Bonsai Trees

I just had a quick look online and wow! I didn't realise bonsai trees would be so pricey.

Slightly off topic but can anyone recommend somewhere in London to buy one? And what is the least amount of money I can spend (I understand this approach will take more work on my behalf and the tree probably won't be as impressive)?

Yeah, all this bonsai talk has made me want to get another one. Think I might spin up to this place http://www.crewshill.com/bonsai-nursery.html tomorrow and check it out, I don't know anywhere central that specialises in them though, sorry!

Not sure on price, I'd expect to pick up a decent 6-8yr old tree for £30-40.

To the OP, why oh why are you using cat litter? You have a bonsai tree, not a pile of cat shit!

Cat litter??? Why cat litter? Again it contains no nutrients the tree can utilise and it's far too loose a medium anyway to be able to anchor a tree in unless I'm mistaken (I don't own a cat or have any sort of relationship with cat litter these days so I'm not certain but last time I checked it was course gritty stuff).

I got the cat litter idea from the bonsai4me site, first in their intro to bonsai soils here, and then in the more in-depth bit about cat litter here. Out of interest what sort of soil do you use, any recommendations?

@ moog, No idea in London, but I know mine originally came from "Bonsai-Ko" in Brighton.

For those who aren't going to read those links, the gist is as follows.

The Author finds that inorganic soils are better than organic soils because they do not break down and become compacted with time, and they also allow excess water to drain through them rather than becoming waterlogged. Inorganic soils contain no nutrients but the author claims that organic soils in a small pot become depleted so quickly that this is of no real consequence. I will still need to fertilise the tree whatever the soil type.

The best sorts of inorganic soil are baked clays that retain a lot of moisture. There are about a million different types and they are often imported from Japan and so expensive. Cat litter is basically the same stuff as the fancy Japanese clay but a fraction of the price. Apparently the Tesco's stuff in the pink bag is the best, but can possibly be mixed with some other stuff depending on the requirements of your tree.

yes, trust SaturdayKid - s/he has said everything (and more) that i would have said.

the only other thing is not to over-fertilise. i made that mistake with pretty bad consequences. advice varies, but my bonsai don't get fed much (small amount once a month over the summer, and once in the spring after re-potting) and they seem happy enough.

For those who aren't going to read those links, the gist is as follows.

The Author finds that inorganic soils are better than organic soils because they do not break down and become compacted with time, and they also allow excess water to drain through them rather than becoming waterlogged. Inorganic soils contain no nutrients but the author claims that organic soils in a small pot become depleted so quickly that this is of no real consequence. I will still need to fertilise the tree whatever the soil type.

Nice one, that's a new on me but I'm always open to something new so cheers for enlightening us on the suitability of clay-based cat litter as a bonsai growing medium.

As an aside I rescued 3 oak trees that had self seeded in my parents garden at the weekend. They are between 1-2feet high and I've put 2 in pots and the other one into a spare bit of garden where it isn't in the way and I'll leave it there to put on some more growth before digging it up again and transferring it to a pot to begin training as a bonsai. I've had some of my best trees this way.

I once found a cotoneaster growing by the side of a flag stone that was part of a sloping path in my old garden and because of the slope over time rain had washed away the soil from the around some of the roots and left an amazing looking set of thick knarled exposed roots. It looked pretty special once I'd potted it up and grown it on a bit and eventually produced the lovely pinky-red flowers and small crimson berries mature cotoneaster (horizontalis) do.

Not a bonsai question, but perhaps you know anyway?

We rescued a maple from a friends back yard a while ago, planted in a pot and it seems to do really well. It's about 0.5m high now and got 20 or so big leafs going, it looks healthy. But not sure where to go from here? Can we keep it in a pot and it'll adjust to it, or do we need to re-pot it to allow it to keep growing?

It looks a bit like this, but taller

So just a long stem with leafs coming off it, no branches, or aspiring bits thereof either . Should we cut it or anything now when winter comes, or just leave it be til next year?

