Unless it's early spring, and you're growing willow, it's almost always bad to see white fuzzy stuff on your tree. (willows make beautiful catkins that are fuzzy and white which is what is pictured above.)

Mealy bugs are soft-bodied insects that suck on plant sap like aphids. The females are what are normally seen - crawling around on plants covered in white fuzz. The egg masses that females lay can often look like mold growing on the bark of trees, or the undersides of leaves.

Ants farm mealy bugs, so if you see ants inspect hidden areas of your plants to see if there are insects that the ants are tending - for the purpose of collecting the waste they create. 

Mealy bugs come in a few different varieties, including tiny ones that mainly inhabit the soil, rather than the tops of plants. 

We propagate and sell a few varieties of plants that are well suited to indoor bonsai growing; among them is rough-bark dwarf jade (Portulacaria afra.) When kept indoors the natural predators of mealy bugs like birds, spiders, and many insects are absent, allowing the population of the pests to proliferate. 

To kill mealy bugs, try drenching the plant in a soap spray (like Safer Soap) or by diluting 1/4 Tsp of dish soap (not detergent) in a quart of water.  Soaking the entire rootball in soap, and drenching the entire top is the best way to knock back mealy bug populations. Repeat this exercise at 2 week intervals until you no longer notice any bugs. 

Because mealy bugs are very good at hiding, dense foliage, dense twigs, and even the rims of plastic pots and similar spots make good protection. Do not assume that anything short of dunking the entire plant will reach all the crevices they are using for hiding spots. 

Mold on the surface of Portulacaria afra bark is not a common occurrence - if some part of the plant has died due to frost or another issue, mold can get a foothold, but in normal conditions, any white on the trunk is more likely to be some sort of pest, either the insect itself or eggs. 

Portulacaria are quite drought tolerant and like hot dry conditions alternating with enough water to replenish their internal stores. Because mealy bugs are not able to survive the hot dry conditions like portulacaria, another way to deter mealy bugs is simply to let the plant dry out for a week or two in a bright sunny spot. (Note that doing this with other bonsai species will result in plant death!) 

Do you have a slam-dunk method for getting rid of mealy bugs?  Leave a comment below!

The first time I ever saw a bonsai tree was when I watched "The Karate Kid" in 1984. I was still a child, and I still hold this as a beloved introduction to bonsai, as do many people who are now adult practitioners of the art. Unfortunately, this movie is also a source of misrepresentation of bonsai, unintentionally planting some poor images into the minds of millions of people and likely causing avoidable frustrations to generations of new bonsai hobbyists. And I am afraid that, as good as the series is (and we all love it!) the reboot "Cobra Kai" is likely  continuing this cycle of misinformation. These errors are subtle to the uninitiated, but to those of us who practice bonsai regularly, they are significant. There are two bonsai-related things I think "The Karate Kid" could have done better, and one "Cobra Kai" should rethink. 

Say It Ain't So, Karate Kid!

In the first and most memorable bonsai scene of the original movie, Daniel walks into a dark room where Mr. Miyagi is trimming some Juniperus procumbens plants. Mr. Miyagi invites Daniel to trim one of the trees and the scene unfolds as a lesson in mindfulness and thoughtful bonsai practice. Watch for yourself:

1. Wrong Species: although many Americans think of Juniperus procumbens (or the Nana variety) as a "Bonsai" it is actually called a Japanese Garden Juniper. While the species is commonly used as a spreading ground cover in Japanese gardens, it is almost universally rejected as a bonsai subject. Instead, bonsai practitioners use two other kinds of junipers abundantly - Juniperus rigida and Juniperus chinensis v. Itoigawa and v. Kishu. 

And why does the exact species matter? Because J. procumbens and J. procmbens 'nana' are not your friend in the long term when it comes to bonsai. Yes, you can create a bonsai with a procumbens juniper, as you can train the trunk and branching, but you cannot maintain and improve it after creation, when the foliar characteristics become quite important. Even in the 1980's when this species was more popular, bonsai practitioners "in the know" were grafting other more cooperative varieties onto it to escape the problematic maintenance issues. Today, these are the plants that you might buy in a home center in a plastic pot, or from a roadside truck from a guy who doesn't know very much about bonsai.

2. Wrong climate: the bonsai portrayed in the movie are not grown indoors by most or perhaps all serious practitioners and artists. Bonsai being mainly made from tree species means that they nearly all want bright all-day-long sunlight. Where Mr. Miyagi is keeping his trees they would certainly not receive enough light, and lest you think perhaps he is in a greenhouse at night, refer to the third movie where they are also kept indoors at the store. This unfortunate movie styling decision seems to have started a trend in all other movie and serial entertainment where bonsai are kept indoors as decorative objects, resulting in the majority of people believing that bonsai should be kept indoors.  

While it's fine to bring bonsai indoors, and during winter protection can be essential, generally they are easier to grow outdoors where they create tighter healthier growth than inside buildings. Bonsai can be grown indoors, but you will face many challenges in providing adequate light and your efforts will largely be confined to tropical or other species that tolerate the constant temperatures inside homes. To their credit, the creators do keep some scenes with trees outside, as in the third moving "Roots" scene.

Mercy, Cobra Kai!

3. That juniper is not a bonsai: In the first season, Daniel holds up the little juniper you can see in the screen shot above during his commercial for his dealership. This is an untrained juniper that doesn't look like a tree; certainly not like a juniper tree. It's still the wrong species, and really shouldn't be held up as an example of American bonsai.

What was your first exposure to bonsai? Was it from "The Karate Kid" or "Cobra Kai"? Let us know in the comments below and share your impressions!

For a generation of Americans and Europeans, the 1984 movie "The Karate Kid" was an unexpected introduction to bonsai as a hobby and a mindfulness activity. Mr. Miyagi introduce Daniel to bonsai, first showing him a medium-size juniper* and tells him to close his eyes and think only of the tree. He further instructs him to picture the tree, then to open his eyes and make the actual bonsai in front of him look like the picture in his mind. 

Daniel: "How do I know the picture in my mind is the right one?"

Mr. Miyagi: "If come from inside you, always right one"

After some work on the tree Daniel's mom enters and asks what he's up to, Daniel responds by saying I'm working on my "Baby Tree"

M: "Bonsai Tree"

D: "Banzai Tree"

M: "Bone-sigh"

In this one short scene (click on the image above to watch the clip), the default concept of bonsai was formed in the minds of millions of people. For an American production company working in Los Angeles in the 1980's we think they got a lot of great things right, starting the ball rolling for so many people. Here are four things we think they did well:

1. The plants are healthy and full of good looking growth - even though this is difficult to tell in the dark scene, just this simple idea that a plant should be healthy and growing well as a bonsai is helpful to people who have little other experience with the concept of bonsai.

2. Mr. Miyagi manages to quickly convey that bonsai is a process that a person thinks through and then executes physically, shaping the tree to the picture that they create in their mind. He hands Daniel a pair of scissors and leaves him to work on a plant. While many Americans still think of bonsai as a decorative object like a painting, this scene conveys this key conceptualization - it is a partnership between a plant and a person that makes a bonsai. 

3. Bonsai are trained to be small. One of the very basics of bonsai is that they are not a type of plant, they are a method of training both the foliage and the roots. 

4. Mindfulness is a part of bonsai practice - incorporating time to consider your actions, maintaining concentration on what you are doing, and enjoying the process of working on a tree through scents, textures, and sounds allows you to quiet your busy mind and contemplate. Although bonsai has conceptually been linked in popular culture to "Zen" and mindfulness, it is well incorporated in this scene.

If you want to learn more about mindfulness and bonsai, check out our Mindfulness Series, beginning with "Establishing a Mindful Bonsai Practice". 

When was the last time you watched The Karate Kid? Have you binge-watched the new season of "Cobra Kai" on Netflix yet? Let us know if we missed anything else the movie got right about bonsai in the comments below!

