Bonsai: The Landscape in a Bowl iStock / Andy445

HanifMR.com - Bonsai means "landscape in a bowl". Through special cutting and cultivation processes, the trees become picturesque green sculptures.

Origin

Origin Photo by S. Tsuchiya on Unsplash

The history of bonsai art is over 2,000 years old. It began in China with miniaturized landscapes on a tray, from then to Japan and Europe at the end of the 19th century. In the art of bonsai, it is not only important to keep a tree small through special cutting and cultivation methods and shape it according to the models of nature, rather the planter and tree should be in harmony with each other. The Japanese term bonsai consists of the words "bon" (bowl) and "sai" (plant). Garden bonsais, i.e. bonsai in XXL format, are particularly popular in Japan. The Japanese often use a special cutting technique to create unusual shapes, the Niwaki.

Purchase of Plants and Choice of Location

A fantastic deciduous bonsai is a Japanese maple (Acer palmatum), from which around 500 cultivated forms have now emerged. MSG / Martin Staffler

With proper care, a bonsai can last a lifetime. However, the prerequisites are good quality and the right choice of location. If you want to buy a bonsai or give it away, you should visit a bonsai specialist if possible. The cheap little trees from the hardware store rarely get older than six months. During production, they are put into a modelling clay that is supposed to imitate the earth. Once this mass has dried out, you won't get it wet again. Simple bonsais cost at least 100 dollars, for medium quality you pay around 500 dollars and for good and excellent quality you have to reckon with several thousand dollars.

Depending on the natural distribution area, a bonsai is suitable for the room, outdoors or cold house. Indoor bonsai are imported. They are native to the tropics, for example, in southern China or Taiwan. There they cultivated species such as ficus or bacon trees naturally outdoors. The tropical trees tolerate the room climate to varying degrees. The light and temperature in the living room can be adjusted quite well, but problems almost always arise because the humidity is too low. In summer, place the indoor bonsai either on a bright window seat protected from the blazing sun or outdoors on a bonsai shelf.

Cold house plants like the Chinese elm (Ulmus Parviflora) come from areas with only moderately cold winters. They can be kept in the room all year round but must be kept cool in winter. If you put them outside in summer, they stay more vital and healthier because closed rooms never offer plants optimal climatic conditions. For this reason, most bonsai keepers also favour outdoor cultivation in pots on the balcony or terrace or in well-lit cold houses. All of our native trees and many Japanese trees are suitable for this.

Hibernate Bonsai

Hibernate Bonsai

The above-ground parts of an outdoor bonsai can easily withstand temperatures of minus twenty degrees Celsius. Still, the root ball should be protected at temperatures below minus five degrees Celsius. The bowl should also be frost-proof. You can sink the tree and its shell into the ground above the root neck in the garden. On the balcony and terrace, the trees are placed in wooden or styrofoam boxes filled with dry leaves, straw or bark mulch. However, the winter hardiness of the roots also depends on the type of tree in bonsai. The Japanese maple (Acer palmatum), for example, can withstand significantly lower temperatures without winter protection.

During the cold season, make sure to place the bonsai in full shade. Otherwise, the winter sun can thaw a tree that has frozen through overnight on one side. It can lead to strong tissue tension, leading to the death of entire tree parts. You can also overwinter your outdoor bonsai in an unheated, bright room, for example, a winter garden or greenhouse. However, the temperatures must never rise above ten degrees Celsius. Otherwise, the leaves will shoot too early.

Water and Fertilize

The white pine (Pinus Parviflora) is one of the most popular bonsai pines, along with the mountain pine (Pinus mugo). Regardless of the style in which it is designed To achieve dense, fine needle cushions on the branches, the still soft shoot candles have to be broken out every year in May. MEV Verlag GmbH / MEV

There is little space for the tree in the small bowl, so nutrients and water are quickly used up. How often and how much you have to water your bonsai depends on the type of tree, temperature, season, location, and bowl size. The earth should never dry out. If you look after your darling every day, you will soon get a feel for it. Advanced bonsaians can even influence the leaf size through a well-dosed supply of water. If a bonsai loses its leaves, care errors are often the cause.

You start fertilizing in spring when budding begins. The bonsai specialist trade offers pelleted organic fertilizers, which are composed according to traditional Japanese recipes. New fertilizer is applied twice every four weeks. Then take a break in midsummer to slow down the shoot and allow the shoots to harden. Fertilization in late summer and autumn is particularly important because the systems are being developed for the coming year. The bonsai is strengthened in this way and produces numerous buds and healthy shoots in the next year.

Watering Bonsai: The Most Common Mistakes

When it comes to bonsai care, watering is one of the most difficult tasks. For your bonsai to stay healthy and strong, you should avoid these mistakes.

Not too much and not too little: When watering a bonsai, the proper dosage is important. Flora Press / Nathalie Pasquel

Watering a bonsai properly is not easy. If mistakes happen with the irrigation, the artistically drawn trees quickly resent us. It is not uncommon for a bonsai to lose its leaves or even die completely. When and how often you have to water a bonsai depends, among other things, on the type of plant, the size of the tree, the location, the season and the temperature. So it can be that a bonsai has to be watered several times a day on hot summer days, while in winter, it only needs some freshwater once a week.

Mistake 1: Watering Bonsai Too Infrequently

To penetrate the soil with water, the dipping method has proven itself with bonsais. Friedrich Strauss

The root space of bonsai trees is artificially kept small in pots and bowls, and the reserves of water and nutrients are limited. While garden bonsais are planted out usually managed without additional watering, the small bonsais need a water supply that is as even as possible in the containers - especially in summer. Basically: The soil of a bonsai must never dry out completely. It is usually essential to check every day whether the tree needs watering. To do this, check the soil moisture with your finger: If the surface of the root ball is completely dry, it is time for the next watering. The colour of the bonsai soil can also provide information: when dry, it is usually much lighter than when it is moist. As soon as the earth's surface becomes lighter, at the latest, water must be poured when cracks form or even the earth detaches from the edge of the bowl.

