If a tree has suffered from dehydration (leaves are very sagged and going crispy) you should fill a bucket with water and carefully put the tree in there to give it a good soak for about 30 minutes. Any crispy leaves should be pulled off to give it the best chance of survival.

General Bonsai Care Sheet

There are three main things to worry about when taking care of bonsai.

Watering

You need to water your bonsai if the weather has been dry. If it’s been cloudy and dry it may be 3 days before you need to give them water, if it’s very hot and sunny you may need to do it daily. The easy way to check is to use a chopstick or other piece of small wood and push it in the soil. When you remove it, if it’s dry you need to water your tree. Deciduous (leafy) trees will start sagging when they need water but evergreens (needles) will not show you at all so you need to be careful with these.
Don’t overdo the watering, it can do more harm than good. Most of the time the rain will do it for you.

Roots

You should never let a bonsai get pot bound, having no room left for it’s roots to grow. There is no set rule about how often you should repot it. Generally you want to do it every 2-3 years. Smaller pots will need doing more often. If the tree hasn’t outgrown it’s pot (looks too big for it) just trim the roots and put it back in the same pot for another year.
Repotting should be done after the last frost just before the leaves open in spring. Roots can be trimmed back quite a lot but need to be kept moist whilst repotting. A well draining 60 soil/40 grit mix is what I use. There’s a lot more on this subject online.

Feeding

Bonsai need to be fed a balanced fertiliser at least once a year. Spring is best, you can do it again in summer if you want. Don’t bother buying special expensive bonsai feed. As long as you check that it is a completely balanced fertiliser it will be fine.

General Tips

Tip 1 – How To Water A Bonsai Tree

Watering is easily one of the most important elements in indoor bonsai care. Too little water and the tree will dehydrate and die, too much water and you will literally drown the tree. After many years experience of growing bonsai trees I have found that watering is the number one problem most people (especially beginners face) To ensure that you are correctly watering your bonsai tree you should wait for the soil to start drying out (don’t let it completely dry though!) Next, water the plant until excess water seeps out of the bottom of the pot. Don’t water the bonsai again until the soil starts to dry out. I have found that this is easily the best way to water a bonsai tree as it is nearly impossible to either over-water or under-water the tree.

Tip 2 – Picking The Right Soil

Picking the right soil is vital for indoor bonsai care – after all, half of the tree is covered by soil. To pick the right type of soil you should visit your nearest garden centre (or bonsai specialist if there’s one in your area) and tell them what exact type of bonsai tree you have. They will help you find the right soil for your needs. Also, remember to buy the highest quality soil you can as this makes a massive difference. Spending an extra $5 a bag on higher quality soil is definitely worth it in the long run!

Tip 3 – How To Apply Fertilizer Correctly

Incorrect application of fertilizer is quite a big problem for those new to indoor bonsai care. On many occasions I have even seen beginner bonsai growers pick insoluble fertilizers and then wonder why their tree wound up dying a few weeks down the track. Bonsai trees need to be given a water soluble fertilizer either once or twice a month during the growing season only. Also, the fertilizer must only be applied when the soil is wet or you will see no result from the fertilizer. Buying a high quality fertilizer is also worth the extra cost so visit your local gardening centre and inquire about the various types of water soluble fertilizer they have. If you try one type of fertilizer and it doesn’t work then wait until the next growing season to try a different fertilizer – don’t mix and match unless it is absolutely neccessary.

Tip 4 – How To Prune A Bonsai Tree

Pruning is another vital part of indoor bonsai care. The process of pruning is done in two different ways (“branch pruning” and “root pruning”) You should branch prune at the start of spring and carefully remove all the branches on the tree except those that you wish to keep. Root pruning is similar but should only occur when the bonsai’s roots have bound themselves inside the pot. It is absolutely critical to learn the basic process of bonsai tree pruning before you try and sculpt your tree into various shapes so make sure you get this basic stuff right!

Tip 5 – Choosing The Right Environment To Encourage Growth

This final tip is one of the most important factors in correct indoor bonsai care. You should place your bonsai in an area that receives plenty of sunlight (by a window is a natural choice for most but ensure that the windowsill is wide enough to hold the pot properly so that it doesn’t get knocked over by mistake) Make sure that the room is neither too warm nor too cold (room temperature works well if the tree is given a good source of light but this can vary species to species) Also, make sure that the room is reasonably humid so the soil doesn’t dry out too quickly.

In this article I have covered the five most basic aspects of indoor bonsai care – how to water the tree, how to pick the right soil, how to properly apply fertilizer, how to prune the tree for optimum growth and how to get the growing environment/conditions just right. Follow this advice and you’ll be well on your way to growing great bonsai trees and being an indoor bonsai care master!