*most likely a Juniperus procumens; learn why this is actually a mistake in last week's article, "3 Things The Karate Kid & Cobra Kai Got Wrong about Bonsai". 

In 2007 I started a batch of Monterey Cypress from seeds I collected from a tree in the Presidio here in San Francisco. Cypress grow very fast, even as seedlings. It takes only 2-3 years to have a tree that is three feet tall, although the trunk remains small.

I grew them in pond baskets and boxes for a few years. They do okay in baskets, but tend to get roots so dense that using a Sawzall to remove the bottom of the root mass becomes necessary. In 2010 when I moved to Thousand Oaks, I put eight of the trees into the ground, almost like a hedge along one side of my bonsai growing area. In only two years the trunks went from less than one inch to about three inches across.

In December 2012, I dug all eight trees up again and put them into large boxes to transport back to San Francisco. Below is an example of what one of these looked like.

Before work. The tree was cut back hard after being dug out of the ground. The top half was removed and all the large branches were stubbed back to be short. Cypress can easily grow a couple feet worth of branch extension in a year so it didn’t take long to get some good small branches to work with.

My chosen front, 2014. It provides a good balance between the movement of the main trunk and the angle of the large branch on the left.

Detail of the base from the front, 2014.

The tree measured about 25″ high with a girth of 3″. One of the great things about Cypress is that they seem to put on significant wood even in a bonsai container. The wire will cut in very quickly, and after removing the wire the branches have a habit of springing back. The disadvantage of their wood production is that over time the branches can get too large, particularly on the top of the tree.

 

Looking down at the top of the tree, 2014. Lots of wire! Looking at it now, I suppose I should have done something about that cut mark before I wired the tree.

January 2015, after a second wiring.

February 2015, repotted into a nice old pot.

After the work in February of 2015 I seriously considered showing the tree. It’s impressive how quickly these trees develop. But this tree, while showing a nearly-full silhouette, wasn’t showing mature character. Cypress have strips of bark, which to this point the tree hadn't developed. Perhaps even more important, they have a fine needle foliage, very similar to a Kishu Shimpaku or even Itoigawa in color and size. This tree was still showing immature foliage, or somewhere in between the seedling fluffy needle and the mature foliage. I felt that waiting a year to show the tree was probably best, to allow the crown to develop more maturity and to get mature foliage.

A comparison of the foliage on the top left side of the crown from February 2015 and March 2016. Note the difference in texture.

The tree grew slowly in 2015, especially compared to its growth in 2014. I barely needed to touch it for the entire year, which is unusual for a Monterey Cypress.

March 2016, before work.

March 2016, ready to show.

It took me about 6 hours of solid work to complete the detail wiring of the tree. I used mostly 18 and 20 gauge copper to spread out and neaten up the small tips, but in a few places I had to use some medium size wire to move larger branches. All that's left to ready this tree for exhibit is some nice moss for the surface of the soil. 

Interested in watching Eric prep a different Monterey Cypress for a bonsai show? Watch this video from our YouTube channel! 

“The mountains are calling and I must go.” - John Muir

Visiting magnificent trees in nature such as the Bennett Juniper is an experience I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to seek out. Really examine these trees, as they can provide you with instruction as well as inspiration in how to make good bonsai.

The Bennett Juniper is the Grand Champion Sierra Juniper, the largest Juniper in the world. It’s a Juniperus grandis, the largest species in the world in the juniper genus (formerly Juniperus occidentalis v. Australis) It's registered with American Forests in the National Register of Big Trees. When last measured in 2015, this giant stood at 78 feet tall, with a trunk circumference of 40 feet and a crown spread of 56 feet!

The tree’s size and majesty are hard to comprehend from seeing photographs alone. It's quite interesting to get to see the tree up close. Although the trunk is basically straight, almost all the branches are a twisty gnarled mess of loops, knots, and odd angled protrusions. The winter snow and wind seem to combine to kill the cambium on the top of the branches as they age, leaving the bottom of the branch alive to grow around the top. While there are sections of the deadwood that are bleached white, the color variation ranges into yellow, orange and then gets even more interesting as certain kinds of lichen colonize and carpet the deadwood. The branching of the juniper stands in stark contrast to the big formal upright nature of the trunk, with red fibrous bark resembling that of a coastal redwood.   

The Forest Service has a handout which provides many details, some of which are reproduced here:

Background

The Bennett Juniper (Juniperus Occidentalis) is named after Clarence Bennett, a naturalist who devoted himself to the study of this specific species. It is, indeed, the biggest western juniper in existence. Only seven known trees have a greater girth.

Although located in the Stanislaus National Forest, The Bennett Juniper is situated on private property, owned and maintained by the Save-The-Redwoods League by way of a donation from the land’s original owner, Joe Martin. Mr. Martin donated the tree site and three acres surrounding it to the Nature Conservancy in 1978. The job of protecting the Bennett has since been passed on to Save-The-Redwoods.

Age

After decades of arguments from experts over the age of the tree, recent dendrochronology tests performed by tree experts now date the tree at closer to 3,000 years of age, roughly the same age as another giant, but dead, western juniper found in the same vicinity of high granite country. That tree, known as the Schofield Juniper, was already as old as the Bennett when it died 800 years ago.

A significant number of folks who know trees maintain that the Bennett is the oldest living champion tree-period. They cite the example of a branch some three inches in diameter, examined after it dropped from the main part of the tree. It contained 550 annual rings. They postulate that it took 700 to 1,000 years for the tree to add just the outer foot of its thirteen-foot diameter.

Location

The Bennett Juniper is located in the Stanislaus National Forest in Tuolumne County, California. Just off Highway 108, the Bennett is accessible via eagle Meadow Road (Forest Service Road 5N01.)

The Bennett receives about 1,500 visitors each year. To get to the tree, visitors must ford two streams in the process of traversing twelve miles of Forest roads, the first five miles of which are paved, the last seven becoming increasingly bumpy and narrow until you see a tiny vertical green sign with an even smaller arrow reading “juniper” and arrive at the driveway that leads onto the Save-The-Redwoods property.

When you get there, you’ll likely be met by a gentleman named Ken Brunges, who acts as the Save-The-Redwoods representative and caretaker to the Bennett. In 2022 Ken marks his 34th year of attending to this giant.

Ken has made many improvements to the trail and the immediate area surrounding the tree, such as hauling in native rock for the pathway and installing wooden benches for the comfort of visitors. Best of all, he provides many of the answers to the many questions about the Bennett Juniper.

I had the pleasure of meeting Ken in 2007, who at the time was a 60-something-year-old man whose camp consisted of two tents, two dogs, and a large pile of firewood. He answered many of my questions which included: what is the most ridiculous car that you ever saw make it all the way here? To which he replied: “a Porsche; he made it fine, but I think it took them a couple hours.”

The roads to the Bennett Juniper are only open from mid-June through October, so time your visit carefully! When planning a visit, make sure you take time to stop and admire "Fred and Ginger", two trees that stand together nearby. Though they are two separate trees, the interplay between them reflects an ideal design of a two-tree or double trunk bonsai composition.

I recorded my most recent visit and have posted it to the Bonsaify YouTube Channel. Watch the video to join me and Pedro, our 2022 summer intern, on our adventure in the mountains. If you’re interested in seeing more examples of amazing trees in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, read this article I wrote last year.

The art of bonsai allows for personal expression in the development and styling of trees, and the selection of bonsai pots. Like many art forms, it takes time and deliberate practice to do bonsai well. Bonsai enthusiasts often spend years studying to become professionals. The rest of us, regardless of Malcolm Gladwell’s research, don’t need to spend 10,000 hours studying bonsai for it to become a rewarding hobby. What we can all benefit from is guidance from enthusiasts and professionals on how to get started. So here it is: a list of seven rookie mistakes anyone new to bonsai should avoid. 

