Bonsai Made Easy – DIY Yew
If you look out of this room from where i’m standing all the benches are covered in snow but the snow is beginning to melt but it’s far too cold to be working out there and far too cold to be in the workshop which is not heated so i’ve taken the liberty of coming into our office and when the staff have gone home there’s no one around i will just show you what i’m going to do i’ve got some very interesting projects for you and because most of our viewers are newbies or newcomers to bonsai i don’t want to make the process of bonsai creation too complex and too difficult i’ve always believed that you can make bonsai from virtually anything and they don’t need to be expensive so i’m going to show you what i’m going to make with these plants and i will describe to you what you can get from our nursery because we have a huge nursery with thousands and thousands of plants of different sizes shapes and ages and you can get these as a one-off kit there will be in fact six separate projects they’re going to be called easy bonsai beginners projects and i will describe to you each one so each of these videos that i’m about to do will be one-offs and you can then actually go onto our website and purchase these products if you wish bear in mind that because we don’t ship outside the uk at the moment and in fact since brexit it is very difficult to ship to europe so sadly eu customers cannot get them just yet until we resolve the shipping problems because our courier will not ship outside the uk at the moment so let’s not get into those complexities at the moment and i will begin by showing you these projects so here i am in my office now and this is not normally where i work but i’ve taken the liberty of working here while the staff have gone home and let’s begin by the projects that we’re going to do as i said they’re going to be six projects and i have for you the order english u these are three or four year old english shoes the stems are as thick as a biro or a pencil then there’s hinoki cyprus then there are these famous christmas trees which is the alberta spruce and then we have the procumbens juniper so and there will be a little forest exercise as well so let’s not cause too much distraction i will put these other plants aside and we will start the first project is going to be the english shoe i’m going to do two of these so that it reinforces the learning process for you and every tree that you’ll get will be almost identical to what you see me working on so i like to work at a comfortable height so i’m going to use this little stool that i have in front of me you can use anything to stand it on but i prefer working at this height so here we are let me get my tools i will also not try and make it complicated i will just use as far as possible my trusted felco secateurs you can use any make of secateurs i have very sophisticated stainless steel bonsai tools but i will not use them if i can help it because many people may not be able to afford or get bonsai tools and it just shows that you can make bonsai quite easily with just a pair of secateurs and what else we need we need wire i always say to our bonfire fans that wire is absolutely essential for making bonsoir and don’t be stingy with wire wire is sold in either 100 gram coils or you can buy them in 500 gram or half a kilo coins and obviously if you buy in half a kilo coils it is more anaco economical in the long run now what gauges of wire do you need the most popular gauges of wire i find from experience is one millimeter one and a half millimeter two millimeter two and a half millimeter and then three millimeter for most beginners those grades of wire is more than sufficient to do the job you need so if you can afford it buy half a kilo of each of those grades that i told you one one and a half two two and a half three uh millimeter so but of course when you buy these kits we’re going to give you just the right amount of wire to do that project so don’t worry about that so this trunk of the u because they’re about three going on four maybe four or going on five even as thick as a buyer or pencil they are quite stiff to bend but if you use the right grade of wire it will do the job and to my way of thinking i think two and a half millimeter wire will probably do it so let me cut some two and half so this is two and a half mil wire and i’m going to measure the length of the tree plus a little more because i’ve got to allow for the coiling that will take up some coiling don’t waste wire and the falco secateurs i’ve always reminded you can be used for cutting wire because there’s a little notch at the end which is really a wire cutter so stick the wire into the soil and wrap it around the trunk we’re going to make this into an s shape not all trees have to be made into an s but the s is the most commonly recognized shape it’s also called the informal upright that’s a formal term in bonsai i think it’s coined mainly by japanese americans and take it all the way up the trunk when you come to the top where the branches are a bit soft don’t make it so tight just do an open coil and because i can gauge just the right amount of wire i didn’t have to cut anything it came right to the top but the rest of the wire should be kept very tight around the trunk once you put the wire around it what you now need to do is make it into an s making it to an s you can do it many ways you can just do it into an ordinary flat s like this you can see the shape or i like to think of it as making a coil so i do like a pot stirring action like that i twist the trunk as if you’re stirring a pot and you will get an s shape which has got three dimensions three been three dimensional s so that’s the shape