Bonsai, or dwarf tree culture, is a hobby enthralling in its possibilities. It offers the opportunity to play with nature in a small space.
With it, you can bring the striking beauty of a windswept Monterey cypress, a Colorado limber pine, or a landscape of white birches into your living room, whether in a city apartment or a country home.
The Japanese word bonsai means dwarf tree or potted dwarf tree. It differs from an ordinary potted plant in that it is developed to create an aesthetic piece of scenery, texture, or floral design.
Bonsai culture emphasizes the individuality of each plant; this is the key to bringing up a tree in a pot.
Selecting Good Plants To Work With
Our native plants offer a full reach of interesting shapes, colors, and textures for dwarf culture.
The rough bark of bur oak, the white bark of birch, the gnarled and grooved cypress trunk, the twisted trunk of juniper, and the -straight trunk of white pine are picturesque.
Other good materials to work with are flowering fruit trees and weeping willows. Selection is made according to the effect to be produced, but slow-growing types of plants are best because they make trimming easier.
Although it is impossible to make the branches of a bonsai grow in correct proportion to the trunk of a tree as it might appear in nature, the branches and trunk must, nevertheless, harmonize.
The branches of the bur oak quickly assume the rough texture of the trunk; the twigs of the ninon pine become gnarled quickly.
Leaves of dwarfed material, however, are less appreciably reduced in size than the rest of the plant. A 2” inch needle is the largest size which will be harmonious on a dwarfed evergreen tree.
Because leaves on deciduous plants can be reduced somewhat by cultivation, the largest desirable normal leaf size is 4” inches.
Many of the bonsai growers in the past have made a cult of collecting dwarfed material. They went through complicated rituals before starting their journeys in search of just the right material, believing that their hunting efforts would only be rewarded if these rituals were strictly followed.
This selection of wild materials already worked into interesting shapes by nature often saved years of work and was worth the effort.
What Beginners Need To Grow For Bonsai
The beginner, however, should be wary of collected wild plants. Even with experts in this field, 30% percent or more mortality is not uncommon.
The beginner, just learning how to grow plants, would have better luck with nursery-grown seedlings or cuttings a few years old.
A nursery-grown plant with a properly developed root system will develop faster and more surely than its wild counterpart with meager roots.
Importance Of Pots
Pots are to bonsai culture what frames are to pictures. Once the plant has been decided upon, a pot comes next. There must be harmony of the whole.
The pot must accentuate, not detract from, the beauty and elegance of the plant. A new pot would not fit an old gnarled tree. A deep pot would not fit a squat, spreading tree.
A brightly colored pot would draw attention away from the subject of interest. Sobriety and subdued effects are essential here.
Unglazed pots or rough pots baked at about 1000° Centigrade temperatures are usually recommended for healthy plants. Experts have used trays or flat stories for dwarf tree culture.
Almost any object can be used as long as it acts as a “frame” for the plants and a receptacle for the roots. Most bonsai plants eventually reach shallow tray pots, 4” to 6” deep and 24” to 30” inches long.
Soil Requirements
Soil is extremely important because there is so little of it in bonsai culture. It must be able to retain moisture. But at the same time, allow air to circulate. Their requirements demand granular soil with a large amount of humus.
A recommended average mixture is soil containing five parts of coarse granite sand with grains up to 1 millimeter in diameter, three parts loam, and two parts humus such as peat moss or well-rotted compost with little or no manure or commercial fertilizer.
In bonsai culture, the roots are greatly restricted, so high concentrations of minerals would harm the plant.
Transplanting Bonsai Plants
Planting and transplanting must be carefully and methodically done. In nature, roots normally grow unrestricted in all directions, but in the limits of a pot, this is not possible.
In a shallow bonsai pot, the roots of a pine tree often form a mound above the level of the pot; the shallow roots of a silver maple fan out to form a solid mat on the surface of the soil.
The time for transplanting depends on each plant. Replacing should take place each spring as the buds begin to swell. Good transplanting can be done in the fall if necessary.