1: Bonsai on a Shoestring

This is the first of two money-related mistakes. Bonsai can be an expensive hobby, but you can begin a bonsai hobby on a small budget. All you really need are a few key tools (e.g., basic bonsai scissors and tweezers), bonsai soil and fertilizer, a plant and container, and wire. Purchasing inexpensive material for $5-$10 is a fine place to start, but don’t expect that you will have a show-quality tree in a couple years with that kind of expenditure. 

If you plan to spend as little as possible - bonsai on a shoestring budget - then start by learning how to propagate plants and how to grow them out inexpensively. You will be learning many broad skills if you can take a plant from start to finish into being a quality bonsai. There is a wealth of free bonsai basics information available online, between YouTube and blogs. You can also purchase a basics book for less than $20 USD. Regardless, definitely take time to read and watch a bit before selecting your first plant.

The value of a bonsai plant is determined by the market and takes into account the age, shape and style of a plant. When selecting your first plant, you may find something on sale at your local garden center or for free from your neighbor’s yard (please, ask for permission before cutting or removing anything!) You can also purchase an inexpensive bonsai starter or young bonsai tree from a bonsai retailer. Look for a plant that matches your climate and your lifestyle. 

If you want to develop skills in maintaining older and more established bonsai trees, you will eventually need to procure a higher-quality (and thus more expensive) tree. Think about it this way: you can’t learn how to fix an electric car by working on an alarm clock!  

2: Budget Blow-up

The opposite of the low-budget do-it-yourself approach is to just start spending a lot of money on plants. As a beginner this will enable you to learn more quickly than if you just start seedlings, but beware of budget blow-up! If you attend a sale, there may be plants that are priced above $1,000. Does a high price mean that you are buying a great bonsai? Not necessarily! First, fine-tune your understanding of  what makes a good bonsai. If you plan to start purchasing expensive material, first educate yourself by watching auctions (online or in person) and seeing what is driving the value of a plant. Read old magazines (which may be the cheapest thing at the auction!) and show books to familiarize yourself with photos of high-quality trees. 

Don’t spend money without understanding what you’re buying. Here is a list of features that generally drive the value of a bonsai: 

•  Trunk size and shape: the trunk size and taper is a difficult part of a bonsai to change or improve, it is generally considered a “given” in bonsai sales that the trunk quality represents a good portion of the value. 
• Nebari: The junction of the trunk with the major roots is a key feature in a bonsai. The criteria for quality vary among different species; but the value of a plant is greatly affected by this feature. 
• Branch placement and quality: if the basic primary branches are all in place, then it is much easier to create the fine twigs from that point onward. If grafts or other work are needed this takes time and work to execute.
• Twigs, branches, and the silhouette: The refined structure of a mature bonsai is made up of many tiny branches. The work that goes into these is the difference between a mediocre plant and a show-quality plant. Look at the mass of foliage to determine if it’s made up of usable and well-tended twigs.

3: Skipping Horticulture 101 

Get the horticulture right first. If you can't grow your plants, you can't make a bonsai.

Whether you start on the cheap, or by buying quality trees, you will need to create a foundation of good horticulture to create and maintain good bonsai. If you’ve never grown a plant before, don’t assume that it will all just go perfectly. From the quality of your water, to the amount of sun and the temperature, each environmental factor is important to a plant. There are not an infinite number of variables, but there are a lot. A good way to get the horticulture going is to purchase 10 or more of a couple different species - seedlings are a good way to do this inexpensively.  Nurture your young plants and watch what makes them grow. You should expect to spend 10 years creating a good bonsai from any starting point. Even if a tree is already a bonsai it may take that long to really make it shine.  

4: Waiting for a Miracle

A miracle is defined as “a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws.” Simply believing that given enough time your tree will improve isn’t enough. Bonsai will certainly get older with time, but they are not guaranteed to get more beautiful. To make a bonsai more interesting you almost always need to do something and do it at the right time using the right technique. Self-improvement books extol the idea of having a “radical bias towards action”. If you just watch your bonsai grow, it will stop being a bonsai and end up being a tree or bush. If you use the wrong techniques it will be Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree instead of the National Arboretum’s White pine gifted from the emperor of Japan to the US during the 1990’s. 

5: Innovation without Grounding

In art, there are conventions and there are experts. To be accepted as an artist by the experts in the field, you must understand how to follow the conventions. The most famous example of this is Picasso’s early work. Cubism may look like the drawing of an inexperienced middle-schooler, but this is dispelled when you see how well Picasso could execute a more photorealistic portrait. Bonsai is also an art form. To be a great bonsai practitioner you need to understand, and even imitate, great compositions. Once you understand how an old informal upright black pine is made, and maintained, then you can begin to think about how to break the conventions and be innovative. Don’t ignore the tradition and conventions in bonsai until you’ve achieved success in using them. Then innovate and find ways to create original trees. 

6: Choosing the Most Photogenic Style 

Many beginners gravitate toward the idea of creating a “windswept” tree and use it as their initial style of choice. This style is certainly picturesque and most beginners have at least a rudimentary understanding of the interaction of a tree and wind. This style is also one of the hardest to create. Take time to visit trees in nature to see how wind has really impacted those trees over time. Study how the trees have reacted. From the cliffs over the California coast, to the tops of the Rocky mountains, there are many places where wind influences the shape of tree growth. Studying how the tree grows in these conditions is your first step to making a windswept bonsai.

7: “Long and Straight = Couldn’t Wait”

Proportions are probably the single most important thing in bonsai. The tighter, the better. To make a good bonsai, you should aim to eliminate any branch section, trunk section, or other feature that does not actively add beauty to the composition. If you can create a good set of branches in 4 inches, that’s better than doing it in 8 inches. If you want to make a compact and interesting tree, examine each piece and think about how to make it smaller or more interesting.

Do you have any additional rookie mistakes to share? Post them in the comments below!

Carefully placing a beautiful bonsai tree on your home office desk will make you the envy of your coworkers who see it during Zoom video calls. Or as part of your home décor, placing a small or mini bonsai tree on your living room coffee table is a wonderful way to introduce your guests to the art of bonsai. To keep indoor plants healthy and on display long-term, you need to choose the tree species carefully. 

Here's a list of species that can thrive as an indoor tree. These are some of the best indoor bonsai trees because they're adapted to constant moderate temperature, low humidity and low-light conditions, and often native to mid-elevation dry tropical forests, just like more typical house plants.  

Portulacaria afra "Dwarf Jade"

Since this plant is more like a succulent than a Japanese Maple of pine tree, it's a lot tougher and adaptable to a variety of conditions. You can water it only once per week or even less; the leaves will shrivel and start to look wrinkled when the plant has been short on water. Dwarf Jade trees will tolerate low-light conditions for a long time, but if you see it starting to slow down or branches look unhealthy, put it outside for a month or two during spring or summer to get direct sunlight. Native to South Africa, where it's called Spekboom, it has small leaves that are shaped like a jade plant. This is why it’s sometimes called dwarf jade, even though they're not closely related. See below:

Learn More 

Ficus benjamina "Standard Ficus"

This particular species is sold as a standard houseplant shape, but can also be shaped into a ficus bonsai tree. The large glossy green leaves give it a slightly untidy appearance as a bonsai, but allow it to grow in low light conditions unlike many other species.

Ficus nerifolia "Willow Leaf Ficus"

This small-leaf Ficus is a bit more finicky about conditions. It will happily live inside for six months at a time, but if you want it to grow faster, take it outside during hot and humid weather for a while like the Dwarf Jade. Leaf drop in Ficus is common when conditions change, so don’t be alarmed that a few turn color and drop off after you move it. Look for new growth reddish buds emerging from between leaves or on the branches or trunk.

Grewia occidentalis "Jasmine Star Flower"

This is another South Africa native that has a lovely pale pink flower that lasts only a day or two but the plant makes them profusely under the right conditions. You'll get more flowers and growth if you set it in a sunny spot near a window. 

