You need to find a young sapling
from a tree, something with a
slender stem and maybe a few small
branches. Here in Britain a good
choice of a bonsai tree is something
like a Hawthorn. These trees are
ideally suited to the varied
temperatures we experience in the
UK. Other things to note when
growing a Bonsai tree is to pick a
tree that is slow growing and has
small leaves.
Try to avoid trees like Sycamores or
Horse Chestnuts, these trees are
pretty common, but because they have
large leaves are not generally well
suited to being a Bonsai tree. If
you do fancy having a go at growing
a large Bonsai tree then choosing an
Oak tree can be worthwhile.
You should now have either a bonsai
seed/tree seed, or a young sapling.
The next step involves planting.
Depending on the time of year and
how quickly you want your Bonsai to
grow will depend on whether your
plant it indoors or in the garden.
Remember Bonsai trees are just like
any other tree and best suited to
life outdoors. So if you can,
you should plant your Bonsai seed or
sapling in the garden until it's
reasonably well established before
transferring into a ceramic Bonsai
pot or container.
However, if you intend planting your
bonsai seed or sapling during the
winter months you may be better
advised to put it in a ceramic
bonsai pot and artificially
stimulate warmer conditions by
moving it indoors. You are
unlikely to see any real sign of
growth during the winter months if
you plant your Bonsai outside as
most plants and trees will remain
dormant until spring.
Once your sapling or Bonsai seed is
actively growing and reasonably well
established in your garden or
ceramic Bonsai pot it's time to dig
it up and inspect it's roots.
The idea here is to trim any
unwanted growth and thereby start to
convert your twig like tree into a
Bonsai.
Firstly, inspect the base. If
you notice a long tap root you can
safely trim this back.
Depending on how much growth has
occurred will determine just how
much of the roots your should trim.
Generally speaking you can safely
trim about one third of the roots
every few years or so.
Remember, the art of Bonsai is about
balance. So make sure you
leave enough roots for your Bonsai
tree to continue to grow and
develop.
Now that we've taken care of the
Bonsai roots it's time to inspect
the branches. You probably
won't have to worry too much about
Bonsai pruning at this stage, but if
you see any obvious unwanted
branches then now is an ideal time
to remove them.
It's always best when Bonsai pruning
to trim back to a bud. That
way any new branches will take the
direction of that bud. This is
a great bonsai technique to master
and one that enables you to control
the direction and growth of your
bonsai tree.
So now we should be at a stage of
replanting our Bonsai into it's
permanent home. It's a good
idea to use a good quality potting
compost with a mix of two parts sand
or maybe grit to help with drainage.
You could also do a lot worse using
the soil that your sapling or Bonsai
seed grew in. Just be wary that
weeds may start appearing as the
soil will be untreated.
Alternatively you can invest in some
special bonsai soil, designed to
complement your Bonsai tree and aid
healthy growing.