Hi, I'll do my best to pass on some advice. Any pruning, strictly speaking, should be done during the trees' dormant period i.e. from when it drops it's leaves up to the point in spring when the new leaves begin to open. Pruning a tree when it's actively growing is detrimental because it tends to weaken the tree and slows down its growth.

The other thing to bare in mind about bonsai (are you wanting to train the maple into a bonsai?) is that generally speaking trees with very large leaves do not lend themselves very well to the process. As far as purists are concerned one of the things that makes a bonsai a bonsai is that everything should be in proportion so large leaves on a small tree don't work but there is a way around this up to a point. When the tree is in full growth i.e. the leaves are out and looking healthy (now this goes against my advice about not pruning during the growing season but this techinique is Ok to use as long as you've got a healthy tree) what you can do is take a pair of scissors and cut the leaves in half horizontally i.e. strainght across the middle. What will happen over the next few weeks is that the tree will produce a new set of leaves that will be almost half the size of the original leaves and so will look a lot more in keeping with a small tree in pot. Good eh? I've done this successfully with horse chesnut for example.

To answer your other question, yes to achieve some more significant growth it will be necessary to repot into a container aprox half as big again as the previous one. However don't do this though unless you are certain the roots are becomming cramped in their pot (tip the pot upside down and knock the edge of it on a wall or the hard part of your palm til the tree pops out the pot [make sure it doesn't drop on the floor and ruin any branches] and then you can inspect the root system before carefully returning it to its pot. Once you're sure the root system has outgrown the pot or it's beginning to look like there's much more root than soil it's probably time to repot (agan this is best done during the dormant period).

lastly, to encourage the tree to produce more top growth what you can do is cut out the end of the leading branch (this is called the leader for obvious reasons). This will encourage shoots to form lower down and more branches will grow. The other thing you can do is cut the lower branches off at a shoot which is pointing in the direction you want the resulting growing tip to go (it's best from an aesthetic pov to have branches that grow at different angles to one another rather than two branches for example that are growing next to one another going in the same direction). A pair of proper bonsai scissors is best for this cos they don't crush the shoot like normal scissors would or some secateurs.

p.s. I'm wonderimng if it's possible that the tree you have is a London Plane (they have very large leaves too) - check out the pics below and compare it, see what you think.

HTH

Thanks for the info! Don't think its a London Plane but I'll take a photo of it tonight and upload here

The other techniques that's used in bonsai to stimulate growth and keep the tree suitable for growing in a relatively small container is root pruning but anyone wanting specific advice on this gimme a shout. Yeah post up a pic of your maple and we should be able to identify it :)

I'm not that fussed about bonsai-ing it as such, I just liked to keep it for quite some time to eventually plant it in my garden when I get a house

(but if it'll survive longer bonsaied, i'm all for it)

Ok, well either way it'll survive as long as it's given a bit of care and attention. mainly, DO NOT LET IT DRY OUT. Pot contained trees can be very prone to this if not kept a close an eye on and will soon die if left dry. The only other thing really is potting it in decent compost (garden compost from a compost heap is ideal or some Johnn Innes soil based compost e.g. JI No.2) - try not to use soil dug up from the garden if you can help it as it's not really suitable for using in pots. Other than that a potted tree will pretty much look after itself, esp. if you're not bothered about training it in any way - oh yes, you can give it the odd feed if it seems to be growing slowly using something simple like Growmore if you're keen ;) .

Given time even without pruning it will begin to branch more but when young they tend to grow up more than out although cutting the top out will encourage lower growth, as i said earlier.

I love this thread.

LFGSS is so brilliant.

I've been growing bonsais for years have a nice collection and been through some moments where I've needed to revive others bonsai trees.

So for a chinese elm you are actually probably better off keeping it outside they really need the change in seasons to store up the sap. So in the winter they should loose all of their leaves which tells them its time to start storing up sap for the spring if they are left inside during the winter they can often die due to not knowing this cycle. I'd recommend a larger grain of soil mixed 50:50 with bark you can get treated bark that won't have the problem of using home made stuff eg fungus and disease. There are some nice websites out there I'd recommend kaisen (sp?) I won't link to it but google will let you find it :) They tend to be fairly good and will give you advice on soil mixtures and best repotting times.