Ideal Conditions and Best Practices to Maintain Indoor Bonsai Health

Anytime you’re growing bonsai plants in indoor environments and you start to see signs of stress, it’s a good idea to think about the growing conditions and change them up to ensure your tree receives proper care. Bonsai care is equally important for all plants, whether or not they are a tropical tree species. If you’re growing Ficus indoors and having problems, try placing the plant in a warmer location. If you’re growing Jasmine Star Flower and not getting flowers, try giving it more sun.

Natural Light: Ensure your tree has access to natural sunlight. Aim for 6-8 hours per day. Depending on your location the angle of the sun may change significantly through the year (and through each day, too.) Move your bonsai around weekly or monthly to make sure it’s getting enough light. If light is strongly from one direction, be sure to rotate the tree every couple weeks also. 

Water: Watch the soil and only water when it starts to dry out. Actually push a finger down into the soil to ensure it's not just drying on top, but below the surface as well. Watering from above flushes salts from the soil that can build up over time, and watering by soaking makes sure all the soil gets completely wet. Alternate the two methods for best results. 

Humidity: Indoor species tend to be tropical, and thus do well in humid environments. Don't keep your tree near a heating or air conditioning vent.   

Fertilizer: use nutrients like BioGold, DynaGro, Miracle Grow or a time release like Osamcote. These are all salt-based fertilizer that will not cause odors, and will give your plant lots of nutrients to keep growth going. 

Pests: Keep your eye out for anything that looks like a tiny insect - black bumps, green bumps, white flies, aphids and the like. Spray them or wipe them off and use a contact-spray insecticide (there are different kinds for different species.)

Dormancy: if you choose to keep a non-tropical plant inside for a while, it’ll usually do fine. But, make sure that you give it some cold dormancy. Junipers can be placed outdoors for winter where temperatures will not drop below 28 degrees Fahrenheit. Or you can keep them in your unheated garage or another space where it is cold (30-45 degrees Fahrenheit) but not freezing for a couple months in winter. Some plants go dormant based on temperature and others go dormant based on day-length; to be safe, provide both cold temps and short days for these plants at the same time - during winter.  

Advice on Keeping Juniper Bonsai Indoors

Many people struggle to grow Juniper bonsai (Juniperus procumbens ‘nana’) indoors because they missed the memo that this tree needs to be outside! It’s a temperate-climate plant, and grows best in full sun with lots of air movement. If you have a Juniper, either put it outside for a while (e.g., the entire summer) or get creative and see what conditions you can create to make them grow and thrive!

If you've recently been inspired to try bonsai, perhaps by an image on Pinterest or Instagram, a trip to the mountains, or visiting a bonsai exhibition, it's easy to get started as long as you take a few key points into account.  

Bonsai is the same word in Japanese and in English because there was no English word for the idea prior to its introduction from Japan to the rest of the world. Bonsai is a combination of two characters in Japanese, the first means tree, and the second means container, or tray.  

The term "tree" might also be expanded to include any species of tree or shrub that creates a woody structure (or even semi-woody like cactus or Othonna arbuscula.) Given this, and that bonsai are not a special species of plant, but instead a set of techniques used to control the shape of a plant, it may be daunting to figure out what species to use as a beginner.

It's a common misconception that all bonsai are grown indoors; the reality is that only a few tropical species are suitable for typical indoor environments, while most tree species will prefer to live outdoors, sometimes requiring protection from very cold and hot conditions due in part to the confining nature of a bonsai container.

Local outdoor conditions can play a large role in the suitability of species for beginners. You can look around your local environment and identify the types of trees that grow there. If you see a lot of deciduous trees (growing naturally) then you will likely have more success with deciduous, while if you see few trees, or have dry conditions you may have more success with conifers.

Best Outdoor Bonsai Trees for Beginners:

Juniperus chinensis / "Kishu"Juniper has all the characteristics that make it perfect for bonsai. There are a million varieties of Chinese juniper, with an incredibly variable range of foliage and growth characteristics. The "Kishu" tree grows slowly in cooler climates, and more quickly in hotter climates. Kishu is very similar to what growers in the U.S. call "Shimpaku" but it is slightly smaller, and has a blue cast to the needles under some conditions. Both varieties are suitable for bonsai, but "Kishu" is more adaptable to smaller size bonsai trees.  

Pinus thunbergii (aka Pinus thunbergiana) / Japanese Black Pine is one of the most common varieties used in Japan for high quality bonsai. These pines have all the qualities that make them suitable for bonsai, with beautiful dark green foliage, bark that ages, and the ability to create fine structure and branching. The tree is suitable for beginners, but requires more attention to timing that other species. It is sensitive to over-watering. 

Juniperus procumbens "nana" / Japanese Garden Juniper is the most common juniper bonsai, thanks to Mr. Miyagi's work in the original Karate Kid movie. It's suitable for beginners wanting to learn the basics. It's biggest drawback is that the foliage in many climates remains "juvenile" for its entire life, leading to a more coarse growth habit that is harder to work with if you advance past beginner-level interest, or want a tree that is smaller than 8" or so in height.

Zelkova serrata (aka Zelkova) /Japanese gray bark Elm is a vigorous member of the Elm family (Ulmaceae) that can form very fine branching and reacts well to bonsai techniques. The beautiful spring foliage, green summer canopy, and fall color contrast with the winter bare twigs for unmatched seasonal interest.

Ulmus parvifolia / Chinese Elm has a number of cultivars that are "corkbark" with different size leaves, such as "Hokkaido" (tiny leaves, like 1/8th of an inch) but the more common "corticosa" or corkbark variety is typically the most vigorous and suitable for beginners. The leaves can be reduced to less than 1/2" but can also reach 2" in size if the tree is left to grow wild. The tree creates fine branch structure, rugged bark, and typically yellow fall foliage; the winter silhouette can be stunning in contrast to the lush nature of the summer growth.

Best Indoor Bonsai Trees for Beginners:

Ficus nerifolia / Willow-leaf Ficus is a somewhat uncommon Ficus variety that is well suited to bonsai training due to it's vigorous growth and fine leaf and twig structure. The plant buds rapidly, and sometimes even produces tiny figs, even while confined to containers less than 1" in size. 

Portulacaria afra / Dwarf Jade is a succulent type plant that is very forgiving in terms of watering. It tolerates pruning, trimming and other bonsai work; just keep it away from freezing temperatures! The variegated variety of miniature jade are also perfect for beginners! The pretty little leaves and purple-red twigs are delightful in contrast with a green-white leaf. 

We offer a self-paced eCourse that guides you, step-by-step, to use a young Dwarf Jade to make your own bonsai tree. You'll learn how to trim, repot, and wire your Dwarf jade tree to make it into a bonsai. Check it out here!

Grewia occidentalis / Lavender Star Flower is a beautiful indoor species for bonsai. If you like flowers, this tree is going to make your day! The plant will flower almost continuously under the right conditions. It can be placed outdoors during warmer conditions for even more vigorous growth. The small bright green leaves contrast with the lovely flowers, and the tree will bud profusely when trimmed, allowing you to make almost any shape you desire! Under low light conditions the leaves increase in size slightly and flowering is less reliable, but southern or western windows may provide a suitable growing spot. 

Best Bonsai Trees for Beginner 2022 Update:

A large part of what makes Bonsaify so much fun is having the opportunity to work with an ever-expanding array of species! We've found that the following species are well suited for bonsai beginners.

Ulmus crassifolia / Cedar Elm are native to the southeast United States and are a wonderful outdoor tree for bonsai. They're vigorous growers and respond well to the same training that is used for Chinese elm. A heat-driven plant, these trees will do well in hot and humid summers, growing more slowly in cooler climates.

