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The ancient oriental art of bonsai (literally translated from Japanese as “growing in a pot”) allows you to easily get an unusual shape tree at home. And although you can work with any dwarf trees, conifers remain the most popular. A home-grown and well-formed bonsai pine will become a miniature copy of a tree grown in natural conditions. The rules for planting, caring for and shaping bonsai are discussed in detail in this article.
Features of growing pine bonsai from seeds
Growing pine bonsai from seeds is a rather troublesome business. First, you need to collect a good sowing material (seeds). Secondly, properly prepare them for landing. And, thirdly, to pick up containers for germination and for the subsequent transplantation of seedlings to a permanent place.
To grow a pine from seeds, you will have to spend more time than from a seedling bought or dug in the forest. However, this allows you to start the formation of the root system and crown in the early stages of tree growth, which is important for bonsai pine.
To obtain seeds, ripe cones of a coniferous plant are taken and stored in a warm, dry place until the scales disperse. Once this happens, it will be possible to extract the seeds. It is important to use the seed of the current or last year, since the seeds of some conifers do not remain viable for long.
Types of pine trees for bonsai
From almost every existing species of pine suitable for bonsai (and there are more than 100 of them), you can grow a bonsai tree. However, experts in this art distinguish four most suitable types:
- japanese black (Pinus Thunbergii) – a natural feature of this species is slow growth, which makes it somewhat difficult to create bonsai. The tree is undemanding to the soil, feels good in our climatic conditions;
- japanese white (Silvestris) – has a dense, spreading crown with white needles, allowing you to create different styles of bonsai.
- mountain pine (Mugo) – characterized by active growth, which makes it possible to form a bonsai tree with a bizarre trunk shape;
- Scotch pine (Parviflora) – the most unpretentious type of conifers, ideal for the formation of bonsai, because it is very malleable and retains any shape well.
In our latitudes, Scotch pine is the best fit for growing bonsai, because it is adapted to local conditions and does not require special care.
How to plant a pine bonsai
A coniferous tree for bonsai should be selected and planted in the fall. A seedling brought from the forest or bought in a nursery must be planted in a flower pot and placed in natural conditions for a while – that is, put out on the street or on a balcony. It is important that the tree is sheltered from drafts and wind, it is also recommended to cover the pot with a layer of mulch.
In order to grow pine from seeds, it is necessary to create favorable conditions for their germination.
Preparation of the planting tank and soil
The planting container for sowing seeds should be no more than 15 cm deep. A drainage layer (usually gravel) 2–3 cm high is laid on the bottom of the container, coarse-grained river sand is poured on top. In order to increase the survival rate of seedlings, gravel and sand are recommended to be calcined. If this procedure is neglected, there is a high risk of death of most seedlings. And the more of them survive, the richer the choice of an interesting seedling in shape for the future bonsai.
At this stage, it is also necessary to prepare fine sand, which will fill the seeds. It needs to be ignited.
Seed preparation
Seeds extracted from open cones should be stratified. To do this, they are kept for 2 – 3 months at low temperatures (0 – +4 ° C) at a humidity of 65 – 75%. I do this to prepare the embryo for development and facilitate germination, since the upper shell of the seeds softens in the process of stratification.
How to plant bonsai pine seeds
Seeds should be sown at the end of winter or early spring, as during this period they move from dormancy to active life. To sow seeds in a pot with coarse sand, it is necessary to make a furrow 2–3 cm deep. At a distance of 3–4 cm, pine seeds are placed in the furrow, covered with calcined fine sand and watered. The container is covered with glass. Daily ventilation is essential to prevent mold growth. Now it remains only to wait.
How to grow pine bonsai from seeds
After sowing, approximately on the 10th – 14th day, the first shoots appear. After that, the glass should be removed and the containers with crops should be placed in a sunny place. If the lighting is insufficient, the seedlings will strongly stretch upwards. For the formation of bonsai, this is unacceptable, since the lower branches of such seedlings will be too high.
How to grow bonsai from Scots pine seeds:
- A month after planting the seeds, when the seedlings reach a height of 5-7 cm, the root should be picked. To do this, the plants are carefully removed from the ground and with a sharp knife the roots are removed in the place where the trunk loses its green color. With this procedure, the formation of a radial root is achieved, since in pine it is naturally of the tap type.
- After picking, the cuttings are placed for 14-16 hours in a root former (root, heteroauxin, succinic acid). Then they are planted in separate pots in a special soil mixture prepared from one part of garden soil (or peat) and one part of river sand. Pots are placed in a shaded place for one and a half to two months, until the cuttings take root.
