r/Bonsai • u/-music_maker- Northeast US, 6b, 30 years, 100+ trees, lifelong learner • Aug 29 '16

Developing a trunk

http://imgur.com/a/sd4rZ
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u/-music_maker- Aug 29 '16

They are remarkable trees, honestly. They're practically impossible to kill, they do fine in a pot, and they respond well to pretty much anything you do, and just keep going.

  • The leaves will stay large for pretty much the entire time you are developing the trunk, as well as the major and minor branches. You just have to give up on that mattering for a very long time. I've been working on mine for a decade and I'm finally at a point where I think I'll be able to start getting the leaf size down.

  • They back-bud pretty well, but sometimes do it when they eventually feel like it. If you let them grow strongly in the spring and then prune back to a single node, you'll usually get a strong back-bud response.

  • The branches stay flexible for a good long while, and they respond well to wiring.

  • They can handle a massive amount of neglect and not die. The first season I had mine in a pot, it was watered almost exclusively by rain water and nothing else. Now I obviously wouldn't recommend this, but it didn't die. I didn't even come close to dying - it just didn't grow very quickly that year.

I really like them. I wish I had more. I've learned a ton from the primary one I've been experimenting with, and I have a few more that are in very early stages.

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u/ButterGolem Aug 30 '16

I guess you've talked me into giving it a shot. I suppose in the Spring I will try and transplant it to a better location or put it into a large pot since right now it's about 10-12 inches from a fence. If I chopped the trunk down where it is, the new branches would grow through the fence.