Bonsai For Beginners

Hundreds of bonsai trees were given as gifts this festive season. How do you keep a bonsai alive, and what should you be doing with it? Here is a survival kit for new bonsai owners:

Where to put it?
A common mistake most beginners make is to think that a bonsai is an indoor plant. You may certainly bring your bonsai indoors to show it off, but only for a few days at a time. Ideally, the bonsai should be placed outside where it can receive and absorb the morning sun.

Keeping it alive
This is the single most important factor in bonsai care. In our dry climate, your bonsai should be watered daily in summer. In winter every second day would suffice, but the medium in which the roots grow must never be bone-dry.

Watering may be done by means of a fine mist spray. Ensure that the growing medium in the pot is thoroughly soaked, so that the water drains from the holes in the bottom of the pot.

Another approach to watering is to put the entire pot into a basin of water so that the water reaches the lip of the container. Allow it to soak for at least 10 minutes. Spray foliage with water from a spray bottle to keep the leaves clean and pest-free.

What to feed it?
Bonsai grow in small shallow pots and there are few nutrients in the limited soil around the roots. Liquid fertilisers are safer and easier for the tree to absorb so use an organic (Nitrosol, Sheer Blue) and chemical (Pokon Bonsai) fertiliser alternately every two weeks during the growing season for best results.

Grooming your bonsai
There is one fundamental law to remember when trimming your bonsai.

The earlier and harder the pinching back, the slower and smaller will be the resulting new growth.

Trim your tree right up to the leaf stalk, leaving no stumps behind as these will die and look unsightly. When trimming, remember to cut your branches at an angle and try to cut them so that the cut faces backwards.

Shaping your bonsai
Wiring bonsai trees is a very simple exercise but will challenge your artistic ability. When using copper wire it must be annealed first by passing it through a flame until it is red-hot.

Coil your wire around the trunk or branches of your bonsai and make the coils about 10mm apart. They should not be too tight, otherwise the plant will get strangled as it grows thicker. When wiring, always follow the original curve of the tree first before moving away from this.

Wire the trunk first by pushing the wire into the soil at an angle. After that, move up the tree, wiring each consecutive branch. You may want to use thinner wire as the branches get smaller.

When wiring the branches, you don't have to start from soil level each time. Rather put a few coils around the trunk below the branch you wish to wire and progress from there. The wire should be left on the tree for three to nine months: the ideal period depends on the type of tree you have.