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The ancient oriental art of bonsai (literally translated from Japanese as “growing in a pot”) allows you to easily get a tree of an unusual shape at home. And although you can work with any dwarf trees, conifers remain the most popular. A bonsai pine grown at home and properly formed will become a miniature copy of a tree grown in natural conditions. The rules for planting, caring for and forming bonsai are discussed in detail in this article.
Features of growing pine bonsai from seeds
Growing pine bonsai from seeds is quite a troublesome task. First, you need to collect good seed material (seeds). Secondly, properly prepare them for planting. And, thirdly, select containers for germination and for subsequent transplantation of seedlings to a permanent place.
To grow a pine tree from seeds, you will have to spend more time than from a seedling purchased or dug up in the forest. However, this allows you to begin the formation of the root system and crown in the early stages of tree growth, which is important for a bonsai pine.
To obtain seeds, take ripened cones of a coniferous plant and store them 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 seed from the current or previous year, since the seeds of some conifers do not remain viable for long.
Types of pine trees for bonsai
Almost every existing species of pine tree suitable for bonsai (and there are more than 100 of them) can be grown into a dwarf tree. However, experts in this art identify four most suitable types:
- Japanese black (Pinus Thunbergii) – the natural feature of this species is its slow growth, which makes it somewhat difficult to create a bonsai. The tree is undemanding to soil and thrives 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;
- Scots pine (Parviflora) is the most unpretentious type of conifer, ideal for the formation of bonsai, since it is very pliable and retains any shape well.
In our latitudes, Scots pine is ideal for growing bonsai, because it is adapted to local conditions and does not require special care.
How to plant a pine bonsai
You should select and plant a coniferous tree for bonsai in the fall. A seedling brought from the forest or purchased from a nursery must be planted in a flower pot and placed in natural conditions for a while - that is, placed outside or on the 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.
Preparing the planting container 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 placed on the bottom of the container, and coarse river sand is poured on top. In order to increase the survival rate of seedlings, it is recommended to calcinate gravel and sand. If you neglect this procedure, there is a high risk of death of most seedlings. And the more of them survive, the richer the choice of seedlings of interesting shape for the future bonsai.
At this stage it is also necessary to prepare fine sand with which the seeds will be filled. It needs to be calcined.
Seed preparation
Seeds obtained from opened cones should be stratified. To do this, they are kept for 2 - 3 months at low temperatures (0 - +4 °C) with 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 during the stratification process.
How to plant pine bonsai seeds
Seeds should be sown in late 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. To avoid mold, daily ventilation is necessary. Now all that remains is to wait.
How to grow pine bonsai from seeds
After sowing, approximately on the 10th – 14th day, the first shoots appear. After this, the glass should be removed and the containers with the crops should be placed in a sunny place. If the lighting is insufficient, the seedlings will stretch upward. This is unacceptable for the formation of bonsai, since the lower branches of such seedlings will be located 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, root picking should be done. To do this, the plants are carefully removed from the soil and, using a sharp knife, the roots are removed in the place where the trunk loses its green color. Using this procedure, the formation of a radial root is achieved, since pine has a tap-type root by nature.
- After picking, the cuttings are placed in a root former (kornevin, heteroauxin, succinic acid) for 14 - 16 hours. 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. The 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 place the already fairly well-formed root system in a horizontal plane: this is a prerequisite for growing a bonsai pine.
After the second transplant, the 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. All that remains is to monitor their growth and form them correctly.
Optimal growing conditions
Pine is not a houseplant, so in summer it is advisable to expose the bonsai tree to fresh air: in the garden or on the balcony. In this case, the area should be well-lit and not blown by winds. If there is a lack of sunlight, the tree grows needles that are too long, which is unacceptable for a 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 ensure a temperature of +5 -+10 °C and a humidity of 50%.
Caring for a pine bonsai at home involves regular watering, fertilizing and the formation of the root system and crown.
Watering and fertilizing
Watering should be done very sparingly, depending on weather conditions. Typically, pine bonsai are watered once a week in summer. In winter, watering is reduced to scanty to slow down plant growth.
They feed it simultaneously with mineral and organic fertilizers. From organic it can be compost or humus, and from mineral it can be nitrogen, phosphorus, potash. Feeding begins in early spring after cutting (3 - 4 times) and in the fall, after the rainy season (also 3 - 4 times), when the bonsai pine begins its dormant period.
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. The shoots grow most actively in the apical area. Shoots in the middle zone grow with average vigor. And the lower branches have very weak growth.
It is necessary to start forming a bonsai from a pine seedling, since it is impossible to bend the woody branches and trunk of a grown tree in the desired direction: they will break. Pruning of shoots is carried out in the fall - this helps 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 with wire.
It is better to do this in the fall, since in winter the pine tree is dormant. If this is done in the spring, when the pine tree is experiencing a growth spurt, by late summer the wire may grow into the branches and leave a noticeable scar. Although, sometimes, this is exactly what experts achieve, it all depends on the bonsai style.
Kidneys. In the spring, groups of buds grow on the shoots, and to give direction to the tree's growth, unnecessary ones are pinched out. Here you should remember about growth zones. It is necessary to leave the most developed buds on the lower shoots, and the least developed ones on the upper shoots.
Candles. The preserved buds are pulled into candles in the spring, the length of which also needs to be adjusted taking into account the growth zones. In the upper zone, pruning is carried out more harshly than in the lower zone. A bonsai pine tree may react negatively if all the candles are cut off at once, so this process should be spread out over 15 to 20 days.
Needles. Bonsai pine trees must have their needles plucked to ensure sunlight reaches all internal shoots. You can thin out the needles from the second half of summer until the arrival of autumn. In order for all tree branches to be greened evenly, it is necessary to pluck out the needles on the most pubescent shoots in the upper zone.Then the pine bonsai will direct the forces not wasted on the growth of needles to the lower branches.
Some species of pine trees have their needles trimmed to give the bonsai tree a decorative appearance. The plant is allowed to grow its needles to their fullest extent, 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 a bonsai pine at home requires replanting 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 strictly forbidden to completely shake off the old substrate from the roots, since it contains mushrooms that are beneficial to the health of the plant.
Reproduction
Bonsai pine can be propagated in two ways: grown from seeds or by cuttings. Propagation using seeds is less troublesome. The cones are collected in late autumn, and the seeds are sown in early spring.
Cuttings are not the most common propagation method, since the survival rate of cuttings is very low. The cuttings are cut in early spring from a mature tree, choosing one-year-old shoots that grow upward. In this case, it is necessary to cut with the mother fragment (heel).
Conclusion
A pine bonsai grown at home, with due attention and proper care, will delight its owner for many decades. It is important not to forget that growing bonsai is a continuous process of forming a decorative dwarf tree from an ordinary one. Timely pruning of the crown and roots, fertilizing and watering the pine tree, as well as creating favorable conditions during the summer and winter periods contribute to the speedy achievement of the goal.
