Despite our best efforts with our care of bonsai trees, our trees can get diseases and we need to be able to identify them and know how to combat such fungal infections such as mildew, rusts and black spot.
Mildew is a white mould forming on the foliage. It extracts the sap from the tree. It then spores over winter and emerges with the buds and foliage in the spring.
Rusts are another fungal disease that causes raised brown and or orange areas on the underside of leaves. This is especially found in Beech or Birch species.
Black Spot is a cluster of black spots on the surface of the leaves which results in the foliage turning yellow and then dropping off. This type of fungi is commonly found on Chinese Elms.
You need to be aware with your care of bonsai trees, that there are three main ways to treat fungi so it is best to think about what you are trying to achieve and match that up with the appropriate type of fungicide before you treat your tree.
1. PROTECTANT is a fungicide that will shield healthy tissue from invasion.
2. ERADICANT will kill fungi that have already invaded the plant.
3. SYSTEMIC fungicide spreads within the plant and can protect areas that have not been directly affected by the fungi.
The following is a list of chemicals that appear to work best on fungal infections:
Mildew: Triadimefon
Rust: Chlorothalonil, Mancozeb, Propiconazole
Black Spot: as per the others above and Benomyl
When trying out fungal treatment, it is best that you do not treat the entire area until you gauge how that particular fungicide affects your tree. Just start by treating a small piece of the tree and see how it responds before going over the whole plant.
Fungus is spread via water and thrives in warm wet conditions. Before you water your tree, check to see if there is any fungus. If you see that there is, it is best that you do not spray too much water onto the foliage as the water helps the spores to travel. Also consider that during long periods of warm rainy weather it is best to shelter your tree from the rain for a while so to give it a spell from those warm, wet conditions.
As is always the case, prevention is better than the cure and this holds true with the care of bonsai trees. You can assist your tree to ward off infections by keeping your tree healthy and seeing that it is fed and watered adequately, given plenty of fresh air and sunshine, kept dust and debris free and not placed under any unnecessary stress.
In addition to all your regular care of bonsai trees, stay on the lookout for fungi and get rid of them quickly so that your tree will continue to thrive in good health.
If you would like to find out more on the best way to take care of bonsai trees bonsai trees care
Bonsai trees make great gifts, there’s no doubt about that. But where did these small trees come from? It’s tempting to think they come from Japan, and you’d be partially right, but it doesn’t begin there. Read on to discover a bit about the interesting history of these potted trees.
In ancient China between the period of 500 and 1,000 B.C., monks had the idea of taking trees into their temples to bring a sense of serenity and nature indoors. Thus began the art of “Pen T’sai,” which flourished among monks and high society. These traveling monks eventually brought the art of Pen T’sai and their religions eastward to Korea and Japan.
Eastward to Japan
Japan is better known for their skill in the art of bonsai, because they took it to a new aesthetic level and introduced it to Europe and the United States as well. Most bonsai plants since World War II come from Japan to the West.
The art continues to be practiced in Japan today, but it has become available more commonly to Westerners and other cultures. Some still believe that the art is mystical or magical, but it’s only esoteric because it isn’t well understood by many. The same gardening principles in horticulture apply to caring for bonsai.
Bonsai can be studied and designed to satisfy an aesthetic mind, or simply as gifts that bring a sense of peace or prosperity to any environment.
The bonsai tree is very interesting to me for numerous reasons. It used to be regarded as having mystical or magical energy in ancient China, where the art originated and was known as “Pen T’sai.” When the art moved eastward to Korea and Japan it changed, and became known as bonsai (pronounced “bone-sigh”).
It’s an art form primarily focused on aesthetics, but can be used by masters as a form of personal or political expression. The limits are of the imagination. Americans can now easily attain bonsai trees online and practice the art or simply enjoy the serenity of nature indoors with these small potted trees.
Visit my site BonsaiPlant.net for more in-depth information on the art of bonsai.
In the previous article we touched on the bonsai care subjects of watering, fertilizing, and the appropriate levels of humidity and sunlight essential to keep your juniper vibrant. In this Part II we will go over the matters of re-potting, pruning, caring for your juniper through the winter, and bug control.
Pruning Your Juniper Bonsai
Always in the springtime, and then perhaps once again in the fall, buds (brand new growth) will form on the tips of the juniper bonsai tree branches. When you observe this new growth you must get rid of the buds by pinching them off. If left on, the branches on the tree will develop fast growing shoots and the tree is going to look disheveled. You shouldn’t begin the process of pinching the buds until at least four weeks after the new growth very first appears in late spring. Older more mature foliage also needs to be taken off in the spring. This will reduce the amount of inner growth and allow the sun to pass through without difficulty and more air to circulate. Whenever you notice fresh growth in the course of the usual growing season of summer you should also pinch it off. This will always keep the plant looking tidy and will help to maintain it’s proper shape.
