Here at Bonsai Pictures we will try to answer this question, at least in part, the subject is so vast, a comprehensive study would require pages and pages.

A tree, what is it?
To bear the name, certain qualities are required. You must be a plant consisting of roots, trunk (s) and the branches. In addition, the plant must be either a dicotyledonous Angiosperms, one Gymnosperm.

But this does not prevent us from giving this name to those that we grow in pots. The growth of this plant is in height and diameter throughout its whole existence. Branches elongate, new branches are created and later converted into branches.

The growth takes place mainly in spring but also in summer. It is composed (from bottom to top) roots, a crown, a trunk and a crown or crowns.

The roots:

Most trees have a taproot more or less important. This is the first which is formed from the germination of the seed. It does not regrow if it is cut.

The roots have three functions: to anchor the tree in the soil, to gather water and food and to store nutrients.

Root growth is by elongation of roots within them. Moreover, they need to breathe. It is important that the soil contains air. The roots are covered with hairs that are designed to draw water and food in the soil.

- The collar:

This is the liaison between the roots and trunk. That is what we call the nébari.

- The trunk:

In hardwoods, it is composed of the following, from inside to outside:

Marrow: tissue a little soft in the center of the trunk. It is formed at the beginning of the growth of the tree and does not change. It has a different shape depending on the species.

The heartwood: composed of dead cells that eventually evolve. The rings mark the sapwood layers superimposed over the years. This is the support of the tree which is called also the perfect timber. The sap moves there.

The cambium: It is a thin layer between the bark and sapwood. Once this layer is supplied with sap prepared from liber, it is responsible for the manufacture of new wood.

Sapwood (or xylem) is a layer produced by the cambium. It is composed of cells more or less live to be transformed into heartwood. These cells carry the raw sap of roots to leaves. It consists of resistant fibers, arranged in the longitudinal direction, forming the backbone of vessels and allowing the flow of sap flow.

The phloem: the most internal part of the tree has canals leading the sap of leaves developed cambial cells. The rest is composed of largely deadcells .

The bark is a fabric that protects the tree from disease, insect injury, etc. As the growth of the tree continues, the bark stretches, bursts and dies. It usually takes 1 to 2 years before the phloem is renewed. Sapwood by its expansion, pushes everything outwards.

The main points to remember are: the heart (or hardwood), the sapwood, the cambium, the phloem and bark.

- Branches:

They have the same composition as the internal structure of the trunk. They decrease in size and diameter as one moves away from the trunk and up into the tree. There are main branches (scaffold), secondary, tertiary, etc. …..

- Leaves:

The leaves emerge in spring, they emerge from buds that were formed during the summer and / or the previous fall and in which they were protected for the winter.

They are composed:

On the blade, a petiole, ribs. They are of different shapes depending on the species (leaves, needles or scales).

And further, we find:

cuticle: protective varnish
epidermis higher protective and which ensures the rigidity of the leaf
Tile fabric: where the chlorophyll is.
Tissue: in which the water and gas circulates
lower epidermis: which ensures the rigidity of the leaf
stomata: where oxygen and carbon dioxide are collected/ expelled
veins: channels so that the sap can flow.
So how does it all work?

Like any living being, the tree needs to feed and it does so mainly through the leaves and roots.

Photosynthesis is a process which, through light, the cells of leaves manufacture the organic carbonaceous material from water and mineral carbon (CO2).  Known as chlorophyll, this substance in the leaves gives them their green color. The process of photosynthesis basically intercepts light energy, and then converts this energy into chemical energy.

It is the withdrawal by fall of this very dominant green pigment that allows the other colors to emerge.

The stomata are located under the leaf and absorb carbon dioxide and release air. The roots in on the other hand absorb both minerals and draw up water.

The basis of the nutrient used by the tree are Nitrogen (N), phosphoric acid (P) and potash (K) which are found in the soil.

All these elements are then transported into the tree to allow the manufacture of tissue and build up reserves.

Absorption of water in the soil occurs through evapotranspiration. In the sun, the leaves transpire. The water they contain evaporates, creating a depression in the channels carrying the sap, creating a suction in the roots.

It is therefore the sap flow, also known as sap upward, which is a solution of minerals absorbed by the roots and travels through the xylem (part of the sapwood)

The reproduction of trees

They reproduce differently depending on whether they belong to the family of angiosperms (hardwoods) and gymnosperms (conifers). The arrival at the age of reproduction is highly variable from one species to another.