Cotoneaster microphyllus is a member of the rose family. We love this species for outdoor bonsai. They are typically covered in flowers in April - June (depending on local conditions), sporadically flowers later in the year, and is covered in red fruits through summer and fall. They are really fun to work with, especially for making mini-bonsai, or mame bonsai. The main image in this post is a cotoneaster mame bonsai in full bloom from May 2022.

Ilex vomitoria / Yaupon Holly is an American Native plant, common in the southeast, along the gulf coast and a bit north. The evergreen trees have small shiny leaves, and tiny white flowers. They can produce tiny berries under the right conditions.  An easy tree for bonsai beginners to care for, they like to be outdoors with lots of sun and will need regular trimming.

There is a whole school of thought in bonsai that less is more; that if you eliminate something from a tree you will end up with a result that is a better, more interesting bonsai. Basically, bonsai by subtraction. I generally advocate for a different approach. As you may be able to tell from the number and variety of trees I grow from seed and cutting, I tend to grow trees into bonsai, rather than chop them down. Both approaches are valid; to me, the chop-down approach seems to be an excuse to always be making large cuts followed by carving efforts to make a tree more compact and more powerful.

So when I make the decision to eliminate large branches from trees, it's only after I've carefully considered all of my options. This is particularly true for trees that are old or well established. There is what I like to call “the first-brancher”; a tree that has been cut back all the way to nothing but the first branch of the original composition. This frequently ends up producing a tree that is much simpler, but depending on the trunk movement, not necessarily more interesting.

This little pine had been sitting around my yard for a few months, one of a large batch of trees that I got all at the same time. In 2014 I offered it for sale to a few people, but nobody seemed interested. The tree’s problem was that while it had some good trunk movement and an interesting nebari, the branching was too long to be a nice little compact informal upright. Grafting back foliage onto the larger old branches may have solved the problem; that would have taken a couple years to accomplish. Growing out a sacrifice branch to increase the trunk size also could have changed the proportions enough to make the tree significantly higher quality, given at least 2 years and as many as 5 years, depending on the finished size.

Left: before. Right: Mid-wiring; a different tree appeared. I had bent the lower two branches down and inward to make the tree more compact and more interesting. That awkward low branch on the right didn’t quite agree with me even after I bent it.

As I sat wiring the tree and bending the branches, I realized that less might actually be more in the case of this bonsai. I had bent the low branch on the right from the side and twisted it to accentuate some movement that was already there and to get the foliage where I wanted it to be in the composition. But it just didn’t quite work.

The trunk section above the second branch was also not very interesting. And, the branching that made up the top portion of the tree was almost as large as the trunk itself. I sat looking at this for a while, then had the idea to make the space between the two lower and upper branches shorter by bending the upper section of the trunk. Unfortunately, a few tweaks with my fingers told me that not only would this not greatly improve the tree, but that it was going to be difficult to get the section of trunk to set into its new position. It seems that the tree had been weak for a while and black pines tend to make very stiff wood when they are unhealthy. 

After analyzing the low right branch and the top and finding them lacking I found myself staring at the second branch and the trunk line that lead to it. The tree seemed all of a sudden much better than it had before. I knew it would take at least 2-3 years to get the crown to look full, but there was no doubt in my mind that cutting off the branch and the top was the right decision. 

Top Left: Off comes the top! Bottom Left: Off comes the first branch! Right: The tree after reducing to just the second branch. The composition is much clearer, more compact and more interesting.

Left: Using the camera to visualize what the tree will look like when it is just the one branch. Right: After!

As in this case, if you can make a bonsai tree drastically better by eliminating something, then less IS more!

Each fall, I can hardly wait to get started working on my Japanese Black Pines. The long summer season of working on Juniper and Cypress finally winds down, and I can get to serious fall work on all types of conifers. While I probably have more Cypress work that I could be doing (they never stop growing!) I’ll gladly take some time to go through my black pine collection and focus on needle pulling, bud thinning, and wiring.

Each tree needs slightly different work, on the stage it's in. Many of the trees that I’m growing are need wiring touch-ups each year.

This first tree was dramatically reduced the year prior - and improved in the process - but it will take a few more years to really see where we’re going with this one (the sketch below is my long-term vision.)

After work. The central apical bud from the previous fall grew strongly and two small buds appeared at it’s base. I bent the upward growing shoot toward the back to allow the smaller buds to grow also.

Second, is a tree that is now 10 growing seasons old. The main work here is reduction of buds around the decandling sites, reduction of old needles and in this case I had to decide on a top once and for all. The prior year I left two candidates but I finally cut off the one that was larger and further to the right because it just didn’t seem like it would ever work as a compact top for the tree.

Finally, the little tree below is one of my better successes from my second batch of Japanese black pine. I have others coming along, but none quite as well as this one. While it may be good enough to show now in most club shows, I think another year or two of refinement and repotting into a smaller container will really polish this tree.

Before work.

After needle pulling, thinning, and a little wiring.

Among American native pine species, Ponderosa is perhaps the most popular species to collect and train as bonsai. I can think of numerous other species that seem more suitable to bonsai based on needle characteristics, but the relative ease of availability of good, collectible Ponderosa specimens make them more popular than other pines (e.g. Lodgepole, Western White, or Shore). 

Ponderosa can have a wonderful ruggedness to them, exhibiting bark as flaky or crusty as any tree. The sometimes twisting trunks and branching can be a wonderful starting point for a powerful bonsai composition.

The natural variability in needle characteristics in Ponderosa is such that you might assume that there are different species. In fact, there are numerous varieties and even variation within the recognized varieties. In hiking in the central Sierra Nevada I find trees with large, straight, and slightly yellow-green needles, while trees collected in Oregon and in the Rockies seem to have shorter and greener needles. In some cases the needles are much less straight and the trees look very unkempt in their natural state. Is it important for needles to be straight for bonsai purposes? The answer to that may be an opinion rather than a fact, but having straight needles certainly contributes more to a look of cleanliness and order.

The rate at which Ponderosa grow in containers is also something of a puzzle. These are trees that can reach 200 hundred feet high in the wild; you would expect them to be able to grow quickly. Yet, across all the specimens that I have had, even the strongest typically will only make branch extensions up to about 1″ per year while in a bonsai container. The mixed curse and blessing of this is that if you have all the branching you need at the time of collection you can, in a few years, create a tree that will be very low maintenance. The opposite is true of a tree where a large amount of foliage is needed to complete the composition – it will take many years for the tree to create this in a bonsai container.

Whether or not enough foliage is present on a collected tree and the specifics of the needle characteristics are not typically among the most important factors in selecting a good specimen in bonsai. Typically you should be more concerned with the shape and movement of the trunk. But, collected Ponderosa can have an enormously-long timeline before they become show-ready if you don’t think of a way to overcome these issues.

Grafting Japanese Black Pine (JBP) or Red Pine (JRP) onto Ponderosa is one solution to both the slow-growing foliage and the sometimes undesirable needle characteristics.

Since Ponderosa cannot be decandled like JBP or JRP to manage needle size, the foliage is more difficult to use as the scale of the composition gets smaller. Trees that are under 15-18″ as a finished bonsai will often be challenging to style with good detail. While grafting has its own challenges, it is certainly a good option for smaller Ponderosa trunks.

While not a traditional bonsai species, Blue Atlas Cedar seem to be good subjects for bonsai. They have short needles naturally; grow quickly under good conditions; and seem to respond well to bonsai work. I've never seen this species in Japan, and I’ve never had many of them, and those I've had generally come and go quickly from my yard. With one exception - the subject for this article has been with me since 2005.

 August 2023 update: check out this video!

Years ago, Jim Gremel of Deer Meadow Bonsai told me that when he began his growing operation, he screened many different species of trees in tests to see which would be better to work with. Atlas Cedars was one of the species that he concluded were very useful. When I visited his nursery, he was making good progress; he had hundreds of Atlas Cedars growing in his fields and many more in containers.

Rows of Blue Atlas Cedar, Green Atlas Cedar, and Black Pine at Deer Meadow Bonsai.

