Project Wednesday ~Bonsai

This is one I don't talk about too often yet I actually have quite a collection of!
A few years ago I really got into the idea of bonsai and started reading up about them a lot. I bought my first little bonsai, a 'Carmona', or Fukien Tea from Dobbies. It was adorable and lasted about 3 years before sadly it died of a disease. I don't know what brought it on. My only issue with it was that it had obviously been a lot taller at some point and it's top had been snipped off to make it bush out into a bonsai.

So, from there I decided to stop buying bonsai and instead attempt to grow my own! I have had varying luck with this method as well though. I tried oaks a few times as we have a large oak tree behind our house and although I kept them going for a couple of years, for some reason I couldn't get them past that. It's a shame as I really liked this one with a large twist in one of it's branches. I found it this way out the back of the house around 2008, it wasn't engineered by me!

Basically my ideas for what species to grow as a bonsai now is 'any small tree I find growing in the garden'. I have 5 going at the moment, and not to jinx myself but other than one, they have all been going for at least 4 years now! This one is the exception, it's a yew I bought on sale in Tesco for a quid as when I saw it I straight away thought of bonsai. It's the first tree I've bought since the fukien tea, and this one isn't even a bonsai already XD I read that they should go in the ground ideally for a couple of years virtually unchecked so as to really put on some chunky trunk size, so as I thought I may be moving from home soon I put it in a large pot instead. I'm still considering whether it will actually go in the ground when I move out.

This is one of my oldest ones at about 4 years old, a maple tree I picked from the garden. I put it in the old bonsai pot and that's where it's been since. I have tilted it purposely, but in the last couple of years I've not really been sure of the shape I've been aiming for from it, so at the moment it's in some kind of perpetual fall.

This is my biggest bonsai, and the only one I've grown from seed myself. It's a canadian horse chestnut, so if it ever fruits it's conker shells will be smooth instead of spikey :] I got its conker from a tree in Bridgenorth, the only canadian chestnut I know of. I think at the moment it's about 4 years old, and I'm hoping to keep it this size. I'm hoping in the future it'll get a few more branches too :x

These pair are my two cherry trees. These things pop up in the garden all the time, and so one year I decided to bonsai one. I'd been reading a lot about tiny bonsai, only 5cm tall, so I decided that that's where I would go with it! It was a tiny twig for the first year, so the next year I added a friend, another find from the garden XD Group growings are also a thing with bonsai, although I'm not fully decided if that's what I'm going to end up doing. They hate being this size though, every year putting more effort into growing random branches far beyond the shape I'm trying to maintain. Sometimes I catch them in time to shape them to grow where I want with wire, as you may be able to see here.


You can see how much I've stunted the bonsai cherries when you consider that the oldest of the pair is about 5 years old, the same age as the cherry tree that Dad planted in our front garden a few years ago! I'm not sure cherry was the right choice to try and go this small with as they are fast growers with big leaves, but i am learning more and hopefully next year I hope to have smaller leaves too x3
That's half the fun of growing bonsai, although it's a slow hobby, seeing them develop and shaping them into what they are is a lot of fun!
Do you like bonsai or just think they should be left to grow as they please?



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