General Bonsai Care

Bonsai Tree Care

The care and maintenance of bonsai is not as difficult as most people think, and with just a basic understanding of the needs of a bonsai tree, most enthusiasts can keep a tree alive long enough to then learn more about this wonderful Japanese art.

Step 1: Keep Your Tree Alive
It might sound pretty simple but if you can keep a bonsai alive you are 90 percent on the way to mastering this art.

There are 4 main areas to look at to keep your tree alive and 2 areas that help to keep it healthy and looking like a bonsai.

Watering
The biggest thing that will kill bonsai is too much water, or in most cases not enough water.

These tiny trees that have been placed in small containers need a constant supply of water to the roots, but do not do well if their roots are constantly wet, which will cause root rot.

The happy balance is to keep the soil moist but not wet. The position of your tree can make a big difference to how often a tree will need water, a tree in full sun will need to be watered a lot more than a tree that only gets a small amount of morning sun.

Checking your trees for water at around the same time each day will give you an idea of an individual trees needs. Scratch the surface of the soil to reveal half a centimeter below, and if the soil is dry, water it, if it is still moist then check it again at the same tomorrow.

Position
A lot of people put too much thought into this sometimes and forget the biggest element, BONSAI ARE NOT INDOOR PLANTS!

Leaving a tree inside for too long is a sure way to kill it. Keep them inside and admire them for no longer than a week, and then gradually move them back to their original position outside, for at least 3 weeks before bringing in again.

For most trees a position outside that gets several hours of morning sun is good. How much of this is direct sun will depend on the variety of tree and how often you can water it if it needs it.

Just because a tree can tolerate full sun, does not mean that they grow at their best in full sun, and keeping the water up to them will usually be the biggest challenge in the summer months.

Pests
I like watering all my trees by hand each day which gives me a chance to look them over foe any signs of pest or disease.

Most pests if caught early enough can be treated with natural sprays like white oil and pyrethrum.

Being vigilant and catching pests before they become a problem, and preventative measures such as spraying with lime sulphur in the winter, are the best ways to keep your trees free from pest.

Food
All plants need sources of food, one way a tree gets it’s nutrients is by making food using their leaves and the sun (photosynthesis), the rest of it they get out of the soil via their roots.

Feeding regularly during the growing season helps to keep a plant healthy as well as root pruning and repotting to avoid the tree becoming root bound, and the soil from being depleted of nutrients.

Feed with an organic fertilizer like fish emulsion or a seaweed based fertilizer fortnightly in the growing season.

Shaping
You have just finished reading about how to keep a tree alive and healthy, problem is now the tree just won’t stop growing and has started to resemble the plant version of Cousin It, rather than Japanese art!

Keeping your tree alive is 90 percent of bonsai tree care, the other 10 percent is keeping it looking good.

Regular pruning to keep a compact shape and pads of healthy foliage can be a little scary for most growers, but with a few simple steps you can learn to keep your tree looking its best.

Click Here to Learn Bonsai Pruning Secrets

Root pruning
The last of the jobs you will need to master is root pruning. For a tree to stay healthy it is constantly sending out roots in search of food. As our trees are in small containers these roots have nowhere to go and eventually will need to be placed in a larger pot (this could make the tree out of proportion), or we need to prune the roots by a third and replace in the pot with fresh soil.

The job of root pruning is done once a year usually in Spring and is vital to the long term health of our trees.

Bonsai Pruning Secrets

There is one thing that seems to be a regular issue when customers finally decide to bring their bonsai in to the nursery for us to prune and re-pot them; they leave it way too late!

A quality, healthy bonsai needs regular pruning to create compact pads of foliage, and to assist in reducing leaf size.

Most trees such as figs etc.  If left to grow un-attended, will produce long leggy branches that will have an increase in distance between the pairs of leaves the longer they are allowed to grow.

As these branches grow (vigorously at first) they will also be producing vigorous root growth as they search for nutrients to feed this vigorous top growth, over time this causes the bonsai to become pot bound.

The vigorous root growth compacts the soil in the pot, and this makes it more difficult for the tree to get nutrients and water, which then causes it to begin to get sick, it will then start to drop any old leaves from the branches (the ones closest to the trunk!) leaving only the large leaves at the tips of long leggy branches!

This alone makes it very difficult to get a tree back to being a bonsai!

Best Pruning Practices

The best pruning practice is regular attention; major pruning can be done at the time of re potting and in the middle of the growing season if necessary, but compact healthy foliage and fine ramification of branches is achieved by regular consistent attention.

Follow the Triangle for Basic Pruning

If you are following one of the 5 basic styles of Japanese bonsai, then your tree should resemble a triangular shape (scalene triangle).

For very basic pruning your branches or foliage that have grown outside of this shape can be the first areas to prune back, to reveal the outline of a triangle again.

Remove any un-wanted growth from above or below a branch, and rub off, or pinch any growth out appearing at the base of the trunk, or on old wood where a branch is not wanted.

Pinching back Junipers

The best way to keep a juniper in shape and to create clouds of foliage is to pinch the tips of the new growth out by using your thumb and forefinger and twisting.

This removes the growing tip from inside the needles, without causing browning or die back that can occur if cut back with scissors.

Keep juniper growth thinned out to avoid pests hiding among the fine needles.

Alternate or leaf Pairs

To improve branch ramification on trees that grow pairs of leaves or alternate leaves along a branch, can be done by cutting lateral growth back to a pair of leaves, or to a single leaf pointing in the direction of the next shoot you want to grow.

Bonsai pruning Secrets

You don’t have to be a bonsai master to keep a tree healthy and looking good, it just takes a little bit of regular attention.

As you learn more about how to bonsai you will feel more confident in the amount of pruning you do.

The secret is not to leave it till it is stressed and over grown before you do something about it, as this is when it is more likely you will kill a tree, or have a large amount of die back leaving a tree that no longer resembles a bonsai and will take years to, or never recover.