For several thousand years, the inhabitants of the East have mastered the simple and complex art of growing miniature bonsai trees. From China and Japan, where this occupation, aside from the obvious aesthetic, also has a hidden sacred meaning, bonsai has spread all over the world, gaining a lot of admirers. About whether you can grow a bonsai tree at home and how to do it right, we'll talk today.
Which tree to choose for a bonsai?
Wise Japanese are confident that choosing a tree for bonsai is necessary in accordance with the eastern calendar. Only in this case, bonsai from a simple green interior decoration will become a kind of symbol of human life and even help it to balance. More pragmatic Europeans approach the choice of source material from a practical point of view, giving preference to plants with the highest growth rate, because even under the most favorable conditions, the formation of a bonsai can take not a year, or even five. Grow bonsai at home can be from beech, ash, hornbeam, pine , fir, boxwood and ficus. The latter, by the way, are an ideal option for the first experiments in the sphere of bonsai, as they grow rapidly and with gratitude respond to forming pruning.
How to grow bonsai from seeds at home?
Having conceived to grow a miniature tree at home, it is first worthwhile to estimate soberly how long you are willing to wait for the result and what style you want to get bonsai. These two points will later become fundamental when choosing a plant variety and carrying out molding operations. In general, the algorithm for growing bonsai from seeds at home is as follows:
- We sow seeds on seedlings. Depending on the type of plant, this must be done in autumn or spring.
- Dive seedlings on individual pots, while cutting the roots. Already cut off seedlings before planting will need to withstand some time in the solution of growth hormone.
- We plant the future bonsai on a permanent place of residence in a flat and wide pot, making a repeated pruning of the roots.