Beginners Bonsai Work

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We hold regular bonsai tree workshops at the nursery. I thought it might be nice to show you some of the activities we get up to. This workshop was a one to one workshop, booked as a birthday treat for John!

John is quite new into his bonsai journey, owning his first tree and with little practical experience of what is what bonsai growers do. We covered a range of activities including watering, feeding, pruning, wiring and repotting. We used a range of trees such as Acer, Elm, Juniper, Wisteria and Yew.

I filmed bits of this over the course of the day. We had customers coming and going during the day and I always find it fun to get them involved in what we're doing.

Some of the topics in the the video are:

Pruning a Privet bonsai. In this part we performed hard-pruning, also direction pruning. The tree is an established bonsai in a semi-cascade style and in a crescent-shaped bonsai pot.

After this, conversation turned to defoliation techniques. We used the Privet again for this and then moved onto Japanese Maples. We talked about total defoliation and selective defoliation.

We then show another, larger Acer and discuss the individual characteristics of tree, in this case leaf size.

Next, we have a look at one of the first trees that I grew and end up talking about how I got into growing bonsai trees. We have a look at the roots of this tree and think about how a problem with the Nebari can be fixed over time.

Then we move on to an Azalea. This is a tree that we are in the process of bringing back to good health. We're removing flowers and flower buds to enable the tree to focus on growing foliage.

Wisteria comes next. We're leaf cutting the Wisteria, which for us, is an experimental technique. Tried it last year, seemed to go ok, so having another go now that its finished flowering. It flowered early as its been in the greenhouse.

Moving on from pruning, we looking at a part-trained Juniper. We take it out of the plastic plant pot and get it into a ceramic bonsai pot.

Lastly, we do some work on a part-trained Yew bonsai tree. Wiring and pruning mainly. A little jinning of the branches.

The video was filmed in April 2022 at our bonsai nursery in Sheffield, Yorkshire, UK.

00:00 Introduction to the workshop.
00:45 Pruning a Privet bonsai tree. A mature, semi-cascade bonsai.
02:59 Bonsai defoliation techniques dicussion.
07:10 How I got into growing bonsai trees. A problem Nebari and how to correct it.
10:17 Azalea bonsai pruning. Flower removal for tree health and regeneration.
11:12 Wisteria bonsai pruning using a leaf cutting technique.
12:06 Work on a part-trained Juniper bonsai tree.
15:14 Styling a part-trained Yew bonsai tree.