Angiosperms:

They are commonly dioecious (male and female feet). Pollination is by insects. The pollinated flowers develop into fruits containing one or more seeds.

Gymnosperms:

They are usually monoecious (male and female flowers on the same foot). The eggs are simply protected by scales.

Pollination is primarily by wind. The maturation of these seeds is long, it can range from a few months to several years.

Cycles of the season

Having pushed all spring and summer, the tree will begin a process that will allow them to rest.

For hardwoods, in the shortening days, reduce the chlorophyll in the leaves due to lack of light to ensure its existence, it disappears gradually. Leaves take on colors that were previously masked by the strong presence of chlorophyll. The colors vary according to species, ranging from yellow to red, through shades of orange.
Some hardwoods retain their leaves throughout the year, such as boxwood, for example. The case of conifers is different because they do not lose their needles (or scales in some cases).

There are some genres that lose all their foliage in the fall: Larix, Pseudolarix, Glyptostrobus, Metasequoia and Taxodium. The resin circulates in their tissues to protect them from freezing.
The tree has accumulated reserves that it has stored in its roots until a new cycle can start again the following spring.

This article will try to explain the creation of a Serissa Foetida by cutting. This article may in a general way explain the process of reproduction by cuttings.

In this article I will show you how to produce a bonsai from a cutting. In this case we will see the cutting being taken from a Serissa. We are lucky here in this case as we have a particularly leafy tree-type. This should be done in late spring or early summer.

To start with cuttings are taken from the mother plant.
Here I have chosen my unsightly shoots that the Serissa made at the base of the trunk. But you can also take the cuttings on the branches.

I have used scissors but a well sharpened knife is also fine, preferably a scalpel as the cut needs to be as clean as possible. The cut should preferably be made obliquely or at an angle.

BonsaiPictures- drainage

Once cut, remove most of the leaves that are on your cutting. Before installing your cuttings in the pot, be sure to put a few stones at the bottom to facilitate drainage. Your new cutting will need water, but will also need to breathe. Thus, soil remaining wet too long will have the effect of drowning your plants.

Now fill your bosai pot with a good well draining saoil and prick a small hole with a small stick. At this stage i ussually dip my cutting in a rooting compound, something like clonex will do. Noow place it in the hole, taking care to properly pack the soil around it gently 

Always do more than one

I like to now  gently water them in using rain water and keep them in a warm place, not in direct sun as they will dry out too quickly. Monitor them closely for the next two weeks and after excercising a bit of patience your cuttings should take.

It’s a good idea to do a few at a time because not all of them may be successful, ussually there is around a 50% success rate. 

Just for added info, some people advise to mix the water with a fungicide, which in effect is to prevent the growth of fungi. I have not done this before so i cannot comment on how it works but it makes sense.

Be patient and they will grow

Indoors

Most house plants are subtropical in origin, so if you can keep those healthy then you should have no problem with subtropical bonsai.If you do keep subtropical bonsai, they will benefit tremendously from being introduced to the open air when the weather is warm enough.

There’s something about fresh air, natural filtered sunlight and gentle rain – the tree seems to know. The color will improve, the growth will become sturdier and it will look much happier in general appearance. If you don’t have a garden or balcony, even a windowsill will do, so long as the tree is not left in the blazing sun all day long, at least until it has acclimatized.

Tropical species may need a little more heat and especially humidity than you would find comfortable in your living room. The real tropical bonsai enthusiast will go to great expense to build a temperature and humidity controlled conservatory. Fortunately, there are few truly tropical species in commercial bonsai production.

Outdoors?

If you don’t want to clutter your home with bonsai, or if your a confirmed bonsai addict, your garden will soon be over-run by hardy bonsai. These will not tolerate indoor conditions at any time of the year. Hardy species can tolerate freezing of the soil in the pot for several days longer. Many of them absolutely must have a period of freezing in order for the to maintain their health – or even to survive.

They can be brought indoorsfor display for a few days, but must soon be returned to their natural habitat. If they are kept indoors for too long in summer their shoots will become very long and spindly, and will eventually collapse and die, if they are kept indoors for mare than a day or so in winter, their natural an necessary period of dormancy may be broken and all the primary buds lost. This can sometimes even be fatal!