Your juniper bonsai won’t be hurt, at all, from this pinching of new growth. Pinching is, in reality, the way by which you are going to miniaturize and shape your juniper to become and stay a bonsai.
Re-potting Your Juniper Bonsai
Young junipers, those less than five years old, will really benefit from being re-potted every second year. And once they get to 5 to 6 years of age they should then only be re-potted every 3rd year. A free-draining soil mixture must be used. The best times for repotting junipers are in the early spring and autumn. If you see that your juniper is suffering from root rot while you are repotting you’ll need to cut off all of the impacted roots, then re-pot using only sphagnum moss as opposed to soil. Let it grow in the moss for a full year after which re-pot into good, free-draining soil. When you’ve completed re-potting your plant you need to water it very thoroughly. Then keep the tree in a shady location until the roots have recovered.
Root Pruning
Dependant upon how old your juniper bonsai is you will need to re-pot it every 2-5 years. This is actually the very best time for you to prune the plants roots and keeping it from being root-bound. Very carefully remove the tree from it’s pot, and after that clear away some of the soil from around the rootball. It will be safe to trim off about 1/3 of the juniper’s roots. Immediately after pruning the roots, put the plant back in it’s pot in a mixture of potting soil and sand in a 3:1 proportion. Let it soak in a solution of transplant shock supplement, and spray with water a couple of times daily for 2 weeks.
Keeping Pests Under Control
Spider mites can cause substantial harm to junipers, and are notably bad indoors (which is yet another valid reason to keep them outdoors). Develop a regimen to spray for pesky insects no less than once per month with any kind of insecticide suitable for your household plants and designed to kill spider mites. Be sure you spray other close-by plants at the same time that might also be home to the spider mites.
How to Care for Your Juniper in Winter
Your juniper tree will need a rest period during winter so as to continue to be healthy, and for that reason it should be kept in a location where the temperature will not exceed 60F degrees throughout the winter. If you keep your juniper outside the house ensure that you guard it from severe drying winds. This can be accomplished by working with cold frames, window wells, enclosed unheated rooms, or mulch beds.
Your juniper bonsai tree does best when it has a “winter” in order to complete it’s natural cycle. Place it in a cool place in the winter, the colder the better. A freeze followed by an abrupt and quick rise in temperature will hurt your bonsai. Which means you could well be doing your plant much more harm than good by bringing it inside soon after it’s been subjected to freezing temperatures. The freeze alone won’t cause harm to your juniper. When the temperature remains below 50F during the wintertime your juniper bonsai will only need indirect light. And, if the temperatures stay below 50F degrees over the winter then the plant will not require much water.
If you don’t have a shed or a basement or another cold location to reproduce winter, and so you have to keep your juniper in the house, attempt to keep it somewhere where it is out of direct sunlight. During winter, continuing to keep your juniper’s foliage moist is very important should you be growing it indoors. It should be sprayed with a mister once or twice per day.
Japanese bonsai gardening is a hobby that is fascinating, affordable, and easy to get involved in. Bonsai can be enjoyed by people of all ages, and can last a lifetime. Click this link to learn more about growing your very own juniper bonsai tree: Juniper Bonsai Tree, and sign up for your FREE 7-part introductory mini-course on how to grow miniature bonsai trees. Or, to get started growing your own bonsai trees trees right away check out the highly regarded “how-to” bonsai book “Beautiful Bonsai Secrets”.
Growing and enjoying lush green trees are the luxuries that not many can afford these days as people are increasingly dwelling in apartments. Apartments also do not provide enough scope for people to indulge in their hobby gardening. However, there are many who have found an alternative — Bonsai. It’s the art of growing trees in containers that originated in China around 1,000 years ago, and later was developed by Japanese. In many houses today, around the world, one can find bonsai trees giving the soothing green touch to the living room setting. In addition to trees, plants and also shrubs can be developed into a bonsai.
Bonsai is often considered a piece of art, and to grow bonsai trees, one requires expertise and patience. The miniature form of the tree takes around five years to develop. It’s usually developed from a seed or cutting. A comprehensive research is required on how to develop a tree, the kind of soil one should use, watering process, environmental requirements, and other requirements. A number of books, written by experts, are available in the market on Bonsai techniques. Also, one can find comprehensive information online. It’s also a good idea to consult a Bonsai expert before buying the container to grow 6 inches to 3 ft tall tree.
One should consider the geographical location and accordingly select the tree species. The selection of the container is as important as selecting the plant that one wants to develop into bonsai tree. The size and style of the tree depends on the container, and also it should be aesthetically appealing. The selected tree should be pruned to give it the desired shape, and the some of the branches should be wired. Before, transferring the tree to the bonsai pot, a lot of the roots should be cut. It’s important to understand the soil make-up before covering the root with it.
