You may have come
across various forms of pruning, generally aimed at maintaining the health and
productivity of a plant. Although this is an aspect of Bonsai, they are also a
perfect example of pruning for aesthetic purposes. In traditional Japanese
Bonsai art, the aim is to create a miniature version of something that would
occur naturally in the wild. One book suggested that one should pretend you are
seeing a tree from the wrong end of a telescope. I could fill this whole
assignment with information on Bonsai growing but I have decided to focus on
creating Bonsai from native Australian species as I recently came across a book
that dispelled some myths about this ‘branch’ of Bonsai.
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| Anything is possible |
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| Lovely Ficus specimens. |
Firstly it is true
that some Australian species such as the Eucalyptus
can be quite difficult to both establish as a Bonsai and to maintain. There
are, however, species like Ficus that
are perfectly suited to the Bonsai trade. Some specimens even develop miniature
aerial roots and even some amazing buttress root systems. The degree to which
this occurs is once again dependant on how you prune and manipulate your tree.
Pruning is also carried out on the roots, which is the key process in
maintaining the small size of the Bonsai. Roots are pruned while transplanting.
Done every 2-5 years depending on the age and habit of your Bonsai species.
Interestingly the
authors of the native Bonsai book I am reading had a lot of issues with
‘wiring’ their native species. Wiring involves wrapping the trunk in (Usually) copper wire in order to then
train the tree into the form you desire. In the native Bonsai, the authors
found that sections of the tree would die completely, go dormant or that new
shoots would die back. They found that preventing these reactions was simply a
matter of trimming back strong upwards growing shoots or shoots that were
vigorously forming from the base near the trunk.
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| Amazing She-Oak (Casuarina) |
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| She-Oak forest. |
Check out this site to get you started:
www.bonsai.asn.au
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