About the Author

Samuel Phillipson has been a keen bonsai grower for over 30 years and has a large collection of bonsai trees that have won numerous awards. If you found these tips on bonsai gardening useful you can find out a lot more on how “Growing Bonsai Revealed – Step – By – Step” can help you grow amazing bonsai trees at http://www.squidoo.com/indoor-bonsai-care

It’s best to place your bonsai into a training pot before their final pot for a few different reasons. The first being that you can train them to be into the shape you desire before before placing into the final pot. Another is that when a bonsai is in training it can look a bit crappy and it would do no justice to an expensive pot!

With training pots I usually choose one for a tree which gives it ample breathing space for the roots. It it larger than it’s final pot will be. When choosing the final pot for it to be placed in it should be the right proportions for the tree even if you have to trim off a small amount of roots to place it in.

Here is the ash tree at present

It’s now become a two-man lift!

Part 2

1. An interesting small shrub or tree
2. A shallow bonsai pot
3. Imagination

It really is that simple to get started with bonsai. It’s so much better to grow it yourself instead of purchasing a “ready-made” bonsai tree.

If you decide to dig up a small seedling, make sure you extract the complete root system intact as it gives the bonsai a much better chance of survival. If the roots are too big for the pot you can trim them a little bit, but the less you do it the better.  Use the soil that you found it in to line the pot for now.

If you buy a small tree or shrub, when you remove it from the pot you will probably have to trim the bottom of the root system a bit as it won’t easily fit in shallow pot. Use the same soil from the pot for now.

Once placed in it’s new shallow pot you can trim the branches to get it to your desired shape.  This is when imagination comes in handy.  Pretend it is a full sized tree when you are pruning it.  That’s it, it’s that simple!  You now have a bonsai, well done.

You can learn other techniques as time progresses, just stay with us here at bonsai art…  Just remember that the art of bonsai teaches us patience.  It takes a long time for things to happen just the way you want them to.

The best way to increase the height and girth of the tree is to plant it in open ground.  There are a few problems with this however.

• The first being that the roots will get very excited and start expanding like crazy in every direction therefore making it harder to fit back in a pot.

• The second being that you cannot really enjoy your bonsai while it is in the ground as without a pot it doesn’t have the same character.

If you can get over the tree not being in a pot for a while it is a very good way to increase the size of the bonsai quickly.  I would suggest to leave it in the ground for a year, maybe two to grow before placing back into a pot.  Any more than this and the roots will expand too much and you will have to end up chopping a few of them off (a risky business).

It is also good to plant your newly collected trees in the ground for a year to allow them to recover from the move.

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…

Part 1

Bonsai trees do not have to be total mysteries to you. You can create your own trees starting with these top secrets and soon you will be creating masterpieces like the pros! A bonsai can be made quick and simple with a bit of practice you will know what to look for and how to do it.

Bonsai are simple to create

Most people think that bonsai are mystical plants from a faraway place like Japan. But the reality is that they can be made quick and simple. Sure it does take a long while for them to look amazing but to create them in the first place is easy. Here’s a simple method:

Go to your local garden shop and look through the small conifers. Juniper is a good choice as they are easy to work with and come in a lot of different styles. What you are looking for is a single trunk with evenly placed branches. Don’t worry if there’s too many branches there, these can easily be removed afterwards. Take home, stick in a shallow pot and trim some branches. Instant bonsai!

Bonsai are not hard to take care of

Apart from the fact that you need to trim them now and again to get them into the desired shape there’s not much else to it. All you need to know are the basics to get started which are:

• Don’t let it dry out for long periods
• Give it some feed now and again

That’s it! You can learn the rest as you go along by reading up on the internet and in books.

You can master the art quickly

The best way to get good at something is practice. If you are interested in bonsai buy one and practice different techniques on it. Don’t fret too much if one dies on you, it is all part of the learning process.

Stick around for more help on bonsai.

You do this by covering it with a see through plastic sheet to trap the moisture in and also activate a greenhouse effect and turn up the heat. I am currently trying this on my oak and hawthorn to see if it works.

If it still does not bring them round I am going to try bringing them indoors as a last resort to convince them it is warm enough to come into leaf! They will be in the kitchen under the skylight just long enough to break bud. However, hopefully the first method I have tried (sweating) will work successfully.

I will give you an update on this in a few days.

Part 2

A shrub is fine for this purpose. One of the more pretty types is a hinoki cypress which you will find at more garden centres looking very bushy. They grow very slowly, which makes them good for our needs.

However if you have already got your plant then you can have a look around this site for tips on taking care of it. There’s no easy solutions to taking care of indoor bonsai but if you do a bit of reading up you will have the basic knowledge to care for them. Good luck!