Bonsai Tree Care

In this post, you will learn how to clean up the trunk, hollow out a stump, and trim and wire the branches of the Olive Tree, scientific name Olea europaea. This tree has been growing in the same pot for over 4 years.

Last summer, it was cut back very hard and as a result, it developed a fine dense branch structure that can be used to create a beautiful bonsai.

This is a great material for bonsai, because it has a character: beautiful bark, natural deadwood and nice twist in the trunk.

When you begin working on the material like this, it is not really important to know what exactly you want to make out of it. You just need to find parts of the tree that you want highlight.

In this tutorial we will be removing a few branches and opening up the structure, so you can see this beautiful trunk. Next, we’ll be rearranging branches that we have left and doing some carving.  The whole process will take about 2-3 hours.

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In this tutorial you will learn how to style Willow Leaf Ficus Bonsai, scientific name Ficus nerifolia.  Ficus is a tropical tree that reduces very well. It is great for beginners because it is very forgiving.

The best time for styling this tree is during growing season. The process of styling includes tree defoliation, branch trimming, root trimming, repotting and branch wiring.

After you are done styling this tree, leave it for 3-4 months to develop secondary branches.

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In this post, I will go over the process of taking pre-bonsai material and turning it into a beautiful bonsai. If you are a beginner and just starting in bonsai, this is a perfect step-by-step tutorial for you.

You will learn repotting process, root reduction and foliage trimming. This is a first step in making a bonsai from pre-bonsai material.

This Brazilian Rain Tree, scientific name Pithecellobium tortum, was started by air layering technique. After separating the new tree from the old one and giving it one year to establish, it is ready to be made into a bonsai. Spring is a great time for repotting and root trimming.

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The key to creating an interesting bonsai is an understanding of how trees deal with damage, how they repair themselves and how they continue living for thousand years in spite of everything the environment throws at them.

Here we have an English Hornbeam bonsai, also known as Carpnus betulus, that has an ugly cut in the middle of the trunk. A lot of bonsai enthusiasts wouldn’t know what to do with it. In this post, you will learn fast and easy fix for that kind of a problem.

Looking closely at the cut, you can see that it is absolutely flat. There are also visible saw marks where the original trunk was removed. The scar has been healing for a few years now.  The callus tissue has rolled back nicely and there is a sharp dry back around the edge. For those reasons, this is a perfect candidate to be hollowed out. The callus will gradually roll into the hollow that we are about to make and it will look very natural.

At the base, as you can see, there is no callus tissue at all. That is because there is no sap flow there. The callus tissue develops only when the sap goes past the cut. We are going to extend this cut down and make it slightly larger and at the same time hollow it out to make the tree look more interesting and natural.

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Bonsai is the art of distilling the magic of an ancient tree into a miniature form that is pleasing to the eye. Nature give us limitless variety where no trees are alike. In order to create truly interesting bonsai we need to free our imagination and encompass the infinite wonder of the world around us.

In this post, you will learn how to style a tree through branch trimming, wood carving and wiring.  This Oriental Hornbeam, scientific name Carpinus orientalis, is a well established tree that has been in development for 7 years with 5 years growing in the same pot.

You can see there are more than one problems that needs to be addressed. This tree has a lot of thick branches growing in different directions and a lot of dense twigging. Just by looking at it, its not clear where the front of the tree should be.

We’ll start by deciding on the front of the tree, than remove unwanted branches, clean up the bark, create a hollow by carving the wood, seal the cuts, stain the wood and finally wire the branches.

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Most of the beginners get their bonsai from a mall, home improvement store, or at the chain store. Commercial quality bonsai are produced on a mass scale in many countries including China and Japan.

They are often lifted from the ground and planted into a bonsai pot. Many times they would sit indoors for a while before you buy them. As a result, those trees are in poor health, growing in poor soil with minimum styling.

Most of the these trees die in the hands of novices. Those that don’t, tend to be poorly maintained and never really reach their full potential. Today you will learn how to turn a  boring mass produced tree into an inspiring bonsai in just a couple hours. For these demonstration we’ll be using Kishu Juniper bonsai.

This is one of the typical trees that gets ignored. It can be turned into something interesting with some careful pruning and wiring. The pruning will help us to open up the tree. Wiring will improve the branch structure and the shape of the tree.

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Bonsai trees need to be repotted on the regular basis, otherwise as the tree grows, the pot will get filled with long roots.

When this happens,  the drainage in the soil becomes worse and worse, and the vigor of the tree will gradually begin to decline. The tree will not be getting enough nutrients and as a result the health of the tree will begin to suffer.

Repotting is one of the those things that beginners fill uncomfortable doing, because cutting roots of the tree doesn’t seam to be a natural  thing to do. Some people are even saying that bonsai art is about tree torturing. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.

With bonsai repotting is all about keeping the tree healthy long term. That is how we manage to grow these trees for many years in very small pots and in very small amount of soil.

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This Crabapple Tree, also known as Malus sargentii, was collected a year ago. In this post, I will show you how to air layer this tree to create a bonsai.

Air layering technique is one of my favorite, because it saves you time and money. You can select the part of the tree that would make the best bonsai composition.

A lot of people think that air layering is difficult, but in fact it is very simple technique. The most important thing for successful air layering is TIMING.

The best time for air layering technique is an early spring when the buds are just starting to go green and you can see a beginning of the leaf.

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