How Bonsai Works

The goal is to create a bonsai that resembles nature as close as possible.

How bonsai works. The goal of bonsai is to create a pleasing specimen that reflects nature as much as possible. This is the way that the bonsai artist works in harmony with nature to create a unique and satisfying plant but to be successful he must have a plan. It is the vision of the bonsai artist applied to a tree shrub or plant. Start with a couple of hours of morning sunlight about a week after potting and work up from there.

This can be an idealized view of nature or a vision of a more matured weathered tree that has survived for many years. Let s begin with the single most important technique to bonsai. It s about training the living tree. After choosing a specimen potting the young tree is the first step in transforming it into bonsai.

It is a never ending journey. Bons ai is the ancient art of discovering and honoring nature by rendering it in miniature. Move the tree into a sunnier location gradually. Unlike model trains or dollhouses bonsai is a living landscape.

Your best bet to find a good bonsai tree is to visit a respectable nursery. Tray planting pronounced boɰ sai listen is an east asian art form which utilizes cultivation techniques to produce in containers small trees that mimic the shape and scale of full size trees. In japanese bonsai literally means a plant in a tray source. Creating the right conditions.

Place your new bonsai tree in a shady spot for a week to allow it to adjust to its new pot and shorter root system. In bonsai design a tree s branches provide symmetry to the whole and are manipulated through wiring and pruning to realize that original vision both in scale and proportion. Pruning is crucial in keeping trees miniaturized as well as to shape them. For bonsai then the challenge is to create conditions in a shallow pot that retain water and nutrients and allow gases to be exchanged replacing waste gas with fresh oxygenated air.

Be sure to remove any covering you placed over the drainage hole before you water. Hoang dinh nam afp getty images. In spring there are many. This process can take many years and in the case of some deciduous trees requires the removal of all of the foliage from time to time.

There are many good candidates for bonsai at any tree or plant nursery but it may take years if not decades to achieve the desired results. The pot and tree work together to create the bonsai design and although a bonsai tree may be planted in many pots during its life each pot helps create balance and harmony in the overall design. Bonsai is not a race nor is it a destination.