The following rules of thumb are worth remembering.

• All conifers (pine, spruce, juniper, yew, cedar,larch, cypress) are fully hardy and cannot livc indoors.
• All broadleaved deciduous species (maple, beech, hornbeam, apple, apricot, cherry,) are fully hardy and cannot live indoors.
• Elms and zelkovas are often wrongly named in order to circumvent the important regulations. If you’re in any doubts about their identity, then if they’re japanese, they’re fully hardy, but if they’re not then then they’re more than likely sub-tropical.
• If you’re in really serious doubt, buy your bonsai in winter. If it’s on display in full growth in a green house, you can be certain it’s tropical or sub-tropical species. If it’s displayed outside it’s hardy – or dead! To check, scratch the bark with your fingernail, discreetly, on the underside of as branch. If you see green (cambium) it’s alive.

1 It allows light and air to reach the inner parts of the tree, enabling the weak inner shoots to grow more strongly, and stimulating dormant and new adventitious buds to grow. This is crucially important in the long term, because you will eventually need to remove larger areas of congested twigs and replace them with the new growth your pinching has stimulated.

2 It prevents the intern odes (the length of shoot between leaves) becoming too long.
Unless branches are hard-pruned (see page 26), they can only ramify (fork) at an internode. Long internodes mean coarse ramification, which results in a dumpy-looking tree with tufts of foliage at the ends of long branches – not a pleasant sight!

3 Pinching increases ramification. Removing the growing tip of a shoot cuts off the supply of hormones (auxins) produced in the tip.

Deciduous or broadleaved trees.

Each time you pinch the tip of a growing shoot on a deciduous tree, two or more smaller, finer shoots will sprout from axils of remaining leaves – and you have two shoots where there was only one. If you pinch twice in the season, then you will have four. At the end of the second year there will be 16, after three years 64, and so on.
Clearly, this process can’t continue for ever, otherwise the tree would become so dense that it would probably stifle itself if it didn’t take drastic action. This drastic action would consist of shedding branches and throwing out new growth from the base of the trunk.
The increased ramification produced by pinching must be balanced by thinning and rationalisation of the outer areas during maintenance pruning in late winter.

How to pinch deciduous or broadleaved trees.

If you’re still developing branches, wait until the shoots have three or four internodes and then pinch back to the first internode on opposite-leaved trees such as maples, or to the second internode on alternate-leaved trees, such as elms.
If your tree is already well established and has a pleasing shape, you need to be much more disciplined. Watch the buds as they open. The first leaf (or pair of leaves) emerges and at the base of the stem is the tiny bud that contains the next leaf or pair of leaves. The idea is to pluck out this bud as soon as it is big enough to be seen. This is where a pair of tweezers comes in handy.
You don’t have to pinch every shoot at one sitting because the buds don’t all open at once, but always work over the whole tree every time you pinch. Weak shoots, or those you want to develop further, should be allowed to grow longer and should retain more leaves after pinching.

Conifers.

Conifers react rather differently from broadleaved trees, even though the result is the same.
They don’t have buds at every leaf axil – there are so many needles or scales clothing the shoots that it would be ridiculous. Some lateral buds do exist on the shoots, but they are in predetermined locations. Moreover, each conifer species reacts in its own individual way to pinching.

Pines.

Pines are unique insofar as they rarely have preexisting lateral buds on shoots. They are also unique in that they are genetically programmed to have only one flush of growth a year. These two factors share a common cause. Pines are late to begin growth, their shoots take longerto mature, and their buds take a lot longer to become ready to sprout.
When you pinch a pine shoot – or candle as it is known – buds form around the point where the shoot is severed. This is great news, because it means you can shorten a shoot to precisely where you want it to fork. New buds will also appear on the previous year’s growth and, if you’re lucky and the tree is healthy, on even older wood.

How to pinch pines.

