Bonsai

Watching bonsai grow and forming them into beautiful living works of art is a fascinating and very rewarding pastime. Growing bonsai isn’t an expensive hobby with few specialist tools being required, but a fine bonsai can be more of a statement in your home than many an expensive ornament. A bonsai tree is a true living sculpture.

Bonsai Trees are container planted trees that are grown to be small versions of its natural sized counterpart. Bonsai can be grown from nearly any perennial woody stemmed trees and shrubs that produce branches and can grow in miniature through pot confinement with the help of crown and root trimming.

Bonsai trees can be developed from seed, young shoots taken from the countryside, (please have regard for any laws in respect of taking wild plants or trees in your region), or can be purchased as ready grown bonsai trees. Although growing bonsai from seeds is the slowest method, but you will have maximum control over how your bonsai will grow.

Bonsai are planted in bonsai pots that restrict the development of the roots but also enhance the look of your bonsai tree. Specialist soil mixtures are available that give you the perfect conditions for your bonsai to develop.

Many methods are used to sculpt and give character to your bonsai tree including leaf trimming, wiring, grafting on other plants, short term dwarfing and deadwood, (a process used to age the bark). Only a few specialist tools are required to shape bonsai trees, and these are easy to come by for little cost. All that you require to get started can easily be purchased from a bonsai nursery.

Bonsai trees can be had as both indoor and outdoor varieties, some bonsai are best if left outside in the summer months and then brought inside in the winter months.

For those that like the idea, but would prefer not get involved in growing bonsai, you can purchase artificial bonsai trees.

If you are considering if developing bonsai is right for you, I would say give it a try, bonsai are simple to grow, take a small amount of your time, every bonsai is individual, and who does not admire a bonsai tree every time they see one.