Start your own Bonsai

Hi Everybody.

I have been writing about bonsai for more than twenty years. As I travel around my local area, Durban, South Africa, I see many people have bonsai trees, but they have limited knowledge and prefer not to become members of a local bonsai club. There are also lots of people who would like to get involved in growing bonsai but don’t know where to begin. Well, this blog is a good place to begin. Over the next few months I will be outlining the basics of growing bonsai, and you will be amazed at how easy it is.

Starting your own bonsai can be as easy as finding some good bonsai material, taking it home, finding the right place for it, and then waiting. There is a lot of waiting in growing bonsai, which is why most growers grow trees is batches. While one is waiting for something to grow one can work on various other trees.

The easiest and most logical place for a person to begin looking for bonsai material is at a local garden nursery. Most larger nurseries have people who know a little about bonsai and they can advise you on the best species for your area. For novices, it is best to begin with the types of trees one finds growing in one’s own region. These species will be well adapted to local environmental conditions and will probably be more resistant to bugs. Do not choose trees that have straight tall trunks, these do not make for good bonsai. Look for trees that appear almost stunted, with trunks that are bent and slightly twisted.

Probably the single most important aspect in identifying good bonsai material is to make sure that the trunk is wider at the base where it meets the soil and tapers becoming narrower further up the tree. The trunk of the tree should look a bit like the Eifel Tower, wide base narrow top. Avoid material that has an inverse taper, narrow at the bottom and wider towards the top. Inverse taper is almost impossible to correct. Some trees naturally have smaller leaves than others even within the same species. Select those with smaller leaves because smaller leaves make better bonsai.

Once you get your precious new tree home, find a place for it where it will get a lot of sunshine and leave it there for a week or two. If it sprouts new leaves and begins to grow well then that is a good place. If not, then try another location until you find one where the plant is happy. Do not immediately remove it from its black nursery bag. In fact, it can stay in this black bag for a long time, even a few years. Plants that have sat in a nursery for a long time may often have hard compact soil so loosen up the soil by poking it gently with something like a chopstick to allow water to soak in.

Leave the plant to grow strong before messing with the shoots and roots.

And that is a really good beginning.