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How to grow maple tree bonsai from seeds
It takes about 6 years of painstaking work to grow maple bonsai. But as a result, the house will be decorated with a miniature copy of a real maple. You can create a tree with an unusual shape with different colors of the leaves.
Maple varieties for bonsai
A dwarf copy of a maple behaves exactly like its giant counterpart. It grows, drops foliage, goes to winter rest. Growing a miniature maple from seeds is a long, but creative path, because you can form a tree from a pliable seedling according to your plan.
Maple bonsai are grown and shaped to make dreams come true
Maples grow in different parts of the world, and a bonsai tree can be grown from the seeds of an adult maple tree everywhere. For a miniature copy, the following types of maple are suitable:
- palm-shaped;
- field;
- ash-leaved;
- sycamore;
- rocky.
Particularly beautiful are dwarf maples of the palmate breed, which have graceful carved leaves. From spring to autumn, they retain bright shades of foliage of yellow, purple, green-red. Ash-leaved maple also attracts with variegated and silvery foliage, it is easy to form.
Growing bonsai maple from seeds
Seeds for planting are harvested in the fall after ripening and soaked for 2 days in water. Only those that have drowned are left for landing. To get seedlings from them, you need to create “winter” conditions. To do this, they are placed in a container with wet sphagnum moss or sand. For the seeds to breathe, the container must be perforated. Vermiculite can be added to sand or moss strictly according to the instructions – this will prevent the appearance of fungus.
All are closed with a lid and placed on the lower shelf of the refrigerator for 3-4 months. Here the seeds will open and sprouts will hatch. Moisture should be checked every 10 to 20 days.
The seeds should not be allowed to dry out, but if there is an excess of condensate, it must be removed
The opened seeds are planted in a container with drainage holes. It is filled with calcined soil of sand, alumina and humus in a 1: 1: 1 ratio. It is dripped in shallowly, watered, covered with glass or polyethylene, put in a bright place. After the emergence of shoots, the greenhouse is removed, but the shoots are not kept in direct sunlight. When 4-5 leaves appear, young maples are planted in separate pots.
Pruning and pinching the crown is mandatory for bonsai, without this it is impossible to slow down the growth of maple. In summer or autumn, the branches are shortened by 3-4 leaves if there are already 5 pairs of leaves. To replace large leaves with small ones, they are pinched off, leaving only the root. In the summer, defoliation is performed – growth buds are removed. As a result:
- the growth of the tree will slow down;
- the crown will become thicker;
- the length of the shoots will decrease.
The roots are cut off and a miniature tree is replanted every 2-3 years. In this case, the soil is completely replaced with a new one, preferably aerated with a weakly acidic or neutral reaction.
Plants are fed in early spring and early summer with fertilizers with iron. In the spring during the growing season, maple is intensively watered, by autumn, watering is reduced.
Growing bonsai will make you a hardworking gardener who knows how to see and create the unusual from the ordinary.