that i have created can you see straight away it’s become an s shape so the next stage would be to prop it up at the angle i envisage the tree to be eventually planted and i will wire the branches i’ve got some very thin branches here i can keep it if i want to make the trunk thicker i don’t need to i will keep it for now and show you i’ll cut it at the end and then i’m now going to start wiring the branches now to wire the branches i think for this thickness of brass i think they’re like the size of a matchstick the one millimeter might do it but i think one and a half millimeter may be a better bet so let me go and hunt for the one and a half millimeter and here i have some one and a half now for those of you who have not watched my previous videos we always talk of the two branch principle the two branch principle is absolutely fundamental to bonsai wiring i don’t like to call it a rule i never like calling anything rules because they’re only guidelines different people can do different things and it will still work for them but this two branch principle simply means that you wire two branches two adjacent branches with a single piece of wire so from the center of the trunk you go outwards and then if you can wrap it around the trunk once you can you don’t have to if you take it around the trunk once it makes it more stable and then take it out to the branch that way don’t try and wire the branches from the extremities inwards i don’t know why some people do that at a workshop or absolutely flabbergasted to see someone trying to wire they were trying to wire the branch from the outside and then going into the trunk that’s not the right way to do it you put the wire across the trunk and then take it out to the two branches that you want to wire bearing in mind that if you can coil it around the trunk once that makes it more stable i’m doing the next one by the way here i am and then go out to the ends and then the other end i find an adjacent branch that can be wired and wired that together so those two branches are wired with a single piece of wire so that is what we call our two branch principle i’m just going to take it out so they don’t slide and slip this part by the way is just to steady the tree i don’t want it rocking and rolling all over the place so you can see that this tree has already got a very nice classic bonsai shape there are some thinner branches i can wire those as well and for that i think i can use one millimeter wire one millimeter wire is the thinnest grade that i always recommend so let’s find some one and just enough to wire the two branches together so this is about five inches long i don’t know what it is in metric the u.s american customers like me using the old inches and feet because i was taught when i was in school in inches and feet i still use inches and feet i can’t think in metric okay so that’s done it so you can wire almost all the branches but i don’t think i need to and there’s some more branches there so i’m going to wire those there so that’s a slightly thicker one so i’m going to switch to one and a half mil you’ve always got to judge what grade of war will wire that particular branch that you have in mind it comes with practice the more you practice the more you will understand what greater wire will do the particular job in hand so there you are i’ve literally used one wire to wire the trunk one to do those two branches second one to do those two three four pairs of branches i’ve wired together and i’ve now got this classic s shape the very long branches the ends i will just snip off you should always snip the ends off because by doing that you’re going to encourage more side shoots to grow and the more side shoots you get the denser the tree will begin to look so if i didn’t talk so much this tree would have been finished long long ago so this is the classic s-shaped bonsai that i have made with that u the u that looked like this before has become like this so that is a classic shape and for a pot we will supply you these small plastic pots and all that you’ll be surprised to learn that i’m only going to charge or the nursery will only charge 10 pound to buy this kit that means if you buy one tree one pot and we will give you sufficient wire that is your 10 pound that is i think a bargain because i’m teaching you as well and you can buy this for 10 pounds to the kid you will have to pay for the courier charge of course but obviously it depends how much you want to buy some people place big orders so the courier charge doesn’t come to very much so that is what i’ve done with that tree typical s-shaped tree now let me do another one just to show that what i did was not a fluke i remember that when we used to go to dancing classes the teacher always used this strange expression you know try it again because i don’t want to feel that it is just a fluke it’s not a fluke you can learn by repetition and the more you repeat the better you get at the work so now this situation you can see is rather unusual because they’re like two trunks quite high up so what i will do in fact is to wire the two branches together rather than to take it up the trunk i can take it up the trunk let me take it up the trunk first and show you because there are so many variations the more variations you get the more challenging they are and of course the more you practice the better you become at the work so let me begin by wrapping the wire on the trunk really tight when you wrap the trunk make it tight don’t keep it loose if it is loose it will grate the bark and it won’t be so effective i’ve always mentioned that when i wire i always tend to do anti-clockwise but i don’t know whether it depends whether you’re left-handed or right-handed