Bonsai Gardening Secrets

 This is a great guide to creating your own Bonsai Trees. 95 pages of how to deal with your Bonsai…..more

Bonsai Care Secrets

This is another good book ,easy to follow guide for selecting ,growing and maintaining any Bonsai…..more

Bonsai Growing Guide

More trees are killed by incorrect watering

Carefully lift the tree out of its pot and plant it in a larger container
of dry sharp sand, keeping the rootball intact.

Use a stick to check if its drying out, and only water sparingly
at first when it has dried out, you may need to trim the ends of the
roots if they are rotting badly. This method may or may not work but
it is worth a try

Liquid

Powder

Granules

Blocks or Cakes

Liquid fertilizer is quicker acting because it can soak through to the roots quicker and it can be absorbed through the leaves if it is used in a mister.

The Granules, Blocks or Cakes take 3 to 4 weeks to break down and each time the Bonsai is watered a little more feed washes through to the roots.

In general all fertilizer is made up of :-

Nitrogen (N)

Phosphorous (P)

Potassium or Potash (K)

shown on the pack by 3 numbers e.g.: 10-10-10

Nitrogen is good for leaf and stem growth .A Bonsai with pale leaves is a sign of too little Nitrogen.

Phosphorous is good for root development, thick and sturdy trunks and fruit ripening. A Bonsai with purple tinted leaves is a sign of too little Phosphorous.

Potassium is good for hardening young growth and protects against fungal attack. A Bonsai with a mottled colouring is a sign of too little Potassium

Soluble fertilizers can be used once a week during spring and early summer or use it at a quarter of the strength for every watering. Don’t make up soluble fertilizer stronger than the instructions on the pack as it could kill your tree.

The N P K balance will change with the time of year. In the spring a weak balanced ratio is required, say 5-5-5 or 6-6-6. Later when the shoots are extending it can be increased to 10-10-10 or 15-15-15. Late summer into autumn should be changed again to something like 0-10-10 for the dormant season. The exception to this is the Pine family which need low Nitrogen in spring and summer and higher Nitrogen in early autumn.

Tomato feeds can be used for flowering species and are typically 4-4.5-8.

Also sterilized bonemeal, typically 0-3.5-7.5. can be used if a flowering bonsai is producing lots of leaves but no blossom.
As you can see both types of feed have a similar amount of Phosphorous and Potash but the sterilized bonemeal doesn’t have Nitrogen in it so it will slow down leaf production.

You may find there are better deals on complete sets, but there is little point in spending a small fortune on Bonsai tools if you are likely to give up when your first tree dies.

Bonsai shears

Can be obtained in Professional Grade or Beginner Grade, and are used for cutting small twigs and trimming leaves.

Concave Branch Cutter

Can be bought in several sizes,with the 8″ (200mm) Concave Branch Cutter
classed as the basic size. Used for cutting branches,its design ensures a flush cut with the trunk,resulting in little scarring,can’t really be done with any other tool.

Wire cutter

This is used for cutting training wire off your trees without cutting into the branches.Bonsai Wire Cutters are designed differently to standard wire cutters so it is a good idea to get a pair instead of using standard wire cutters.

If a tree never gets root pruned it will become potbound and this is never a good situation for any plant. There will not be enough space in the pot for a sufficient amount of soil to keep the plant alive.

Lift the Bonsai from the pot and shake out the old soil. You can use a blunt stick to remove soil from in between the roots so that the roots don’t get damaged. As your collection grows you may wish to invest in your hobby and buy a Root Rake or Root Hook.

Cut the longer, thicker roots first using sharp Bonsai shears. Cut these roots further back than the thinner roots. Then cut the thinner roots and finally the finer roots can be trimmed.

Cutting the thicker roots further back gives more space for the finer roots which is what we want for a healthy bonsai.

The roots should be sprayed with water after root pruning is finished so that they don’t dry out too quickly while you prepare the pot ready for replanting.