Previously in Part I we discussed the best way to properly water, fertilize, and give your bonsai plant ample measures of sunlight and humidity. In the following paragraphs we are going to talk about some additional, crucial juniper bonsai care recommendations covering subject areas such as re-potting your juniper bonsai, the best time to prune your juniper, getting rid of unwanted pests, and taking good care of your juniper during the winter.
About Pruning Your Juniper Bonsai
New growth will usually show up on the tips of your juniper bonsai tree branches in the springtime, and occasionally you will see more new growth in the autumn. In the course of these cycles of new growth you will want to nip off these new buds to prevent the branches from developing fast growing shoots and causing your tree to look slightly untamed. You should not start pinching the buds until around four weeks after new growth very first appears in late spring. Older more mature foliage must also be got rid off in the spring which will help reduce the amount of inner growth, and permit the sun’s rays to pass through without difficulty and much more air to circulate. The juniper bonsai will carry on growing through the summer months, producing new buds. Keep pinching these off in order to keep the shoots from growing which will make the tree appear untidy.
Pinching off new growth isn’t going to harm the plant. This is most likely the procedure that you’ll make use of more than any other to miniaturize your juniper for bonsai and to shape it into the style you have picked for it.
Repotting Your Juniper Bonsai
Junipers plants need to be repotted about every two years when they’re juveniles (fewer than five or six years of age) and after that only every three to five years once they reach maturity. A free-draining soil mixture should be used. The spring as well as the fall are the very best times of year to re-pot your juniper bonsai. Junipers are vulnerable to root rot. If you see root rot when you are re-potting, you should cut away all of the affected roots after which you can re-pot working with only sphagnum moss. Ensure that it stays in the moss for a full year or so to give the roots time to recover. Sphagnum moss is bacteria and decay resilient and also is really water absorbent. Right after repotting your juniper be certain to water it completely and then keep the plant in a shady place until the roots have recovered.
What You Need to Know About Pruning Your Juniper’s Roots
You can actually re-pot your juniper plant in either the spring or the fall. And when you do you ought to look to see if the plant is starting to become root-bound. After you have removed the tree from it’s container, with care remove some of the soil from the rootball. Cut away around one-third of the plant’s roots. Return the plant to it’s pot, putting it in a mixture of 3-parts planting medium with 1 part sand to replace the lost soil. Your juniper might be in a little bit of shock right after having it’s roots pruned and being re-potted. To help it recover faster you can include just a little transplant shock supplement to the water can and water completely. Keep the foliage moist by spraying 2-3 times per day for 2 weeks.
Pest Control
Should you be growing your juniper bonsai inside you’ve got to be particularly aware and on the lookout for spider mites. They could cause real damage to your juniper. Incorporate a regularly planned once a month spraying of your junipers using an insecticide designed for household plants. Indoors or out, make sure to spray all your other nearby plants which could also have the spider mites.
Winter Care for Your Juniper Bonsai
To maintain good health, your juniper bonsai tree really should be kept in a cool (under 60 degrees F) throughout the winter months for them to experience a dormancy or rest period. If you keep your juniper outdoors ensure that you safeguard it from harsh drying winds.
Your juniper bonsai tree does best when it has a “Winter” to complete it’s natural cycle. Place it in a cold space in the winter, the chillier the better. A freeze followed by a sudden and quick rise in temperature will damage your bonsai. Which means you would be doing your plant much more harm than good by bringing it inside soon after it’s been subjected to freezing temps. The freeze itself is not going to lead to harm to your juniper. If the temperature remains below 50F in the winter your juniper bonsai will only require indirect light. If the temps remain below 50F degrees during the winter then the plant isn’t going to require much water.
If you can’t simulate winter with a cold room or basement or shed, then try, at least, to keep your bonsai plant away from getting direct sunlight. Whenever your bonsai is kept inside your home at room temperature, make sure you humidify it by misting it maybe once or twice per day.
Japanese bonsai gardening is a hobby that is fascinating, affordable, and easy to get involved in. Bonsai can be enjoyed by people of all ages, and can last a lifetime. Click this link to learn more about growing your very own juniper bonsai tree: Juniper Bonsai Tree, and sign up for your FREE 7-part introductory mini-course on how to grow miniature bonsai trees. Or, to get started growing your own bonsai trees trees right away check out the highly regarded “how-to” bonsai book “Beautiful Bonsai Secrets” at the website.
It is widely known that the secret of keeping your bonsai both healthy and miniature is to prune not only its branches but the trunk and roots as well. Pruning is a bit scary to newcomers to the hobby of caring for bonsai trees, as pruning roots damages a plant, restricting its ability to take up water and nutrients while pruning branches must be done carefully to ensure that you end up with your desired shape.