Quick way of telling if the soil is too moist or needs watering is by using a wooden chop stick...put it into the soil pull it out again, if there is no soil clinging to the stick then its probably a bit dry. Also humidity is majorly important get a drip tray with a gravel on it and leave it full of water pop the tree on that and it usually keeps the surrounding air moist. (aswell as spraying). If you do decide to leave the plant in doors don't keep it near a radiator or central heating this dries the air out far too much and isn't good for the majority of bonsais.

Chinses elms are fairly hardy and do stay alive much longer than you'd expect without leaves. In the off chance you think it's really dead try planting it outside directly in the ground. This is a technique used to strengthen bonsais particularly early in life to thicken the trunk and also helps revive "dead" plants. Don't worry about it growing too much that you can't bonsai it again...it sounds like it could do with a non restricted growth for a while (maybe a whole year) when it's healthy again repot it and prune the roots (plenty of books out there).

Paul

I've been looking at Chinese Red Pine as you can pick 1yo ones from ebay pretty cheap.

Does anyone know what the growth rate is like? ie how long it will take to grow to a size that you can start to shape?

Cheers.

Trip to my local garden centre, came home with this little Brush Cherry.

I know nothing of Bonsai, other than having a couple about 15 years ago that I masterfully killed in record time.

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Nice! You're going to get some excellent trimming fun out of that. Very therapeutic.

I've just repotted my mini jade tree which was going mental in its original pot.

https://m.facebook.com/MetDaanTips/videos/345277876696820/
Apols for the faceache link

I bought some fern off eBay to give bonsai a go

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Anyone got a spare bonsai pot they're looking to pass on, who can meet in Canary Wharf?

What kind of size do you need?

Small. But I've randomly found a set nearby on FBM so I'm all good now.

Cheers for replying though.

My first bonsai, but why do you need akadama rather than clay?

For reference I have 2 tonne bags of basically solid clay in my garden I still haven't taken to the dump.

Soil is one of the most hotly debated topics in bonsai and one in which I think I am still a complete novice. I only just received my first bag of akadama which I had planned on putting in my soils this spring but it didn’t arrive in time.

Anyway, bonsai soil needs to have 4 properties, it needs to provide stability to the plant, it needs to provide water, it needs to provide nutrients, and it needs to allow the tree to breathe. Purely organic soils (regular compost etc) tend to hold too much water and can compact leading to the roots not being able to get enough oxygen. Most bonsai enthusiasts tend to opt for a largely inorganic soil with excellent drainage. This means that soil doesn’t become waterlogged but can mean that you have to water very often (maybe up to several times per day in hot weather). Akadama is a dried clay from Japan that is favoured for it’s balance of water retention and drainage however it is expensive, often difficult to come by and can break down if you live in an area prone to frost. Many people therefore look for alternatives.

I currently have several trees in a mix of composted pine bark (an organic component to add water and nutrient retention), perlite (for drainage), and cat litter (made from molar clay, an akadama replacement with reportedly similar-ish properties). I think my mix is 50% bark, 25% perlite and 25% cat litter. This mix is probably more organic than most would recommend (I’ve seen people using 1:1:1 of the same ingredients) but I’m lazy and like that I don’t have to worry too much about watering. Currently the trees all seem fine.

The tldr is that you don’t NEED akadama, and there are alternatives, but I’d be a bit cautious about regular garden clay - if it’s anything like what I imagine, it will turn into a dense stodgy mush and suffocate your tree. You want something that will retain its structure.

Molar clay is readily available from Amazon under the name sanicat pink or kitty friend https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sanicat-Pink-Cat-Litter-30ltr/dp/B00SJX82SW. Perlite and composted bark are both readily available at your local garden centre. I then sieved all to remove fine particles (<~4mm) and dust before mixing my soil.

Can you put up some pictures of the trees please?

Thanks that makes perfect sense.

I've gone for a little handful of the crumbling clay with a mix of pearlite, grit, stones and compost.

We'll see how it goes.

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