This plant is a Japanese white pine, also known as the Pinus parviflora. It is about 5 years old and it was purchased in a Bonsai store for around $50 US. In this movie I’ll show you how to create a bonsai from this nursery stock. After pruning, wiring and repotting, this was the result. For styling this tree, we’ll use a twig shear, a concave cutter, a wire cutter and a jin plier. As you can see, the trunk of this pine is still quite flexible, which will enable us to make an interesting curve in the trunk using Bonsai wire. But first we take a moment to study the tree form all sides, including the roots. This is important in order to be able to decide on what the best front of the tree will be. As you can see, the roots look healthy, and the tree is ready to be styled. We use a thick wire to bend the trunk, and stick one end of the wire into the root mass as anchor. The wire is applied at an angle of about 45 degrees. Next, we wire the main branches of the tree. We try to select pairs of branches that are more or less the same thickness, and wire these with one piece of wire. In between the two branches, make sure to wrap the wire at least once around the trunk (or main branch) for stability. On some places on the trunk there are too many branches, so we will remove a few of these. We also remove dangling growth, to prepare the tree for wiring. Deciding on the design of a Bonsai isn’t always easy, try to apply the pruning guidelines we just mentioned, to your own trees. If you are interested to learn more about these techniques, consider enrolling in one of our online Bonsai courses. Here, expert teachers explain the relevant techniques, and you can ask them questions. For a free lesson, go to bonsaiempire.com/courses To make the tree appear a bit older, we are removing the bark off these pruned branches. These barkless branches are called “Jin” in Japanese. To reduce the current height of the tree, we are removing the existing apex, and we will use these smaller branches as the new apex. Keep your thumb on the inside of the curve that you are creating, to make sure the branch does not break. Now we prepare the pot, by covering the drainage hole with a mesh. We also attach a long wire, which will be used to anchor the tree to the pot firmly. Ok, so we have pruned and wired the pine and we already worked a little on the roots. Now we chose to not touch the roots too much because we already did some pruning and wiring, and we do not want to do too much at the same time. So in this case we only removed a small part of the old roots. We will be planting it in a relatively large pot. Two years later we’ll work towards a smaller pot, but for now this is the size we’re using. And the planting angle will be more or less like this, so that means that we still have to work on this section a little bit more. The soil mixture we use is a blend of Akadama, Lava rock and Pumice. You can read more about Bonsai soil on our website: bonsaiempire.com Alright we have finished styling the tree, we have pruned and wired it and done a very mild repotting and placed it in this relatively large pot. Since it is late fall right now, we’ll make sure to protect it from frost in winter. Lastly, after the repotting we water the tree twice, to make sure the entire root mass is watered. Learn how to create your own Bonsai trees, by enrolling in one of our online Bonsai courses. We explain techniques like pruning wiring and repotting, and you can ask questions to the teachers. For the curriculums and free lessons, go to: bonsaiempire.com/courses