Pine buds don’t open in quite the same way as those on other trees. They extend into candles, with the tiny embryonic needles pressed flat to the stem, held in place by a papery sheath. As the candles continue to lengthen, they slowly mature, and the needles begin to pull away from the central shoot. Now is the time to start thinking about pinching.
If you need to induce buds on older growth, you should allow the candles to extend and the needles to peel away until they are standing at an angle of about 45 degrees from the shoot.
Then cut the entire shoot off, leaving just a half dozen or so needles at the base (you will need sharp shears for this). New buds will form on older growth during the autumn and winter, ready for next spring.
If you want to develop ramification, wait until the needles are just beginning to peel away and are standing at about 15 degrees from the shoot. Then pinch back to the point where you want the shoot to fork. New buds will form at the severed end of the shoot.
If your bonsai pine is already established and you want to retain and refme its form, you should attack earlier. The ideal time is just as the papery sheath begins to fall away – the shoots will still be short and soft, and the needles will only just be discernible. Then new buds will form at the severed end of the shoot and around its base. Some will also appear on older wood.

Pinching new growth.

Pines Wait until the developing ‘candles’ are long enough to handle, and break them by bending and twisting at the same time.

Junipers.

Junipers can have either needle or scale foliage, but whichever is the case, about one-third of the leaves will have tiny buds in their axils.
New shoot generation is usually prolific.
Junipers continue growing steadily from spring until well into autumn. If you keep a juniper in a cool greenhouse or conservatory during winter, it will grow all year round.

How to pinch junipers.

Pinching junipers is really easy in one respect. They have such short internodes that the preexisting buds, although few in number compared to the number of leaves, are very close together and itching to sprout.
In another respect junipers are hard work, because they are continuously growing and pinching becomes a weekly routine.
The technique, though, is simple. Just grasp a fan of shoots between thumb and fmger with one hand, and pull off the tips with the other.
Every so often you’ll need to use the point of your shears to cut out the plump, vigorous shoots from the centres of the foliage clusters, so that the younger, fresher shoots have space to grow.

Flat-needle conifers.

Yew, hemlock, larch, some cedars Like junipers, most flat-needle conifers have bUds at about one-third of the leafaxils. Many, though, are capable of generating adventitious bUds on older growth as well in axils that didn’t OGiginally have buds. At one end of the scale, larch almost never bud on old wood, whereas yew do this so prolifically that it can become a realmuisance.

How to pinch flat-needle conifers.

On developing trees, allow shoots to grow until they are almost as dark in colour as the old foliage, then cut back to roughly the point where you want a fork. There are bound to be some viable buds in the near vicinity of the severance point, even if you can’t see them.
On established trees, pinch back hard when the shoots are about 25-30 mm long. Leave three or four needles – no more. Within a few weeks, a new crop of fmer, neater shoots will sprout from all over the place.

Sharp-needle conifers.

Spruce, some cedars Species in this category have some pre-formed buds in leafaxils, but fewer than with flatneedle species. What buds do exist are widely spaced and sprout at right angles to the parent shoot, making for a very untidy foliage mass.
These trees need to be approached in a special way, using a cycle of removal and re-growth.
If you shorten a shoot to below the first lateral bud, so there are no more buds remaining on that shoot (which you will have to do to keep the tree in trim), no new buds will form and the shoot will abort during the following year. This isn’t so much of a problem as it might sound.
New buds will form at the base of the shoot and on older wood. The following spring, the aborted shoots are cut out completely and a new crop of shorter shoots emerges. These may be so short that they don’t need pinching.
When the buds at the tips of these shoots sprout during the third spring, then the cycle will be repeated.

How to pinch sharp-needle conifers.

Since the pinched shoots will abort next year, there’s nothing to be gained by leaving them so long that the tree looks untidy, regardless of whether your tree is established or still in the ramification process. The difference is in the timing.

- Pinching new growth

Spruce.
The shoots emerge like tiny green shaving brushes. As soon as they are big enough to handle, pull out the tips by hand, leaving about a third behind.

To increase ramification, allow the shoot to mature, then remove it completely. Masses of new buds will form at the shoot base and on old wood.
To refme and maintain, pinch out the shoots as soon as they are large enough to handle with tweezers. Leave just a rosette of needles about three layers thick – say, no more than a dozen. As you work over the tree, cut out aUlast year’s pinched shoots, which by now will be looking a little sad. Healthy trees may push out a second flush of growth later in the summer. These shoots will be beautifully small and fine, and will probably not need pinching.

There are three reasons for pruning a bonsai:

To encourage new vigorous shoots for developing into branches.

To reduce long branches to a more suitable length for further development.

To thin out congested areas on established bonsai.

We’ll look at each one in turn.

Pruning for new growth.