There are more good than bad aspects of cedars, but among the species' most problematic traits is that it lacks an ability to reliably back bud on old growth. When I acquired this tree there was no growth within 18″ of the trunk. There was a good base with some nice flare to it, and a trunk with some movement, but there was nothing to use to build a canopy.

The tree had been grown in the ground by a former member of the Bonsai Society of San Francisco. He had used the double colander technique that is most often applied to pine trees; when I got the tree I had to dismantle a mess of tangled roots and colanders before potting it into a large container to grow for a year.

After the tree was healthy, I had to figure out how to use the trunk. It was clear that my only option was to graft the tree. At the time, not knowing much about grafting I was a bit flummoxed about how to proceed. I formulated a plan to do approach grafts since they were a higher success rate and I had been told that cedar are difficult to graft due to the thick bark.

My plan was to grow out shoots from the existing top branch and to bend them around gradually to be in position for approach grafting. I think I may have been inspired by a thread grafting demonstration that was using trident maples as a subject. Unlike tridents, cedars in containers send out only about 6-12″ of growth per year in my experience. Thus it took more than two years of growing and waiting before I had enough growth to get the grafts in position.

As I look back at this plan I can’t help but wonder why my past self didn’t think to obtain a couple young blue Atlas cedars from a nursery and use them for grafting…thus saving myself two years of waiting. But, as with all things, I can’t go back and do it more efficiently, instead I can only take this as a lesson - the next time I want to try something I don't full understanding, I should make a plan with someone more experienced! 

I completed the grafts in the summer of 2008 and unfortunately I don't have photos of the process. I recall being nervous about the success chances and being nervous about damaging the trunk in the process. By early 2009 it appeared that the grafts were taking so I started the process of transitioning them to growing from the trunk.

March 2009, in the garden. While transitioning the grafts, bark is scraped off of one side and the wood slowly whittled away beneath the graft point.

April 2009, before work.

April 2009, after wiring. I wired the growth that would be the branching while the grafts were still transitioning. Cedars like to spring back up after wiring so I didn’t want to wait until the branch grafts took out of concern that they would already be difficult to bend.

In early 2010 I moved to SoCal. I found that cedars, like many of my other trees, didn’t grow as well in Thousand Oaks as they did in San Francisco. Thus, three years later, while the grafts had been completed and the tree was growing, it was not growing so well that I made much progress. In late 2012 I moved back to San Francisco. It didn’t take long for this tree to take off again. 

October 2013, after wiring additional branching.

With the climate on my side and the tree growing well, this tree made a lot of useful growth in a short period. Between 2012 and 2015 I had three good opportunities to refine the tree, each time with a full canopy of shoots to select from. All that I had to do was choose the right ones and wire them into place. I find that wiring the branching without smashing needles is quite challenging, even more so than wiring Japanese Black Pine branching.

May 2014, before work. The new shoots that the tree made were all looking healthy and ready to be either positioned or cut back.

May 2014 after wiring some branching and reducing the tree a little.

As you can see in the after photo from May 2014, I had the notion that I was going to create another layer of foliage above the existing one. The idea in my head was that the tree needed to be slightly taller so that the taper in the trunk would match proportionally with the height of the foliage mass. I had planned to allow the top branch to grow out and then create just about another inch or so in height.

May 2015, the tree was growing quite well for the third year in a row so I was able to harness the growth and refine the silhouette once again.

December 2015 – the canopy is as refined as it will be for this year.

Ultimately, it seemed that the top didn’t need to be any taller than it already was and that filling out the sides was enough to create the silhouette that I needed. Boon Manakitivipart and I had repotted the tree back in 2011 but left it in an over-size ceramic grow pot since at the time we had some health concerns. In December 2015 the branching was looking good and it was time to prep the tree for its first show the 2016 Bay Island Bonsai show. 

I had selected an older Japanese pot for the tree, one with a wide rim and flared sides because it suited the large nebari and relatively compact form. Once I settled on the container the challenge was to make the tree fit. The nebari of the tree was considerably larger than the trunk and it was very deep front to back. The tree barely fit into the container!

Repotting was challenging – the tree barely fit into the new container because of the large nebari.

The photo at the top of this article shows the tree potted up into the show container and the branching cleaned up. The 2016 BIB show featured trees under 18″ only. This tree at about 16″ stacked up nicely. Read "The Finer Points of Making a Bonsai Stand" to see the tree in the BIB show on the stand I built for it. 

2021 Update: Here's what this tree looks like today! You can see how the crown and branch pads have filled out.

  

Over the last few years I've been using my background in woodworking (a hobby starting from childhood) to make bonsai stands. At first, this was just a way to have good-looking bonsai stands at a reasonable cost; I figured that a bonsai stand couldn't be that difficult to recreate. More recently, this work has turned into a desire to create unique pieces in the tradition of both western and eastern woodworking.

Anyone who's ever thumbed through an issue of Fine Woodworking is familiar with the concept of a mortise and tenon joint, one of the foundations of woodworking in western traditions. The intricate and complex joints that have historically been used in Japanese and Chinese furniture are far less familiar to the casual woodworker. 

I used this Kokufu-ten show book as reference material. 

I normally start with creating the top of the stand. The size of the panel is largely determined by the size of the bonsai pot that you want to put on it. Traditionally, the feet of your pot should sit comfortable inside the rectangle created by the outside of the panel and inside of the frame.

The frame for the panel is four pieces of wood - just like a picture frame - mitered at the corners. For this stand I’m also using an integral through-tenon, which is a piece of wood that will neatly hold the joint together even absent any glue.

With the panel ready, and the frame pieces already cut to include a groove to fit the panel sides, I set up a table saw sled with a miter jig to cut the sides off the tenon and create the miter.

The mitered frame pieces, with integral tenons, ready for some fine-tuning and dry assembly.

The integral tenons slide into mortises in the front and back.

Looking at part of the assembled top, the end of the tenon is visible on the front of the stand. Pencil marks show how the side piece goes through the front piece.

With the top done I moved onto the leg assembly. The simple elegant look of a three-way miter belies the complexity of creating a system beneath the facade that will hold three pieces of wood together. Glue alone is not enough.

The top of the legs – they contain a miter on the outside, and two different mortise and tenon systems on the inside.

A view from the back as the joint comes together.

The traditional stand in front with a second stand, destined for a slightly different finish behind. The two are similar, but the leg joinery is different. They will be similar in size, but have different looks when finished. Both stands are simply fit together here, no glue except on the center joint of the panel. The joinery is such that the stands hold themselves together. Ultimately they’ll be glued together also.

After creating the joinery and fine-tuning the fit of the pieces it’s time to cut the legs to shape. I use a template to make sure each leg is the same. And another template for the aprons.

A view of the legs and side pieces after cutting them on the bandsaw.

With the pieces roughly shaped on the bandsaw, the look starts to become more obvious.

The next steps will be to do the final shaping in the legs and aprons, then glue them and add the finish. There’s more sawdust on the way.

When I was growing up my dad used a belt sander for everything. Need to smooth out some rough lumber? Belt sander. Need to round off the edges? Belt sander. Ten-year-old me thought the belt sander was the most versatile tool in the shop!

In my mid-20's, I learned that jointers and planers are used for smoothing rough lumber. And routers or block planes generally work for rounding edges. My desire to design my own bonsai stands for my show trees lead me to another woodworking epiphany - if you want to create something with more nuance, even a router will sometimes have some difficulty.

I discovered hand tools as a result of my attempt to recreate a bonsai stand I saw in a Kokufu album. I went to a woodworking store looking for a router bit to put a bead detail on the stand, and I realized that such a bit didn't seem to exist.

