To find what you are looking for:
There are categories to the right hand side
Links to information pages are on the header bar
You can read through the articles by age by scrolling to the bottom and clicking 'next page'
Just found this interesting video giving instructions on how to graft a black pine bonsai. Fascinating stuff and something I should definitely attempt more often which would help me get results quicker and easier.
Seeing as this week is the week of the Chelsea Flower Show I thought I’d write about flowers.
Some bonsai are enhanced by flowers such as the azalea or serissa. They do however sometimes need a bit of special care and feeding so that they remain healthy during and after flowering.
The main part to remember is that they will need more fertilizer than usual during the flowering and afterwards too. You can use your normal bonsai fertilizer for this purpose. They also need to be checked that they have enough water while in flower as it can drink more than normal while they are there.
On some bonsai trees the flowers turn into fruit afterwards such as apples or cherries. It is not recommended that you let the bonsai grow fruit every season as it can really put a drain on it’s resources. It takes an immense amount of sugars and nutrients to create fruits so it should not be taken they it will be able to grow them often. It’s best to pluck them off when still small if you can.
The key points:
1. Make sure it’s got enough water
2. Fertilize more regularly
3. Remove fruits
Most collected trees fail to look good for one specific reason. They have no taper.
Taper is the way that a trunk starts off large at the base and slowly gets smaller towards the top of the tree. It should also been seen in the sizes of the branches on the way up. The largest branches should be at the bottom of the tree and the thinnest at the top.
There are two different ways to achieve a good taper in a small tree such as a bonsai.
1. Prune the tree each year allowing it to get progressively taller each year.
The second could be called cheating but it is sometimes needed as we haven’t got years and years to carry out the first way.
2. The tree is carved from the top downwards leaving the top most part of the trunk thin and leaving it larger towards the bottom of the trunk. A carving is usually required about halfway down the tree to look natural but many people carve the full length of the trunk leaving a ‘lifeline’ of living trunk. The carved area is then treated with lime sulphur to stop rotting and achieve a natural appearance.
When styling remember that your tree will need to grow slightly larger each year to allow for a natural looking taper.
Today somebody asked me how easy it is to look after bonsai trees and whether it takes a lot of time to watch over them.
It depends how much time you are willing to put into the hobby on how long it will take you to look after them. I know someone who hardly ever trims their bonsai or feeds them but just makes sure they have enough water every 3-4 days. Of course they will need feeding and trimming at some point but the fact is that these don’t need doing very often. It is impossible to keep your bonsai looking at their best 100% of the time. Sometimes they need to be left to grow long for a while and sometimes they need to be pruned back to the bare bones.
If you are looking to take up bonsai it is not a hard hobby to start. You can start with a small tree and watch the way that it grows for the first year making sure it has water every few days and trimming it when you feel like. Feeding is not something to worry about when you first start out as a bonsai will survive a good few months without feed.
So how easy is it to keep a bonsai? As easy or hard as you make it. If you want it to be easy it can be but if you want to explore the art form even further you can get into advanced techniques such as grafting, air-layering and carving.
A lot of people would have received a bonsai over christmas as a present but may have no idea how to take care of it. Many of these presents over xmas would have been a so called “bonsai in a box”.
A word of warning about these sorts of bonsai: They are often suffering from dehydration and light starvation from being in a box for so long so the first thing you want to do is to water it and think of a good spot for it.
1. When watering for the first time it’s probably best to give it a nice long soak. The best way to do this is to find a bowl that the pot will fit in and place the bonsai in it. Then fill it with water up to just below the level of the pot so as not to disperse the soil.
2. Finding a spot to put your tree can be tricky. Here’s the main things to look for…
It needs a nice bright spot away from heat sources and drafts. DO NOT PUT IT ON A WINDOW WITH DIRECT SUNLIGHT. This is a common mistake and can result it burning of leaves and dehydration.
Find a place now and leave it there. Don’t keep moving it around as it needs to get used to it’s new position.
3. Relax! Sit back and enjoy it while it gets used to it’s new home. It won’t need watering again for 2-3 days.
4. Read up on the internet about your particular type of bonsai as they all need slightly different care.
