American Beech Bonsai

Beautiful year around this is a great choice for anyone.

American beech bonsai. It does not do well as a traditional bonsai but can make a very showy companion plant. American beech fagus grandifolia whose smooth gray trunks can resemble giant elephant legs can grow to almost 40 meters tall. The genus name fagus is latin for beech and the specific epithet grandifolia comes from grandis large and folium leaf. As you can imagine this makes training beech for bonsai a lengthy proposition.

Fagus sylvatica is trained for bonsai in europe and spectacular bonsai are created from thick trunked collected trees. Both are very well suited and popular for bonsai as they have beautiful trunks vividly green foliage and nice autumn colours. Fall colors are yellow to orange and bronze. Fagus grandifolia the american beech or north american beech is the species of beech tree native to the eastern united states and extreme southeast canada.

Beech wood makes a good firewood that will easily split and burn for hours. If you start to dig and find two roots 180 degrees apart walk away. You get one reliable flush of growth each spring with an occasional second flush in late spring to early summer. Defoliation every two years.

Make sure to leave at least one leaf on the tip of each branch in order to draw the sap otherwise the branch will die back. It produces spiky woody fruit capsules which contain two to four triangular edible beech nuts. The beech is a member of the the beech family fagaceae. This is primarily due to its very slow rate of growth.

Unfortunately american beech is not the best bonsai subject. I have personally found american beech to be prone to potassium deficiency when grown in containers so it helps to treat them early in the spring with a product like pro tek 0 0 3. In talking with jack sustic about the american beech in the national bonsai penjing museum he recommended a mix of akadama and grit for soil and he feeds his beech dyna grow 7 9 5. The bitter edible nuts are called beechnuts or beechmast and contain a high tannin content.

In the united states european beech and its numerous cultivars are commonly used in the landscape for different coloured foliage or unusual growth patterns. It is the fifth most common tree species in southern new england. Beech bonsai trees are one most popular species of bonsai. What appear to be seedlings under more mature trees are often root suckers.