trunk base. The roots above this point will need to be trimmed back. You don’t need to be too gentle with this part as long as you keep the roots below the trunk base in good condition.
Cut all the roots which are growing upwards as they definitely won’t do anything for the aesthetics of your bonsai to be!
After sorting these two things you can trim the roots at the bottom of the root ball back a bit so that it can fit in your pot. You may be suprised at how much roots you need to remove but don’t worry too much as you will be trimming branches to even out the need for water.
Everybody Follow The Leader
It is important in a bonsai to have a leader branch. What I mean by this is to have one branch leading upwards which will in turn become the trunk. To create a good taper on your bonsai, you need to keep changing this leader year by year instead of letting it grow straight up and chopping it to the height you like.
It’s certainly possible to make a nice looking tree by chopping and then carving the trunk of course. But to make a natural looking bonsai the best way to do it is over a long length of time making sure you know where the leader is heading. When you get good at understanding the way it will grow just by changing the leader it is possible to style the tree just by nipping unwanted buds and not having to use wire at all. Wire can be a nice helping hand however.
Failure to choose a leader will result in a bonsai which looks very stumpy and the branches having no taper whatsoever. You will end up with a thick trunk which rises up however many inches you’ve decided on and stops as if you have chopped it. So remember when styling your bonsai to have one branch which you intend to grow onwards because your tree needs to get very slowly bigger to look right.
A picture of a crepe myrtle I have trimmed as an example. Hopefully I’ve made it extremely obvious which is to be the leader! (You don’t have to make it this prominent on your own bonsai)
Weekend Bonsai Display Project
This weekend I am also going to be working on a project for my bonsai trees. It is a bonsai display which will be about 6 or 7 posts in the ground with stands on the top. I intend to dig the holes tommorow and possibly concrete them in as well.
I already have the section for them which consists of a rectangle encircled with grey bricks and green slate inside it. I am thinking of designing it so that there is 2 or 3 tall stands at the back for large bonsai and about 4 at the front low down for small trees. Hopefully it will be finished by Sunday night or at least a lot of it.
All the tools are borrowed from work and ready to go! Roll on tommorow.
Lack of Bonsai Holly Tree Pics
I apologise for not getting the pictures of the holly trees up yet! It seems I have no hours in the house during daylight hours at the moment. I go to work before dawn and come back at dusk. This time of the year is a bit depressing like that. But guess what… Today is Friday so that means I get the whole of two days off!
Pictures coming tommorow then, definitely.