Putting Away the Power Tools

Ever since that epiphany, once I'm past the rough lumber stage of creating a stand, I largely switch to hand tools and hand work. I first square up the wood for creating the joinery, then band saw to rough shape to create the curves. After I'm done with the band saw, my garage (aka my woodworking shop) gets a lot quieter. While many woodworkers will turn to a spindle sander, random orbit sander, or a piece of sandpaper, I've developed a preference for the texture created by a sharp piece of steel slicing through the wood fibers. Sandpaper will tear a piece of wood, creating a dull finish. To get a smooth finish you can go through many different grits of sandpaper, each one eliminating the scratches left by the previous. Or you can use a spokeshave, block plane, chisel, or card scraper and knives to cut the wood instead. Cutting leaves a sheen on the wood and a type of irregularity in the surface that dances in incidental light, beckoning for attention.

To replicate the stand I saw in the Kokufu album, I had to learn more about hand tools. I discovered the concept of a moulding plane, which is the predecessor to a profiled router bit. Tool swap meets abound with piles of moulding planes with various profiles, each designed to cut a particular shape of moulding by hand. I learned that moulding planes are great for long runs of wood. For my stand, I was working with short runs, so I settled on a similar device – a custom profile scraper. While the plane cuts with a knife edge which is wedge-shaped and pointed, the scraper cuts with a small hook of steel that is just as sharp, but bent into a curl and so small that you can’t see it. Scraping the steel along the wood cuts a small layer off; repeating this a few dozen times allows you to cut a custom profile using only a small piece of scrap steel and a piece of wood to hold it and act as a fence.

Once I've roughed out the shaping of the legs, the horizontal support structure, and the apron, it's time to glue the pieces together. I find gluing stressful; I can't go back or undo it, and the working time on the glue is only about 20 minutes. I've learned from experience to tune up the fit of the joinery extensively prior to gluing. I add glue to all the mating surfaces and then I clamp them all together using a strap just like one used to tie something onto a pickup truck. The strap pulls the points of the joints together nicely, and bar clamps are generally too heavy for this type of delicate piece; they can cause the legs to rack out of alignment. 

Once the rough form is glued and left to cure for 24 hours, it’s time to do the final shaping. My goal is to cut the joinery precisely so I'll have minimal mis-alignment. I use a scraper or block plane to level out any joints that are not meeting perfectly. The rest of the shaping is aesthetic rather than functional.

For this stand design, the top will float above the bottom on pegs. While I suspected that these are typically made from wood, I preferred to use reclaimed copper wire. With a couple coats of finish on the wood I carefully mark the positions of the wire and drill out holes in the base and the top to match. There are two verticals on each front and one on each side.

Almost immediately after I started doing bonsai, I was introduced to show prep. My first teacher was preparing more than 15 trees for an annual show and put me to work adding moss to a saikei (planted landscape). Years later as a bonsai enthusiast, I was doing the same type of work to my own trees. My decisions on what trees to show and when are driven each year by the success and failure involved in growing my trees into top condition. When a tree really starts to look great I start to think about showing it. The road to that point can be long, somewhat like a marathon. In the final year leading to it being ready to show, the tree will typically take much more time and effort than it had previously.

Show prep starts with the decision to show a tree. From there, the focus is on styling the tree - wiring, fine branch setting, and trimming. If the styling comes out well - and the tree doesn't need to fill in again - then it’s getting close to ready. The next major hurdle is finding an appropriate container and getting the tree to fit into it. The last step is to "spit shine, shoe polish," and moss the tree - apply moss and clean up any remaining issues. Then get ready to enjoy the results of your hard work - it's quite an experience to see your tree on display in a show!

After repotting the tree, fill the pot with soil. When preparing to moss it a few weeks, remove enough of the top soil to make room for the moss. Adding a small amount of shredded sphagnum moss will help keep sand, mud, and debris from the moss from filtering into the bonsai soil below.

Applying the moss is a mixture of rote application and a bit of artistry. Fitting it between the roots can accentuate parts of the nebari while hiding other minor problems.

Starting trees from seed is one of our favorite things, and we want to encourage you to give it a try, too! We're not sure why so many of us in the U.S. believe that they cannot grow interesting cultivars of Japanese Maples from seed (maybe it's just a really successful covert marketing campaign from US landscapers?!) The truth is that you can pick seeds from a red-leaf Japanese Maple and sow them, and the result will be healthy seedlings that can have a wide variety of leaf characteristics?

Sadly, the common misconception about our ability to start maples from seed leads most of us who want to grow red-leaf Japanese maples to a garden center or specialty nursery, to buy a grafted tree. And unlike the wide variation in leaf characteristics you can achieve from sowing seeds, in most cases the grafted tree has predictable foliage characteristics, and is attached to root stock that is more robust than some seedlings (often a normal green-leaf variety of A. palmatum). The graft union is an undesirable characteristic for a bonsai and it will normally always be visible - an obvious sign of human intervention. Even with mature bark there is normally some difference in the color or other characteristics of the bark, making it challenging to create a flawless bonsai.

Examples of Japanese Maple Bonsai Grown from Seed 

We've found that when we sow seeds from Japanese maples, they will reproduce some approximation of the parent tree's characteristics. So, if you want a red-leaf maple bonsai and you sow 50 seeds from your favorite red-leaf Japanese maple, you'll end up with 25 with red leaves (the rest might be green or pink or something else!), and of those 25, ten might have a leaf characteristic that you like. 

The tree in the image above is obviously a rough-bark variety - the leaves are medium size and the nodes are longer than many cultivars used in bonsai. In this video Eric works on young Japanese maples. Each one has slightly different leaf character.

Seedlings germinated from the unnamed cultivar below were a mix of lace-leaf red, full-lead red, and a green similar to the parent tree with large green leaves and colorful twigs, seeds, and petioles.

How to Sow Japanese Maple Seeds to Grow Bonsai

Pick fresh seed in early fall; you can judge whether it is ripe by how easily you can remove it from the mother tree. Fresh maple seed can readily germinate quickly without any special treatment. If you instead allow the seed to dry, then you may have to provide stratification. The simplest technique is to sow the fresh seed in fall in a tray of soil, keep the tray in a cold but not freezing place until spring and then set it out in the sun. Protect the young seedlings from late-winter/early-spring cold snaps and then watch them grow! Using a greenhouse, starting them indoors, or otherwise protecting them is a good idea.

Don't be afraid to experiment with plant genetics - just be prepared for surprises when you do, and embrace the natural variations!

(Footnote - the main image at the top of the article is actually fall foliage on a trident maple, not an Acer palmatum.)

Inspired by some of the most amazing stories of Maples in Japan, I’ve tried my hand at developing more than a few deciduous trees from scratch over the last ten years. What do I have to show for it? Some success; some utter failure; and some modest progress. The value of the failures is possibly greater than the value of the successes, if only because they have taught me many of the mistakes to avoid in developing these kind of trees.

Starting about 7 years ago I have made some progress on a few of the trident maples in my original batch of seedlings. Meanwhile, I started a second batch of tridents last year; this time with the intention of growing many more of them to maturity than the first time around. The trees in the first batch are coming along, each at their own pace. Here’s one example:

June 2013, after a partial defoliation and wiring. The sacrifice branch has been established at the back.

January 2015, after one year planted in my yard. The trunk more than tripled in diameter.

March 2015 – as the buds are swelling and the tree is starting to grow I made a wedge cut to partially separate the sacrifice branch. This is a technique that I first saw in the yard of Mr. Ebihara. Read this Bonsai Tonight entry on Ebihara’s maples; there are a couple good images of some of the sacrifice removal techniques that he and Ooishi developed and used.

Late April 2015, I defoliated the finished branching and left the sacrifice to continue growing.

January 2016, Dug up and potted into a bonsai container. I cut the top of the sacrifice but did not remove the entire thing. The wood growth swelled right over the wedge that I had cut in the spring.

While this tree still has a long way to go to be a great bonsai, I’m optimistic that the compact node and branch structure I’ve been able to put at the core of the tree will serve it well in the next few years. The tree needs to grow a new sacrifice from above the original one to help smooth out the taper. My goal for the tree is to continue the trunk refinement while I simultaneously work on the branching.