When developing deciduous bonsai from scratch, it’s quite common the cut all the branches off flush with the trunk and use some of the new shoots that arise as a result to begin branch development.
Later, when the shoots have themselves become thick and sturdy, further drastic pruning is done to generate secondary branching.
The timing of this type of pruning can have significant impact on its success. For a good crop of new adventitious buds to appear and grow away strongly, three conditions must be fulfilled. First, the tree must have plenty of energy-giving sugars in its system. Second, there must be chemical signals coming from the roots (cytokinins) to tell the area of cambium around the wound to get moving on new bud production. Both these conditions are fulfilled at almost any time during the growing season.
The third condition is that there must be sufficient growing time left for the new shoots to become established and harden off before winter.
The ideal time for developmental pruning is midsummer – around the middle of June in the UK. Within two or three weeks a crown of tightly packed buds will appear between the bark and the wood at the edge of the wound. More buds will also appear from random points all over the tree.

Many of the new shoots will spontaneously abort before they become established. This is nothing to worry about it’s just the tree deciding for itself which it would prefer to retain as new branches. You should allow it to do this, then further reduce the number of shoots in autumn.
If you prune out of season during winter or early spring – there will be fewer if any buds formed around the wound, and only a handful of new shoots growing from elsewhere.

Shortening branches.

The principle behind reduction pruning is similar to that of development pruning above, but the timing is usually less crucial.
More often than not, there will be some dormant buds, or at least visible internodes, at or near the point where you want to prune back to. If this is the case, you can prune either in midsummer or in late winter or very early spring, just as the buds at the tips of the twigs start to swell.
If there are no clearly visible buds or internodes, prune in midsummer following the procedure outlined above If you’re only pruning one or two branches, you must reduce the amount of foliage on the parts of the tree above the Wounds and turn the pruning cuts to face the sun. This prevents the tree from channelling all its energy towards the upper part of the tree at the expense of the pruned branches. Trees are essentially lazy, and will always take the easy way out if you let them.

Important – Needle conifers (e.g. pines) and scale conifers (junjpers, cypresses) will. never produce buds on branches that have no foliage elsewhere.
Pruning away all the foliage on a branch will kill that branch.

Maintenance pruning.

This should always be done in late winter or very early spring, some weeks before the buds are due to open. Maintenance pruning in summer will interfere with the tree’s system and cause adventitious shoots to emerge where you don’t want them.
Some pruned areas may collapse and die back. It’s essential to prune the whole tree rather than isolated areas, to retain the balance of vigour. Prune rather more aggressively toward the top of the tree than on the lower branches. This will further help with the overall balance.
When doing maintenance pruning, remember that you have to allow for the coming season’s growth.
The newly pruned tree should look a little thin – as if it had just had a military haircut! Areas that are very dense must be thinned by cutting away congested outer areas so that selected inner shoots can grow to replace them. After several years of careful maintenance pruning, the density of the entire tree will be uniform, and pruning will become an almost mechanical operation – but pleasant, nonetheless.

How to prune.

The first rule is always to use clean, sharp tools.
Dull, dirty tools will crush the tissues rather than cut them; the wound will not heal well and budding around it will be poor.
Garden secateurs are all right for rough pruning, but they always damage some of the remaining tissue and their design means that a close cut is impossible. Proper bonsai cutters (angled or concave) allow you to cut flush with the remaining wood and even create a slightly hollow wound. Hollow wounds heal flat, so there will be no unsightly lumps of scar tissue on your finished tree.
If you don’t have bonsai cutters, arm yourself with a sharp modelling knife for whittling the pruned stub until it is flush with the remaining wood, and slightly hollow. Take special care not to crush or tear the bark around the wound, because this will mean certain die-back.

Sealing the wound.

Because the wounds on bonsai should heal perfectly, leaving little or no evidence, fresh wounds should be sealed to keep disease pathogens and frost out, and to keep moisture in. By far the most effective sealant is Japanese bonsai cut paste. It has the consistency of modelling clay, its colour blends well with the bark, and it contains fungicide to help keep the wound healthy. Cut paste remains soft, so as the wound heals it is gradually pushed off by the callus, or it can be easily removed by hand.
A reasonable substitute can be made by mixing plasticene with a little cooking oil to stop it hardening in the open air. Never on any account use bitumen-based wound paint or any other sealant that dries hard – this will disfigure the tree for years, and any attempt to remove it by hand will cause very noticeable damage to the bark.