The problem with watering some bonsai: The soil often rises above the edge of the container. So that the substrate is evenly moistened, it is advisable to dip the root ball regularly, for example, in a tub of lukewarm water. Otherwise, a fine, long-necked watering can is recommended: The fine shower attachment distributes the irrigation water in fine droplets that can quickly penetrate the soil. So-called ball showers are also very suitable for watering a bonsai: Depending on the pressure on the rubber ball, the water can be precisely dosed. To fill it up, press the ball together and hold the small shower head in a water container - the ball sucks up again. Tip: Bonsais that love high humidity

Mistake 2: Watering Bonsai Too Much

One mistake that probably happens more often when caring for bonsai is over-watering. If the roots are kept too moist, they will rot quickly, and the bonsai will die. Some trees found in stores are in pots that are too small with a very solid substrate. There is no drainage: the water cannot runoff. A tried and tested rescue measure is repotting in a container with a drainage hole and special bonsai soil. It is characterized by the fact that it is structurally stable and porous. It will be removed before repotting if some roots have already died. The general rule is to avoid waterlogging and root rot prevents: water from your bonsai rather sparingly and always let excess water run off well. Even after diving, the bonsai is only put back in its usual place when no more water flows out of the drainage hole. The soil should always dry briefly between dipping baths.

A bonsai also needs a new pot every two years. In this video we show you how it works.

Mistake 3: Cold, Chalky Irrigation Water

Use soft and the room warm water to water your bonsai. You may have to decalcify your irrigation water first: Over time, harder water from the tap not only leads to unsightly limescale deposits on the vessels and the surface of the earth but also changes the pH value of the substrate in the long term. Rainwater that has already reached room temperature is well suited. Water that is too cold is not good for some bonsai - especially with tropical and subtropical plant species, it can cause a cold shock to the roots.

Cut and Wire Bonsai

The group and forest planting is one of the five basic styles of bonsai design - like this small grove made of tricorn maple (Acer Buergerianum) Bonsai Center Münsterland / Bonsai Center Münsterland

In the art of bonsai, one wants to recreate an old tree downsized. To change the direction of growth of branches, twigs or trunks, you have to cut and wire. These techniques can only be sketched out here: Deciduous trees primarily determine the shape by the cut. The time for the basic cut is usually outside of the growing season. In native trees, before budding in early spring. Remove superfluous branches and twigs that cross, grow inward, or otherwise disrupt the harmonious growth pattern. To get only a limited increase every year, the branches of deciduous trees from the previous year are shortened to around two to three eyes or pairs of eyes. In the course of the summer, multiple maintenance pruning is usually necessary,

With wires, you can give your little tree the appearance of an old tree. If the branches of a young plant strive upwards, in old trees, they run more or less horizontally or are even sloping downwards. With sufficiently strong wire, the trunk of the still young trees is first formed to describe a picturesque ground or is inclined to the side - several classic growth forms in Japanese bonsai culture should be aimed for. The side branches that are too steep are bent down with the wire attached to the trunk. Once the wood of a new annual ring has formed, the new cells stabilize the shape given by the wire. This stabilization process takes a maximum of a year, depending on the tree species. With the formation of a new annual ring, the growth in thickness also increases. The wire corset must therefore be removed in good time so that it does not constrict the bark.

Bonsai Repotting

In contrast to a normal potted plant, when repotting, a bonsai is not placed in the next larger planter, but new root space is created by pruning back the existing roots. The bonsai is then planted again in the same bowl with new soil. It stimulates root development, and new fine roots for water absorption are formed. It ensures the bonsai's health because only the root tips can absorb water and nutrient salts from the soil and thus supply the plant.

As a rule, repotting occurs every two to three years, namely when the soil no longer absorbs the water when it is poured. Repot in spring before the new buds sprout because the plants are full of energy but hardly evaporate any water due to the lack of leaves. Normal potted plant soil is not suitable. A special substrate that is finely grained and structurally stable is used for bonsai. Bonsai soil is available from specialist retailers. For the plants to be stable in the shallow bowl, the root balls of larger bonsai trees or those growing obliquely in one direction must be fixed in the bowl. Two pieces of wire are used for this, which are placed over the root ball to the left and right of the trunk. Then you pull the ends from the inside through the appropriately placed drainage holes of the bonsai pot and twist them together on the underside. Finally, on top of the root ball, the wires are covered with a flat substrate layer.

A bonsai also needs a new pot every two years. In this video, we show you how it works.

Tree Species for Bonsai Culture

Theoretically, all woody plants are suitable for bonsai, but not every wood can survive intensive pruning. Before buying, find out how sensitive the tree you want is to react to repeated pruning of the root. The climatic conditions must also suit your future bonsai. Beginners are well advised with a Chinese juniper (Juniperus Chinensis), as it can be pruned well and is adapted to our climatic conditions. The hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) is also an ideal entry-level plant for bonsai fans because it is easy to cut and robust. In addition to the foliage, the smooth bark and the bulges on the trunk are attractive. If you are a beginner who wants to try another deciduous tree, you can also try Japanese maple, tricorn maple, Hawthorn or crab apple. All trees that are naturally small-leaved and do not grow too strong are ideal. On the other hand, large-leaved species such as trumpet trees, horse chestnut or walnut are not very suitable.

In the following picture gallery, we present some interesting wood species for bonsai culture.

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