but it doesn’t matter clockwise anti-clockwise all the same okay and when it comes to the top where the branches are thinner just keep an open coil and i put one piece of wire on now i can try and make it an s if i wish just twist it literally like twisting or stirring apart that action stirring a pot i’ve done that now i can wire this branch this way with another piece of wire still using the two and a half milwar i was using only two and half nothing too thick now because this other branch is almost as thick as the trunk itself i’m going to treat it like a second trunk so i will stick another piece of wire into the soil in this instance and follow the path of the existing wire and then go up to the unwired branch i hope that all makes sense another popular expression some teachers use is that doesn’t make sense i don’t want to keep asking you that i’m sure it makes sense to you most people are fairly intelligent so here we are i’ve come to the end and now that was quite thick so i cannot take it out there so that is going to be the first branch and i’m now going to put this tree at a slant in a temporary pot just to hold it in that position because if it’s in that position i can get a better idea as to how this tree will look when it is completely wired so i will just twist the base a little bit take the branch outwards so hopefully you can see the shape there now so that it doesn’t cause too much confusion anything pointing down i’m going to take off now some of these branches are quite thick so i’m going to have to wire these as well i think there are now sufficient branches here to allow me to wire them all so that’s what the tree is looking like already this long branch i will just shorten a little bit these will be shortened anything pointing down i’m going to take off so you can see that very nice s shape created from a quite different situation unlike that first one this is quite different okay i will just have one sweeping branch to this side and i’m not going to wire these branches i’m going to wire these thick laterals as well and to wire those i’m going to use one millimeter wire this sort of hand shape this is what we call the pad in bonsai terms this flat branch here with all these side shoots is called the pad pad branch pads i don’t like to use too many complicated terms as long as you understand what it means that’s all that matters many people use complicated terms to show how clever they are and to confuse people i don’t believe in doing that the simpler it makes it the better so that is what the pad looks like like a herringbone can you see the effect of the pad that is the pad okay so that was the sweeping branch to this side to the left hand side that you’re viewing and now i’ve got these other branches so these other branches i’m going to wire because these branches are quite thin i can use the thinnest grade which i recommended which is one millimeter one millimeter is the thinnest branch uh wire that we have here so i’m going to wire these branches along the trunk again using the two branch principle the two branch principle is almost mandatory you know don’t depart from the two branch principle only if it is in very very extreme circumstances and you don’t have a choice to use another branch then use a single branch on its own but as far as possible always stick to the two branch principle and you won’t go far wrong now i’ve got another two branches sometimes you can get three branches and i’ve explained on previous youtube videos if you get a three branch situation why the third branch to one that’s been wired already so the branch which is already wired will act as the second branch for the third branch that you can’t pair so there’s no excuse for not pairing it so you can always find a branch to pair now these are sticking up we’ve got to wire those still continuing with the two branch principle we will wash some more branches the u is a very forgiving tree english hue texas bakarta and when they get thick and old the branches have a lot of character and they can be carved so if you get experience with you you will absolutely love working with a u i really love the use especially the thick ones we’ve got some use that have trunks of 10 inches in diameter and they’re an absolute pleasure to work with so now i’ve got a situation where there’s a top sticking out i’ve got enough at the top so i’ll cut that off i don’t need that so i’ve now created what we call an apex going to the top and this is the shape of that tree and because the soil this tree is in is quite okay i will just pot it up using that soil i can add a little more soil and these are the size of plastic pots that we will be getting with the kit so just loosen the soil if the root ball fits the pot do not cut the root a lot of people are absolutely obsessed with cutting the root i cannot understand that mentality if the tree root ball fits the pot do not cut the root it is quite okay to leave it as it is so fill it a little more soil i think we will probably give a little bag of soil with this kit so all for 10 pounds you will get a tree the pot the requisite number of wires and some soil to pot it up and there you have we have here now two english use that you saw me do no magic no sleight of hand they’re all slightly different and this is what you’re going to get so as i said we’re going to have these as projects so this is the first project the english u project where you get one tree one pot right amount of wire and a little bit of soil to pot it up and i’m going to do six projects and you will really enjoy making these little projects with simple trees not too expensive and it will reinforce your learning so i hope you enjoyed the first of those [Music] you
