how to make bonsai
Its one of those days that you have to learn how to make bonsai.
Bonsai cultivation is one of those projects that starts out as a hobby that would most likely be very interesting to try. See what develops.
Then, before you know it, you’re hooked. The one bonsai project becomes merely the first. Your miniature tree has become surrounded by a forest of similar projects that can no longer be considered projects. It’s become an obsession. A passion.
Once you’ve learned the secrets of how to make bonsai trees survive, it’s almost impossible to stop there. Once the basic techniques have been perfected, it’s almost impossible to limit your efforts to horticulture.
Before you know it, when you would have never thought it possible, you realize that your interest in bonsai cultivation has passed from hobby to obsession to passion and has now become an avenue of artistic expression. Your art.
And like most other art forms, you can’t really know how to make bonsai art without speaking the language. And, yes, there is a rich beautiful language surrounding this artistic passion.
Indeed, how to make bonsai art is dependent upon knowing the different styles in which to fashion your tiny treasured trees. Perhaps you’ve been content thus far knowing they are healthy and beautiful, just as Mother Nature intended them to be. But now it’s time to explore one step further.
Bonsai tree styles are usually showcased in several designs, or styles, and there are often sub-styles within a bigger category. Here’s a quick run-down of some of these styles and sub-styles:
Chokkan is a formal, upright style featuring a trunk that shoots straight up, tapering near the top (apex).
Moyogi is an upright style, too, but it is informal. The topmost part of the tree’s trunk must be located straight up from the point where the base of the tree (root base) leaves the ground, as in the Chokkan style, but there should be some twisting and bending between base and top.
Shakan is a slanting style in which the trunk leaves the soil at an angle and the apex is somewhere to the left or right of the root base.
Kengai style cascades to mimic the look of trees growing off a mountainside or over water. The apex falls over and below the base of the pot in full Kengai style.
Han Kengai is a semi-cascading style which places the tree’s apex at or just beneath the lip of the bonsai pot.
Netsunari trees have trucks lying on the ground to give the appearance of a fallen tree with branches becoming the new trees developing along the sides and top of the main trunk.
Bunjin-gi is often called the literati style. It represents trees with very long, often contorted, trunks. This style is considered highly artistic.
Yose Ue style means three or more, but seldom four, trees planted in the same pot.
Sekijoju trees, often figs, are planted with the roots anchored around a rock.
Hokidachi is often elms with straight, upright trunks with branches and leaves pruned in the shape of a ball.
Ikadabuki features one tree with many trucks growing out of one root system and spaced so they form one crown of leaves.
Ishizuke represents the struggle to survive. The roots grow in cracks, crevices, and holes in a large rock that forms the anchor for the tree in the pot.
Once a little more style is added to the hobby, it becomes easy to see that how to make a bonsai forest can keep you interested and entertained for a lifetime.
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