The time when your bonsai will need its roots trimmed is usually between one and five years after you bought it. This time frame is only a guide for caring for bonsai, as a number of factors effect the amount of time a tree takes to become rootbound in its pot; different species of tree have different levels of development and the variables such as the size of the pot, the development of the rootball and the age of the tree all have an influence on the growth of the roots.
When you take the tree out of the pot to inspect it each year, usually in the spring, you will be able to see if the roots need pruning. If you find that the roots form a circular ball around the edge of the pot, it’s time to trim or prune the roots. If the roots of the tree are still contained within the soil, the tree can be returned to the pot and pruning can be left for another year.
There is a tool specially designed to help you expose the roots. This is called a “root hook” but it doesn’t have to be this specific tool. You could try either chopsticks, screwdrivers, or a crochet needle as what you are trying to do is to gently work in between the roots to loosen the soil surrounding them.
While you have got the roots exposed, this is an good time to inspect the roots for early signs of decay and rot. It is vital when caring for bonsai trees, that we remove these dead roots as they will cause trouble in the future if we do not get rid of them.
You need to know how much root to cut off and how to select the right roots to be ‘cut back’ to a degree to keep them healthy and small enough for the pot.
Look for the long large roots that dominate the pot and trim them back. In particular, look at the downward growing roots. These need to be removed as they will eventually begin to ‘lift’ the tree out of the pot.
What we are trying to achieve here is to make way for the smaller feeder roots that will continue to sustain the growth of the tree while keeping the root system small enough to survive in the small pot.
You want the root system to spread laterally, from the trunk base or nebari rather than downwards, like anchors.
It is best to use a sharp knife or shears when cutting the roots and try to cut them with a downward slant. When you do this, there is less chance of water gathering in the exposed part of the newly cut root which in turn lessens the chance of infection setting in.
It is important when caring for bonsai trees that you do not remove more than 30% of the roots in any one year. This is important as you don’t want to reduce the root mass to the stage where it can’t support the tree so, generally aim to only remove about 1/3 of it.
Although there is a lot of information available on caring for bonsai trees, the pruning element still seemed to be rather daunting to me. It was difficult to have the confidence to do actually cut the roots for the first time.
I found that the best thing to do was to find a person experienced in caring for bonsai trees and watch them before I attempted to do it myself. Once I had seen it done, I had the knowledge on what to trim and what to leave and I could get on with the task of pruning my bonsai, confident that I was doing the right thing for my tree.
It is important to get the proper knowledge so that you don’t end up killing your tree. To find out more on caring for bonsai trees bonsai tree care
Bonsai tree care is the art of growing trees in miniature and it is originally from the countries of China and Japan. This is done by manipulating the trees environment by keeping it in conditions that make it small, such as growing it in a miniature sized bowel. This restricts the trees growth from reaching it’s full height and it doesn’t damage your plant as you are only preventing it from reaching its normal size. The results from this can appear very beautiful however, however there are many other techniques that need to be learned if you truely want to master the art of growing miniature trees. Wiring, clamping, watering, fertilizing, cutting and pruning all need to be considered and mastered.
If you’re just starting out then the best way to learn about bonsai tree growing is to go out to the shops and buy one. Alternatively, you can instead buy some seedlings or take a cutting from another plant, however it’s usually easier if instead you purchase a young, premade plant from your local gardening center. Young bonsai trees still have many years of growth and potential ahead of them and you’ll be able to avoid having to go through the time consuming stages of growing a seedling or cutting.
New bonsai owners should also think about the different styles you’ll want your future tree to grow into. There are many forms to choose from and you should look up information on the species of your plant so you can identify which style which will suit it best. A couple of the styles that you might want to use include: semi-cascading/ cascading styles – this is when the plant hangs over the side of the pot or droops beneath the level of the bowel; lot’s of wiring and clamped is required to achieve this look. There are formal and informal upright postions – this is when the tree is grown vertically upright just as it does in the wild, however with the informal style some curvature of the trunk is encouraged. Others styles to mention include the windswept look – where the tree grows to one side and appears to have been blown by the wind over the years, plus also the coiled look – where the tree is turned many times upon itself.
The great thing about this hobby is that if your tree is looked after properly it can live with you for the rest of your life. Some bonsai trees are so old generations of people have been looking after the tree. Bonsai’s which are hundreds of years old exist. To achieve such an old age with your plant you really need to know the correct bonsai techniques and instructions and it’s important to avoid any diseases or pests which might attack the tree at any time. The best way to avoid these problems is by making sure the tree is growing in a healthy environment in the first place.
Tim Green has been a bonsai enthusiast for many years and is passionate about helping others achieve beauty and excellence with their bonsai trees. For more great information on bonsai tree plants visit Tim’s website at http://www.bonsaitreecarecenter.com/.