Have you checked out our gallery yet here at bonsai pictures?

To begin with, you can make do with ordinary household tools such as nail scissors, secateurs, modelling knife etc.
If you only have one or two trees, you can manage with improvised tools for as long as you like. But if you become a true bonsai hobbyist, you’ll want to build your own set of bonsai tools.
Where bonsai tools are concerned, buying the cheapest is certainly a false economy.
Bonsai tools are expensive at the best of times, so cheap ones are rarely very cheap and the poor quality will disappoint you. Look for brandmarked Japanese tools nothing fancy, just plain black.
Looked after properly, they’ll last a lifetime.

Wire.

You can try salvaging some copper wire from electrical or telephone cables, then annealing it by heating it to red hot and allowing it to cool slowly – and then you’ll need to wash off the soot. On the other hand, while you’re spending money on tools, you might as well pick up some wire at the same time.
Wire is used for shaping branches (see page 46), and for this ordinary garden wire – green-plastic-coated iron is far too rigid and is sure to damage the bark when you apply it. Traditionally, either annealed copper wire or brown anodised aluminium wire is used.
Copper hardens as it is bent, so it has greater holding power than aluminium – ideal for the springier branches of conifers. The gentler aluminium wire is kinder to the less supple branches of deciduous trees. Having said that, aluminium is usually cheaper and works as well as copper provided you use a thicker gauge.
There are nine gauges of aluminium wire, ranging from 1 mm to 6 mm. Copper wire gauges vary from supplier to supplier, but are roughly equivalent.
To begin with, you should buy small packs of the smaller sizes. When you’ve worked out which sizes you need more of, go for larger coils.

Other equipment.

When re-potting time arrives, you’ll need sieves to remove the dust and coarse particles from your soil ingredients. A set of three with mesh sizes of 2 mm, 3 mm and 4 mm will be plenty for most small and medium-size bonsai. Larger bonsai in larger pots need larger soil particles, so an additional sieve with a 6-mm mesh would be useful. A bonsai soil scoop makes life easier at this time as well.
You’ll also need a bonsai root hook and some chopsticks (or a Western substitute such as knitting needles) for teasing out the roots. Japanese bonsai root hooks are a little too brutal for most trees, and the tiny rakes with tweezers at the other end are only useful for weeding the pot. My favourite root hook is one that I made from a piece of 4-mm steel m and an old chisel handle over 20 years ago.
A turntable is invaluable for trimming, wiring or just contemplating your bonsai. Then are several all-singing, all-dancing Japanese bonsai turntable:
available but they are very expensive. An old cake decorator’s turntable or a plastic TV turntable will do just as well.
There are many more useful little gadgets you can pick up along the way, but those discussed here are the ones that, if not essential, are hard to do without.

First, there is no such thing as an indoor tree! All trees are designed to live outside in the fresh air where they receive sun, wind and rain. Having said that, modern homes can provide suitable conditions for some subtropical and tropical species. This is just as well, since people are increasingly living in cities, where they have little or no outside space. See some pictures in our gallery here at bonsai pictures.

Indoors

Most houseplants are subtropical in origin, so if you can keep those healthy, you should have no problem with subtropical bonsai. But if you do keep subtropical bonsai, they will benefit tremendously from being introduced to the open air when the weather is warm enough. There’s something about fresh air, natural filtered sunlight and gentle rain the tree seems to know. The colour will improve, the growth will become sturdier, and it will look much happier in general appearance. If you don’t have a garden or balcony, even a windowsill will do, so long as the tree isn’t left in the blazing sun all day until it has fully acclimatised.
Tropical species may need a little more heat, and especially humidity, than you would find comfortable in your living room. The real tropical bonsai enthusiast will go to great expense to build a temperature and humidity-controlled conservatory. Fortunately, there are few truly tropical species in commercial bonsai production.

Outdoors

If you don’t want to clutter your home with bonsai, or if you’re a confirmed bonsai addict, your garden will soon be overrun with hardy bonsai. These will not tolerate indoor conditions at any time of year.
Hardy species can tolerate freezing of the soil in the pot for several days or longer.
Many of them absolutely must have a period of freezing in order to remain healthy – or even to survive.