The other element that needs to be addressed is the root base. For a trident the tree is nothing special. I potted it a bit high in the container with the thought that I may try a ground-layer to get a new start on small roots at the base.

The story of my second batch of seedlings fills in what happened with the tree above before the first photo I have in my archives from 2013. This is my second batch of trident seedlings:

In November 2014 I picked a couple hands full of trident seeds off a street tree near my house. After de-winging them I put them in a jar for soaking; I followed that with leaving them in the fridge over the winter.

February 2015, planted out in a flat they starting to sprout. The germination rate was good and I ended up with about 50 seedlings.

May 2015 – By the end of May they were already large enough to wire. I wanted to be able to put strong movement into most of these trees so I started with the outer seedlings in the flat and wired each one while it was still in place. The wire was removed about a month later, after the trunks set.

April 2016 – the seedlings are a bit over a year old and I’ve transplanted them into individual containers. The growth since last summers wiring has been twisted up a bit using a new batch of wire.

With these seedlings I’ve taken a lot of time to create movement in the trunks before they get too big to work with. It doesn’t take much wood in a trident to make it stiff enough that you can’t get any bend into it. I recommend using wire at every opportunity to add movement to future trunk sections and to adjust branching as needed.

Incremental progress is the magic of bonsai, because really there is no magic. It’s just a logical set of steps, each one executed at the right time, and with the intention of improving the tree or trees over a long period of time. Whether you start with a piece of nursery stock that needs cutback and branch development or a jar full of seeds, the process you use will be what makes your trees mature into great bonsai.

Tap water (also known as municipal water, water from faucet, or running water) is commonly used for drinking, cooking, and bathing. It's generally provided for and regulated by a governmental agency for the purpose of keeping people - not bonsai trees - healthy and safe.

Fortunately, many tap water sources are also safe for bonsai trees and other potted plants; using tap water for your bonsai makes the most sense unless you know there is a problem. 

Despite tasting like just water, tap water (and other water) typically contains many trace elements and compounds that contribute to its taste as well as the way that it interacts with people and plants. For plants, the trace amounts of elements like iron, manganese, sulfur, and calcium among others can be beneficial, providing nutrients that are not readily available in the soil or potting mix. It's when some of these minerals are present in higher concentrations that you may start to see problems with plant growth.

Symptoms of Water Quality Problems

If you have a few bonsai plants of different species you will notice that some grow better than others under certain conditions. Some species are more sensitive to the mineral content of the water than others. Deciduous species tend to be more sensitive than conifers, with Maples being a common bonsai subject that is very sensitive to water chemistry.

These symptoms are among many others that may be indicative of water problems:

• Stunted new growth, or new growth that starts normally but then withers and dies.
• Margin burn on deciduous trees, particularly maples.
• Chlorosis, or other nutrient deficiency symptoms; the presence of excess minerals can interfere with the plant absorbing other minerals.
• General weakness and susceptibility to disease and insect attacks.
• Buildup of white residue on the base of trees, or on the rims and sides of pots.

How to Research a Suspected Water Quality Problem

If you think you may have a water quality issue, there are a few simple steps that you can take to identify what the problem may be:

1. Talk to other local bonsai and plant growers that share the same water source and ask if they are having problems with growing certain species. Ask if they have identified problems with the water in the past and what solutions they use to get around the problems.

2. Use a TDS Meter to test the level of minerals in your water. TDS stands for total dissolved solids. TDS meters give you a reading that combines many different elements, such as Sodium, Calcium, and Potassium, etc. A general rule of thumb is that a TDS reading from 0-150ppm is usually fine for plants; 150-250ppm is not perfect, but most plants will still do fine; and 251 or higher ppm is an indication that many plants may struggle to grow in containers. Don't be fooled that lawns and trees in the ground are growing fine - the mineral content of the water has much less impact on roots growing in the ground than those growing in containers.

3. The US Federal government requires that municipalities publish an annual water quality report. The reports show the average and maximum contaminant levels of various elements and chemicals that can make people sick. Hidden within these reports are typically the details you need to determine if your tap water will make your plants happy, or less-than-happy. Use a search engine to look for "[YourCityName] Water Quality Report". In many cases these are PDF documents that you can find on the web. The report for Walla Walla, Washington in 2019 shows a TDS of around 50 - a good sign for people trying to grow carrots. Meanwhile, if you live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, you might shudder at the TDS reading of 280 and Sodium content of 31ppm!

Toxicity Threshold for A few Important Elements

Some plants can grow in salt water, but for us bonsai lovers, salty water is generally a bad thing. Here are some thresholds to avoid for growing tree species common for bonsai:

• Calcium, also reported as "hardness" in some cases, is an element that plants do need a lot of, but in excess it causes problems with absorption of other key nutrients. If you see white residue on your plants around the base or on the leaves, you may have excess calcium, which is commonly referred to as "Hard Water". Calcium does not typically cause toxicity; it instead causes magnesium deficiency in some plants when it is present in excess.
• Sodium concentrations in your water should be 10-15ppm maximum. The toxicity threshold for many plants is at 25ppm or higher, but build-up of this same mineral that you use to season food can be bad news for your bonsai. If your water contains 25ppm or higher, you should mitigate the problem quickly. 
• Boron is among the most problematic elements for plants - they need it in concentrations of 0.7-2.0ppm, below 0.7ppm many plants struggle to absorb the element for their metabolic needs, while above 2.0ppm Boron causes toxicity in many plants. If you have high Boron you'll need to lower it to get good plant growth.

About "Water Softeners"

In many locations in the southwest United States it is common to use a "Water Softener" in your home to treat water for hardness. The problem that people are avoiding is calcium spots on their dishes and glass shower doors. To do this, a water softener injects sodium into the water, which raises the overall salt content, but prevents the calcium from depositing onto surfaces.

Because sodium at high concentrations is deadly to most bonsai species, this can be the cause of many heartaches.

DO NOT WATER BONSAI with water that has been treated with a water softener! The sodium content will kill almost all bonsai species (although we happen to know that Dwarf jade, aka portulacaria afra, can survive it for quite a while!) Keep in mind that even outside irrigation water may be routed through a water softener depending on how it was installed in your house.

Treating Water to Mitigate Problems

While something like a Brita filter will lower the TDS of water, it is not a solution that will lead to robust plant growth. Brita filters are at example of systems that use activated carbon - which is basically charcoal - to absorb some minerals. However these filters remove some elements and compounds more than others, and since they are designed for people, they are not particularly useful for improving bad water for plants. "Whole House Filters" are like giant Brita's and do little more than improve the taste of water in most cases; and in the worst cast, they act like water softeners.

Reverse Osmosis ("RO") filtration is used throughout the world to create potable water from ocean water, and you can use it to purify water with high TDS readings for use with bonsai. Despite a relatively high up-front cost, RO is a good solution for bonsai growers in many cases. Systems are available for garden use that cost only $200 and will purify hundreds of gallons per day. The down side of most RO systems is that they use the municipal pressure to drive the purification, leaving you with a container full of water that you'll either have to move by hand or buy a pump to use.

Finding a different source of water is another solution; rainwater is the most commonly tapped solution. Rainwater is very low in TDS, and tends to be more acidic than tap water, both of which is good for plants. Combining rainwater with tap water can extend the rainwater while also avoiding nutrient deficiencies that using rainwater alone can cause.

If you have to treat your water, keep in mind that RO and rainwater and other solutions that remove nearly all the trace minerals from a water source require that you re-introduce a good mix of minerals. Use a baseline nutrient like Cal-Mag solutions or total nutrient solutions like Dyna-Gro.

We have a short video available, Water for Bonsai 101: Adjusting pH where we explain water chemistry and how it can impact your bonsai trees. Watch the video if you'd like to learn how you can adjust your water pH for optimal bonsai tree health.