History of Bonsai

      

Originally a practice of containerising ancient wild trees in China, Bonsai was exported to Japan around 500 years ago where it has become an art form. Regarded as a novelty in the West until the early 20th century, Bonsai has know been embraced as a serious horticultural art form by the Gardening Establishment here in Britain and the West as a whole. Gold Medals are regularly awarded to Bonsai exhibits at Chelsea and Tatton Park flower shows and a number of Bonsai auctions have now been held at prominent auction houses such as Sotheby's' in London.

The word bonsai comes from the Chinese words pun sai, meaning quite literally 'tree in a pot'.

The 'tree' can be a vine, a shrub or a tree. A common misconception for beginners is that the plants used for bonsai are 'dwarf' plants or even 'special bonsai plants'. Quite simply, bonsai are everyday shrubs, trees and vines. For this reason, they go through their normal seasonal phases, flowering, fruiting and shedding leaves.

Bonsai cultivation and propagation basics

A Bonsai tree is not a specific kind of tree, instead, it is a combination of techniques to create and maintain a miniature tree that reflects nature. This means that any kind of tree can be selected to grow as a Bonsai tree; some species however are particularly suitable (as they naturally have small leaves for example). There are several methods of cultivating trees intended to be trained into a Bonsai

• Buying a Bonsai tree. The easiest way to acquire a Bonsai tree is simply to buy one. Most garden centers and a growing number of online Bonsai shops offer trees at affordable prices. Be careful to select a tree that fits your wishes well, i.e. in selecting an indoor or outdoor variety

• Bonsai cultivation using seeds or cuttings. Although cultivating Bonsai trees from seed or from cuttings will take a considerable amount of patience, it can be very rewarding. Seeds are widely available in forests and parks during autumn, but can also be bought online. Cuttings can be collected year-round, preferably in summer. 

• Collecting trees from nature. Another way of acquiring trees suitable for Bonsai purposes is collecting trees growing in forests or parks. Please note that permission in most cases is required. Collecting trees has several advantages over the cultivation techniques described above, most noteworthy the reduced time it takes before you can get started to shape the tree. Similar to collecting trees is buying nursery stock in a garden center. 

• Advanced Bonsai propagation techniques. Two advanced techniques remain; layering and grafting. The principal of layering is to force a tree or branch to form new roots at a certain point by interrupting the stream of nutrients from the existing root system. The grafting technique can be described as “melding” a stump (the root system and a small portion of the trunk) and a graft (the upper portion of the trunk, including branches) together.