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Bonsai Census

Posted on February 13, 2007
Filed Under River Notes | 4 Comments

I mentioned my bonsai trees the other day in passing. I am a very modest & casual bonsai cultivator, but I do get a lot of enjoyment out of my “plant pets,” as Carole calls them. In fact, some of my favorite trees would hardly be considered real bonsai the the most serious collectors. But I do keep them in small trays & I do occasionally use wire & other devices to make the limbs go where I want them to.

My most classic bonsai are a juniper I rescued from a nursery late in the season — it had lain on its side all summer & it branches were all pushed to one side & a lovely little Picea abies, also from a nursery, that has potential — it’s probably ten years old. I also have a black pine that isn’t really a bonsai yet, just a raw little seedling. Those are all cold weather trees & they spend the winter out on the enclosed porch where it goes below freezing at night, but not too far below. In winter, they go pretty dormant & I give them a soak every three weeks or so.

But the plants I am much more involved with on a daily basis & which form the basis of a very casual discipline are temperate & semi-tropical species. I have two lovely rosemary plants & a winter savory that are usually grown as culinary herbs, but which I have cultivated as bonsai. They have shaggy, tree-like bark & their limbs naturally take very tree-like forms. The whole idea is to create in a small container the look & feel of a large tree. I’ve had the rosemary trees for several years & they make beautiful woody tree-shaped miniature specimens, but the savory was an accident. I bought it for the garden, but it didn’t prosper. I was about to dig it up & toss it on the compost pile when I noticed that the scruffy base of the plant looked like a little tree. Apparently, it had spent the summer building an elaborate root system & not putting out much in the way of foliage. I cut the whole thing back, roots & shoots, & put it in a tiny four by two inch bonsai pot & set it on the windowsill above the kitchen sink, where it has prospered — it looks a bit like a wind-blown cyprus tree out in Monterey. I also have a couple of pomegranate trees & two lovely little figs of different species, as well as a small elm tree. I move them around in the winter from window to window & I have a lamp set up in my study to provide enough light to get them through the hard, cold times.

I like bonsai because they demand my attention. To keep them alive, I have to have a clear sense every day of what each one needs. Because they’re in small pots, the trees dry out quickly. I’ve got maybe a dozen trees & each one has particular needs for light & water. I don’t keep a notebook, just track each plant’s requirements in my head. In summer, most of the trees will go outside into the filtered light on the north side of the house, under the two eighty-foot white pines. Outdoors, I just hit them with the spray from the hose every day & clip back excessive new growth. Winter, though, requires my full attention.

Paul, in comments, asks for pictures. Here is one shot of a willow-leaf ficus. It is six or seven years old & about ten inches tall measuring from the bottom of the pot to the top-most leaves.

*Note:* Wikipedia has a fairly good description of bonsai cultivation.

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