I love bonsai in general and cascading type bonsai is one of my favorites. I am only a learner and experiment with the materials available at hand. I have some succulents which have been grown in the cascade style and so I decided to try it. I don't generally wire my trees in training. Trim and shape is my way of styling bonsai trees.
Variegated Jade or Portulacaria afra alba is a favorite succulent in my garden. There are many lying around waiting to be set in some style.
A porcelain container I had earlier used for displaying succulents was lying unused, I decided that it was suitable for this kind of planting. I layered it with charcoal to enable better drainage and to stop slugs (we have a ton of those here) from getting into the container.
Some small rocks, the elephant bush and the vase was put to some good use finally. The tree I selected looked rather nice initially.
The trunk looked solid and the branches looked full and attractive. but a side branch that had been broken had to be cut cleanly, this would become a nice scar when it heals. Who knows maybe it would fade away too with time.
I started with an initial trim before I prepared the plant for potting. There were a few branches which had grown crisscross. They had to be taken out.
I had to wire the trunk to avoid breakage and damage to it while shaping it. As much as I hate wiring I did it hoping to get the structure right. The wiring done shows how bad I am at it. I also had only aluminum wire, copper wires would have worked better I know.
I did this before I removed the plant from the nursery pot in which it had been growing. This was to ensure that the roots remain safe while wiring.
I wired the plant using two wires, one from below the trunk to support and provide the shape to the trunk and the other in a spiral fashion to enable easy shaping of the trunk.
I removed the soil around the roots carefully to expose the roots without damaging them.
I washed the roots to have a better view and to do some root pruning.
Except for one root which was too thick (almost like the narrow part of the trunk) and had to be removed. The idea behind removing the thick root is to help the tree grow evenly (not lopsided growth) and allow for finer feeder roots to form. This also helps the bonsai to grow a healthy root system in a shallow/narrow container, whatever the case maybe.
The rest of the roots looked fine and and just needed a slight trim to fit into the container.
To the home-made succulent soil mix I added more charcoal and perlite for better root development, drainage and to avoid root rot.
That done I tried placing the plant in various positions to understand how it needs to be shaped.
The tree looked a bit flat in any position. I decided that raising it up would help show off the trunk better. This looked okay but more work needed to be done with the shaping of the trunk.
I gently bent the trunk to give it the right curvature (from a higher level) at the bottom first. This looked fine at first but I realized that there was more work to be done.
The branches that grew haphazardly and were out of proportion need some fine trimming, which I did.
I added some black rocks to contrast the white container and added a few rounded stones a couple of red crystal like rocks and smaller white gravel.
This was how the final setting looked. I took some photographs and later while I was looking at them in leisure I noticed that the trunk pointed straight down and looked ugly. It need some curvature to give it movement and a more natural look.
This morning I did a little more gentle bending of the trunk and here is the final look.
I hope you like what you see. I need to let it branch out more to make it more busy and healthy looking. This would be easy since the first level training has started, it is easy to make it conform to this style.
Thankfully portulacarias are rugged bushes and can take quite a bit of rough handling.
I need to fertilize the plant to encourage new growth, this can be done only after it settles down and adapts to its new home. With regular trimming every couple of months it should grow back gloriously healthy and shapely. I hope to share the images of the growth process with you in my posts later.
This is all for now.
Thank you for all your support. It is greatly appreciated.
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I look forward to seeing it once it fills out :) Is it a tree or a bush?
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Hehe, I will post about it's development in a month or two @wrestlingdesires
It's called an elephant bush, it grows to the size of a small tree in the wild. It's leaves are edible I've read.
It sounds fascinating :) How big will yours get?
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It will get as big as you will let it get. I like to keep my bonsai short.
The container usually decides the size for you , a small sized container kind of restricts the growth of your tree.
Letting it grow too big will cause the container to flop over and break so its important to keep the balance of the container and the tree right.
Maybe you could always choose a bigger container later to suit the size of your tree.
Thanks for the question @wrestlingdesires
Yeah, you usually have to transplant potted plants as they grow :)
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True, but bonsai don't grow as rapidly as other house plants so re-potting happens one in a couple of years or so.
Yhat sounds like a lot less work :) ...
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