If undertaken at that time, it should be done just as leaves start to drop and well before heavy frost, so the plant has time to recover from the shock of transplanting before winter sets in.
Bonsai pots must have drainage holes in the bottom—about one for each ½’ square foot. Before the soil is added to the pot, the drainage holes must be covered, usually with broken pieces of pots.
The bottom of the pot is then covered with about 34” inches of pea-sized gravel or charcoal, which is covered with a thinner layer of smaller gravel or charcoal. This done, the pot is ready to receive the plant.
The roots are spread out if it is a young seedling, and the future bonsai is planted as described below.
If the plant is older and pot-bound or undergoing annual transplanting, about two-thirds of the old soil is removed by washing or slowly and carefully prying it away from the roots so the delicate root hairs are not injured. Then the roots are pruned freely.
Root Pruning
In root pruning, working with the top of the plant in mind is necessary. The more roots the plant has, the more growth will produce above ground, in the case of the old bonsai in which little growth is desired.
Old root tips or possibly whole roots of little vitality are cut off, being careful not to disturb fibrous lips already formed.
In the case of a young bonsai in which, growth is vigorous. Pruning off the heavy roots back to the crown will help reduce too vigorous top growth. In any case, only cut off some growing tips at one transplanting.
This would result in a choked mass around the crown, encouraging decay and disease. The root ball should always have room at the center for new root development as the old coarse roots lose vitality.
When the plant is properly trimmed, the root system should correspond to the branch structure on a fore-shortened scale.
After the roots are trimmed, the plant is placed in the pot, which has been prepared as described above. The pot is filled to the proper level with the special soil mixture tamped carefully around the roots as it is put in.
The plant is set at the proper depth for beauty and health. Topsoil should be screened to eliminate lumps that permit air pockets to develop around the roots.
After the plant is repotted and the soil carefully firmed around its roots, it should be watered until moisture runs out of the drainage holes. If the plant becomes unsteady in the watering process, it should be braced in position until it is re-established.
The bonsai should be placed where it will get mild exposure to the elements since it must be allowed to go through its normal quiescent or dormant stage—arrested growth in the case of evergreens.
Dropping of foliage in the case of deciduous material—continued confinement to the house or greenhouse might produce disastrous results.
Watering And Feeding
Plants in pots will generally stand exposed to conditions prevalent in the next warmer climatic zone in which they are normally hardy. They should also be protected from strong winds and heavy snow.
Watering must be done with logical care. The plant should be watered before the soil gets dry and hard.
During the growing season, this may be twice a day, morning and evening; during the dormant period, only occasionally. Sprinkling the foliage will help keep the plant healthy and clean.
The bonsai lives a life of austerity. The strongest fertilizer that should be used is bonemeal or wood ashes. This, applied once a year about midway between transplantings, should be enough.
The plant will respond to feeding just as any normal plant, except the response will be much more pronounced and quick because of the lack of soil.
Art Of Bonsai Culture
Pruning is essential to keep the bonsai in perfect form, just as pruning a fruit tree is essential to keep it healthy and bearing.
Evergreens and deciduous plants should have from two-thirds to three-fourths of their new growing tips picked off.
The subsequent secondary growth which appears must also be picked off. The choice of which tips to retain depends on the shape one wishes the tree to assume.
Pruning and training are the art of bonsai culture. The initiative and imagination of the grower come into play here.
To know which branches to cut off—carefully, to leave no ugly scars—and which twigs or brandies to bend into desired curves or positions to complete the picture is the enjoyable game the grower is constantly playing.
Here is an art that has been practiced in Japan for centuries. It has reached a peak of perfection, and specialization is impossible to describe in words. But bonsai or dwarf tree culture is within reach of any gardener who likes to grow plants.
It is not an art controlled by a few highly trained specialists. It is a hobby, inexpensive to develop, and enthralled in its possibilities.
44659 by G. A. Vrandenburg, Jr.