Day: April 6, 2018

Learning to Live in a Pot

Bonsai Iterate

It might sound strange, but a tree needs to learn to live in a pot, and that takes some time. A year ago a large boxwood took the first step in the process (you can read about it here) and it was about as gentle a transition as there could be — you know, considering it just got cut from the ground, had many of its roots severed and most of its branches removed. After collection, this plant went back in the ground!

The image above is from last spring and shows where it spent the past year. I dug a hole in the clay soil of my yard, and planted the boxwood in it with sand. The hole was, in a sense, its first pot. Roots could grow past the borders of the hole if so inclined, but mostly grew into and through the loose particles of sand.

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A beginner’s first bonsai

The Blue Canopy

Bonsai, the ancient Japanese art of growing trees in pots, is indeed a difficult one to master. It requires the patience of a saint as the plant and the stem will take their own sweet time to grow to the right dimensions to be labelled a ‘tree’. The quest to make a bonsai is lined with failures and disappointments at every turn and requires unflinching perseverance throughout. Even the slightest disregard like failing to water a pot for a couple of days can spell doom for the plant. The training of a tree in a pot is time consuming process and the kind of dedication it demands, is rare to summon in contemporary times when attention spans are on the decrease and patience is on the decline. Nevertheless, the satisfaction of successfully raising and tendering a bonsai is unmatchable.

'Hmmm...it must be autumn.' ‘Hmmm…it must be autumn.’

A bonsai can be developed by basically…

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