They can be brought indoors for display for a few days, but must soon be returned to their natural habitat. If they’re kept inside for too long in summer, the shoots will become very long and spindly, and will eventually collapse and die. If they’re kept indoors for more than a day or so in winter, their natural and necessary period of dormancy may be broken and all the primary buds will be lost. This can sometimes even be fatal!

The following rules of thumb are worth remembering:

-All conifers (pine, spruce, juniper, yew, cedar, larch, cypress) are fully hardy and cannot live indoors.

- All broadleaved deciduous species (maple, beech, hornbeam, apple, apricot, cherry) are fully hardy and cannot live indoors.

- Elms and zelkovas are often wrongly named in order to circumvent the import regulations. If you’re in any doubt about their identity, then if they’re Japanese they’re fully hardy, but if they’re not Japanese they’re more than likely subtropical.

- If you’re in really serious doubt, buy your bonsai in winter. If it’s on display in full growth in a greenhouse you can be certain it’s a subtropical or tropical species. If it’s displayed outside, it’s hardy – or dead!
To check, scratch the bark with your fingernail, discreetly, on the underside of a branch. If you see green (the cambium), it’s alive.

In simple terms, a bonsai is just a tree in a pot which is more or less literally what the Japanese word bonsai means. But literal translations seldom get the whole message across. Try, for example, translating egg-timer into Japanese and they will find this hilarious: ‘Time an egg! Doing what?’ The wealth of cultural symbolism that surrounds the image of such a simple everyday tool is lost.

To be more specific, a bonsai is a miniature representation of a full-grown tree – real or imaginary – cultivated in an aesthetically compatible container.

Any species of tree has the potential to be cultivated as a bonsai ( go to our gallery here at bonsai pictures to see lots of examples ), although some are better than others. A common misconception is that dwarf varieties make the best bonsai, whereas this is not often the case. Genetically dwarfed plants are weak growers and more susceptible to disease. Trees with naturally large or compound leaves, like chestnut and ash, are also difficult. Their foliage will reduce after many years in bonsai cultivation, but never enough to match the scale of the tree. Trees such as beech, hawthorn, pine, larch and elm make fine bonsai, as do many garden shrubs, such as Chinese juniper, azalea, quince, cotoneaster and more.

Another misconception is that bonsai are kept small by the application of some magic potion, or by withholding nutrients. Some people compare growing a tree in a pot to the long abandoned practice of binding Chinese women’s feet to keep them small. Nothing could be further from the truth. Bonsai are probably among the best cared-for plants in cultivation. If bonsai weren’t maintained in excellent health, they would never reach the staggering age that they do, even outliving their full-size counterparts.

Buying bonsai

Developing your own bonsai takes time and a great deal of discipline: daily watering in summer, regular feeding and trimming, annual re-potting, wire-training and, of course, unwiring. Understandably, most people prefer to get a head start by buying their first bonsai or two, so they have something to appreciate and for learning the techniques on – and why not?

Always remember that you’re buying a living thing. What’s more, it has been developed in another climate and shipped halfway round the world in a dark container before reaching the store or nursery. Any plant would need a period of recovery after such an ordeal, but not all bonsai get this – or at least to a sufficient extent. As with most things, you get what you pay for.

If you buy a cheap bonsai from a market stall or supermarket, you shouldn’t be too surprised if it is dead within a couple of weeks. You might assume that you’re no good with bonsai, or that bonsai simply die on you but it wouldn’t be your fault.

The best places to buy bonsai are specialist nurseries, whose livelihoods depend on good products and service. If there isn’t one near you, look for a reputable garden centre where the staff will be knowledgeable about plants in general, and will have properly cared for the stock in their possession.

What to buy

There are three major criteria to consider when buying bonsai. First you must like the way it looks. Whether or not its appearance takes your fancy is an entirely personal matter, but as you become more discerning, your tastes will tend towards a more tree-like appearance than some commercial bonsai.

The other two criteria are more scientific. The second major factor is the matter of the plant’s health. The health of any plant can usually be detected in the foliage. Lush, green, blemish-free leaves usually indicate a healthy tree.

Yellowing leaves, old as well as new, indicate over-watering or a nutrient deficiency. Brown foliage is dead – and if that part of a tree is dead, the rest might soon follow. Gently test the trunk to see if the tree is stable in the pot. If it wobbles easily, the root system is poor and the tree will therefore be weak.

The third consideration is where you intend to keep the tree – indoors or outdoors?