English Oak Bonsai Pruning
Second year training gently pull the bonsai tree out of its pot by the trunk and expose the roots just before the new growing season begins.
English oak bonsai pruning. Strong terminal buds can also be removed then. Best suited to medium large size specimens in informal upright slanting twin trunk and group styles. Repot your oak annually in the spring as it starts to form buds. Do this for 10 years then reduce to every two to three years.
We have produced a re potting dvd if you need help please see the link below. Shaded branches on oak bonsai have a tendency to die back. You can reduce the leaf size down to 2 inches or even less by pruning them gently and carefully. English oak leaves measures about 4 to 8 inches long.
Make flush cuts to promote rapid healing. Hard pruning is done in early spring before the buds open. Remove the bonsai s damaged and wilted branches and stems with sharp sterile pruning shears. Prune your english oak bonsai during the early spring just as the buds begins to swell.
Feeding every two weeks at half strength after first growth has hardened off in spring. Cut back the root mass by one third using secateurs or scissors. It sounds as though it will look much nicer in a nice pot. The best time of year to root prune your oak would be early march the bonsai will have come through the worst of winter but the buds will have not yet started to swell.
Trim back the tree s vigorously growing branches to develop and maintain its shape. English oak leaves are ordinarily 4 to 8 inches long. Repot tree in standard bonsai growing medium using the same pot or transfer the tree into a. Repotting standard practice says that oak should be repotted yearly as buds start to move in spring until the tree is 10 years or older then every 2 3 years.
Oak english quercus robur the traditional english oak displays a strongly grained trunk and distinctive short stalked muliple lobed leaves which start out as bright green becoming prgressivly darker and ultimately a bronze brown in autumn.