- After the cuttings have taken root, they are transplanted a second time into a permanent container, 15 cm deep. The soil mixture is taken the same as for planting the cuttings. At this stage, it is important to position the already fairly well-formed root system, in a horizontal plane: this is a prerequisite for growing bonsai pine.
After the second transplant, pots with seedlings are returned to a sunny place. At the age of 3-4 months, buds begin to appear on the trunk, at the level of the lower tier of needles. It remains to monitor their growth and form them correctly.
Optimal growing conditions
Pine is not a houseplant, therefore it is advisable to expose the bonsai tree to fresh air in the summer: in the garden or on the balcony. In this case, the site should be selected well-lit, not blown by the winds. With a lack of sunlight, the tree grows too long needles, which is unacceptable for bonsai pine.
In winter, it is important to create natural conditions for the growth of pine. For species from the subtropical zone, it is necessary to provide a temperature of +5 – +10 ° C and a humidity of 50%.
Bonsai pine care at home consists of regular watering, fertilizing and shaping the root system and crown.
Watering and top dressing
Watering should be very moderate, depending on weather conditions. Usually, bonsai pine trees are watered once a week in summer. In winter, watering is reduced to meager to slow down the growth of the plant.
Feed it in parallel with mineral and organic fertilizers. From organic it can be compost or humus, and from mineral – nitrogen, phosphorus, potash. Top dressing begins in early spring after shearing (3-4 times) and in autumn, after the rainy season (also 3-4 times), when the dormant period begins in bonsai pine.
Formation
The formation of pine bonsai has its own difficulties, since the period of active growth of the tree is observed once a year – in the second half of spring. In addition, pine has three growth zones, which vary greatly in annual growth. Shoots grow most actively in the apex zone. Shoots in the middle zone grow with an average growth force. And the lower branches have a very weak growth.
It is necessary to start forming a bonsai from a pine seedling, since it is impossible to bend the stiffened branches and the trunk of a grown tree in the right direction: they will break. Pruning of shoots is carried out in the fall – this allows you to minimize the loss of juice. However, if there is a need to remove an entire branch, this should be done in the spring so that the tree heals the wound over the summer.
Crown. In order to give the pine crown an interesting shape, its branches and trunk are wrapped around with wire.
It is better to do this in the fall, because in winter the pine is at rest. If this is done in the spring, when the pine is experiencing a growth spurt, by the end of summer the wire can grow into the branches and leave a noticeable scar. Although, sometimes, this is exactly what specialists achieve, it all depends on the style of bonsai.
Kidney. In the spring, groups of buds grow on the shoots, and to give direction to the growth of the tree, the unnecessary ones are pinched off. Here you should remember about growth zones. On the lower shoots, it is necessary to leave the most developed buds, on the upper – the least developed.
Candles. The preserved buds are pulled into candles in the spring, the length of which must also be adjusted taking into account the growth zones. In the upper zone, pruning is carried out more strictly than in the lower one. Pine bonsai can react negatively if all the candles are cut at once, so this process should be stretched for 15 to 20 days.
Needles. Pine bonsai need to pluck out the needles to ensure the penetration of sunlight to all internal shoots. You can thin out the needles from the second half of summer until the arrival of autumn. In order for all branches of the tree to be planted evenly, it is necessary to pluck out the needles on the most pubescent shoots in the upper zone. Then the bonsai pine will direct the forces not wasted on the growth of needles to the lower branches.
In some species of pine, the needles are trimmed to give the bonsai tree a decorative look. The plant is allowed to grow the needles to their full potential, and in August they are completely cut off. The plant, of course, will grow new ones, but they will be much shorter.
Transfer
Caring for pine bonsai at home requires repotting every two to three years. This is necessary in order to form a root system that matches the bonsai style. The first transplant of a young tree is carried out in the 5th year, in early spring, before the buds begin to swell. At the same time, it is absolutely impossible to completely shake off the old substrate from the roots, since it contains fungi that are beneficial to plant health.
Reproduction
Bonsai pine can be propagated in two ways: grown from seeds or by cuttings. Propagation by seeds is less troublesome. Cones are harvested in late autumn, and seeds are sown in early spring.
Cuttings are not the most common propagation method, since the survival rate of cuttings is very small. The stalk is cut in early spring from an adult tree, choosing one-year-old shoots growing upwards. In this case, it is necessary to cut off with the mother fragment (heel).
Conclusion
Bonsai pine grown at home, with due attention and proper care, will delight its owner for many decades. It is important not to forget that bonsai cultivation is a continuous process of forming an ornamental bonsai tree from an ordinary one. Timely pruning of the crown and roots, feeding and watering the pine, as well as creating favorable conditions in summer and winter, contribute to the speedy achievement of the goal.