Grow Your Own Bonsai Tree

Hi and welcome back to blue sky bonsai, i’m dave and in this video i’m going to convert this wild olive cutting, which is one year old, into a beautiful bonsai in a matter of minutes, enjoy the video. This wild olive cutting actually comes from this tree and i took the cutting about a year ago, just a little less than a year ago and in another video, perhaps in a week or two. I shall do a summer pruning of this and maybe do a bit more guy wiring on it.

So look out for that video. In the meantime, what i need to do is just decide exactly what to cut off this, so this cutting in some ways. It’S just like a twig, that’s overgrown, but it’s got some nice interesting features and i think it could make the start of a leaning, style bonsai.

If we see the direction of the main trunk, then the crown of the bonsai really needs to be pointing up in that same direction. What you don’t want is a leaning style and then curves back again and the crown being here [ Music ].

We want this to look like a natural style, so here what i’ve got is a main trunk and then here maybe this would be the new leader and i’ll cut it shorter and everything else is either surplus and can come off or future branches.

So here’s my first branch, we’ll let that grow, it’ll fatten up the lower trunk more. This upper branch here you can see – is too thick for that part of the tree for the higher part of the tree. It’S actually as thick as the main trunk there.

It’S kind of served its purpose, i’m just going to chop that one off, so that’s pretty much it. If this is my trunk leader, this branch up here is surplus, so i’ll cut this one right down quite low and just make it a side branch now.

This is actually going to be a gift to somebody, and personally, i think it’s a really nice gift, because it’s part of my own collection, it’s a daughter tree from one of my favorite trees and i’ve put my own little piece of effort into growing it and Now, turning it into a bonsai, if you’re going to gift somebody a bonsai as a some kind of gift or present, it’s always a really good idea to have a chat with them.

First about it, because some people are not really into the idea. Some people don’t want the commitment of having to water it. Another thing i’m going to consider right now is the pot that i’m going to put this in now.

I’Ve said before on another video that these blue commercial parts, i think, are actually really nice and they’re sold commercially. For a reason, they look good on almost any small tree, so i think they’re quite a nice idea to to plant and also they hold for the size of the tree, quite a lot of soil and therefore it gives at least a year and probably more of Growing time before it would need to be repotted and again, i think that’s really good for a gift, i’m choosing between these two and as bonsai pots, they’re, both really quite nice, for how small they are.

I’M erring on the side of this one because they both have about the same volume of soil that they can keep in them. But this one has this line along here and it kind of dissimulates how thin the trunk of our bonsai is so having that line along kind of matches, the thin trunk.

I think so. I’Ve made my decision. I’M going to use this. This part today put that one away for another day, already just put a little bit of mesh in the bottom already put a wire, so i can loosely tie the bonsai in got my soil ready right now, we’re in late summer, lovely weather still probably got another Month or two of sun, but i don’t think it’s a good idea to do root pruning now at this late time in the year.

So i’m going to keep the roots pretty much unaffected as much as i can anyway, and that will give the tree the best chance of recovering nicely from this branch pruning before the end of this year. Let’S get my tools and we’ll get started i’ll make it clear.

This is not a race. The purpose is to enjoy what you’re doing, but there’s actually not that much to do here. So the clock starts now: [, Music, ], so [, Music ]. So the very top just clipping down to two leaves only as always: [ Music ] there we have it now.

Obviously i need to take it out of this pot, which we’ll do here. It was in a mix of cat litter and organic soil and it’s rooted very well [, Music ], i won’t say it’s pop bound, but it’s certainly put roots all the way around the edge of the pot.

So that’s good. It’S very healthy. Let’S have a look here: [, Music ], i’m just teasing away the old soil from the bottom. Just doing it with my fingers. I don’t think there’s any need to use any tools.

For this part, it’s always the advantage of using good granular bonsai soil, because it just comes away very easily, even in your hands. There’S some couple of side roots coming out here: i’m going to leave them on maybe just get rid of the top one only give it the best opportunity for a very nice nabari here, i’m just going to trim that highest root off.

Normally, i wouldn’t do root pruning at this time of year, [ Music ], but these are high roots, they’re adventitious roots, so they come out in a place. You don’t want them right, a long way above your navari.

So, let’s just get rid of that here and there we are a wonderful future bonsai with. Actually, i would say, pretty good roots here, then that branch is too long. So i’m going to cut there, we go now get the soil out of the way, the old soil and get the pot here.

So, look, it’s a good fit needs a little bit more soil in the bottom, piling the soil into a little mountain here, just banging it right on top and i’m going to actually pressure it down a little bit into the soil.

The first way of making sure that all the roots get a little bit of soil in between the roots and make sure i’ve got the front sorted out, okay, which i think i do [ Music ] right. I think i’ve got the direction right.

The front right right, so i’ve got my wires in the right place. I’Ve got the roots there. I’M going to just tighten this wire over here. Cut this way a bit shorter to make it easier cut. The wire even shorter, now use the pliers to tighten the wire.

Now i’m positioning the wire in just the right direction so that it pulls down the tree into the leaning shape. Okay, i think we’re done. I’M not tightening the wire too much, but just enough to hold it in the right place.

There i’m going to put more of my soil and i’ve got a little bit of topsoil for the end and put some more soil in there. And i will need to poke this soil down a little bit under the roots, because i’ve seen that the roots are kind of the roots are coming up like this, which means there’s a potential for an air gap underneath the roots which you don’t want.

You want to make sure there’s no air gaps in the soil, so i’m going to first we’re going to tap it down. Then i’m going to put a bit more. It always amazes me how much soil actually goes into a bonsai pot, [, Music, ], [, Music, ] and now we’ll poke it down.

I don’t actually have my chopstick, so i’ll just use this good enough, just poke it down into there a bit. So we make sure the soil goes underneath those roots and there’s snow on air gaps in the middle of the soil.

There we go [, Music, ] great now just put some topsoil and we’re finished: [ Music, ], [, Music ]. Here we go one perfect, tiny, bonsai, [, Music ]. Let’S give it a quick tour. Of course this is going to grow out in the next year, so it will fatten up [ Music ], it’s a good shape from the front view.

You’Ve got rear branches, so you’ve got some depth to it and the front view gives quite a good bit of movement as well yeah, it’s a nice tree for a gift. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed the video if you did enjoy it.

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