Raw Material to Bonsai

One of the most difficult aspects of bonsai is deciding when to begin designing your 'tree'. You will see that I use 'tree' a lot on my posts because it is the word that we use in bonsai for finished trees and trees in development. The single quotes help deferentiate between the raw material and the bonsai. For example: "There is almost always more than one 'tree' in a tree. Seeing the 'tree' is very difficult and virtually impossible for a beginner. Even some people who have practiced bonsai for many years do not develop the talent to see the 'tree'. There are many elements that come into play in deciding what path your 'tree' will take, but they can be divided into two basic categories: What you want and what the tree has to offer.


What you want:

The two most important elements in deciding what you want in your bonsai are the size and the form. Recognizing this is the most basic step in developing a plan for your bonsai. Size should be thought of in terms of trunk caliper (diameter at the base) and height of the finished bonsai. This will help you decide on an appropriate method for developing the trunk. And developing the trunk is the first and primary task. Deciding on the form will determine the shape of the trunk. Form is the basic shape of the bonsai. The simplest are formal upright, informal upright, slant, semi or half cascade, and cascade. After you have decided on the form and the size, you can proceed with a plan to create your dream. But the dream doesn't exist in a vacuum; it is woven from live material. So, you also have to consider what the material has to offer.

The approach to creating bonsai can take two directions. You can search for material to suit a specific desire, such as an informal Japanese Black Pine that is about a foot tall with a massive trunk. To make this come true you need to consult your wallet and your time frame. You can spend a lot and make it happen in just a few years, or even immediately if you purchase a finished tree, or you can make it happen over twenty years by growing out your own material from scratch. Of course there is a continuum of possibilities in between these two extremes.

The other approach, and the one used by beginners, is to search for any material that has possibilities. This is fun. It is like shopping at a flea market or a garage sale. You aren't looking for anything in particular, but rather just looking for something to strike your fancy. What strikes your fancy should be some aspect of the 'tree' that you can see. Rarely can anyone immediately see the whole 'tree' in a piece of material as good artists often can. But there should be some element of a good bonsai that attracts your attention.


What Does the Tree Have to Offer?:

If you purchase good pretrained material, which is not inexpensive by the way, the trunk may be essentially finished, that is, it will already have the size and form determined and completed. Your job is then to turn this finished trunk into bonsai. This can occur rather quickly, or what passes for quickly in bonsai. It will look like bonsai just after the initial styling and will only get better in succeeding years. Or you can grow out inexpensive nursery stock and create your own pre trained material. In either case, you still have to see some element of the 'tree' to begin converting the material into bonsai.

The first place to begin looking is at the nebari. This is the bonsai term for the buttress, crown, and surface roots of the bonsai. This is what anchors the tree to the earth. Without a good nebari, a tree will stand awkwardly, it will look unstable and unsure of itself, something a strong wind could blow over. A tree with a good nebari will swell at the base and spread across the surface of the earth, grabbing and clenching it with big radial surface roots that divide and ramify. If you find a tree with good nebari, buy it no matter what the rest of the tree looks like, even if you have to regrow the entire rest of the tree. Excellent nebari is rare and one of the most difficult aspects to achieve in bonsai. If at all possible, you should plan the entire design of the tree on the basis of the nebari, choosing the front from it, deciding on the size and the form from it.





The second aspect that should demand your attention is the trunk. What does the trunk have to offer in terms of size? If it has a good first section, that is, up to the first branch, or where the first branch will be, that will save you about five years of growth for most bonsai. If it tapers from this point, that's even better. What it does from this point will help determine the form. If it tapers into the next section but is straight, then it will work for a formal upright. If it tapers and moves at this point. then you have the possibility of an informal upright or slant. Try to see where the trunk becomes uninteresting. Does it have a long straight section with no taper or branches? Or does it have a radical curve after a basically straight beginning? The place where it becomes uninteresting is where you should consider chopping it and regrowing the rest of the trunk. If you don't, you will build in a fault. This is extremely difficult to overcome. It can be done sometimes by an expert, but you will probably spend more years and effort trying to hide it than if you just corrected the situation by cutting it off and regrowing it.

If you have both a nebari and trunk (rare), then you can begin looking at branches. Branches on decidous trees usually aren't a big deal because you can simply regrow them or even graft them. Conifers are more difficult, especially pines. With pines you pretty much have to have branches were you want them or you will never get them. They can be grafted, but it is neither fast nor easy. On most deciduous trees, the branches aren't even started until the trunk is basically finished.

If you collect material for bonsai, as nearly every practitioner does, there will always be some material that doesn't speak to you. It just won't offer any elements that suggest a 'tree'. This happens to me too. If you decide to keep it, make sure it is pruned and basic aspects are developed and not ignored, like growing out the trunk size and maintaining low branches. Look at it twice year with a critical eye. As it develops, it will change, and you will change too. You will begin seeing things that you have never seen before. At some point, perhaps many years later you will see the 'tree'.