In the previous article we touched on the bonsai care subjects of watering, fertilizing, and the appropriate levels of humidity and sunlight essential to keep your juniper vibrant. In this Part II we will go over the matters of re-potting, pruning, caring for your juniper through the winter, and bug control.
Pruning Your Juniper Bonsai
Always in the springtime, and then perhaps once again in the fall, buds (brand new growth) will form on the tips of the juniper bonsai tree branches. When you observe this new growth you must get rid of the buds by pinching them off. If left on, the branches on the tree will develop fast growing shoots and the tree is going to look disheveled. You shouldn’t begin the process of pinching the buds until at least four weeks after the new growth very first appears in late spring. Older more mature foliage also needs to be taken off in the spring. This will reduce the amount of inner growth and allow the sun to pass through without difficulty and more air to circulate. Whenever you notice fresh growth in the course of the usual growing season of summer you should also pinch it off. This will always keep the plant looking tidy and will help to maintain it’s proper shape.
Your juniper bonsai won’t be hurt, at all, from this pinching of new growth. Pinching is, in reality, the way by which you are going to miniaturize and shape your juniper to become and stay a bonsai.
Re-potting Your Juniper Bonsai
Young junipers, those less than five years old, will really benefit from being re-potted every second year. And once they get to 5 to 6 years of age they should then only be re-potted every 3rd year. A free-draining soil mixture must be used. The best times for repotting junipers are in the early spring and autumn. If you see that your juniper is suffering from root rot while you are repotting you’ll need to cut off all of the impacted roots, then re-pot using only sphagnum moss as opposed to soil. Let it grow in the moss for a full year after which re-pot into good, free-draining soil. When you’ve completed re-potting your plant you need to water it very thoroughly. Then keep the tree in a shady location until the roots have recovered.
Root Pruning
Dependant upon how old your juniper bonsai is you will need to re-pot it every 2-5 years. This is actually the very best time for you to prune the plants roots and keeping it from being root-bound. Very carefully remove the tree from it’s pot, and after that clear away some of the soil from around the rootball. It will be safe to trim off about 1/3 of the juniper’s roots. Immediately after pruning the roots, put the plant back in it’s pot in a mixture of potting soil and sand in a 3:1 proportion. Let it soak in a solution of transplant shock supplement, and spray with water a couple of times daily for 2 weeks.
Keeping Pests Under Control
Spider mites can cause substantial harm to junipers, and are notably bad indoors (which is yet another valid reason to keep them outdoors). Develop a regimen to spray for pesky insects no less than once per month with any kind of insecticide suitable for your household plants and designed to kill spider mites. Be sure you spray other close-by plants at the same time that might also be home to the spider mites.
How to Care for Your Juniper in Winter
Your juniper tree will need a rest period during winter so as to continue to be healthy, and for that reason it should be kept in a location where the temperature will not exceed 60F degrees throughout the winter. If you keep your juniper outside the house ensure that you guard it from severe drying winds. This can be accomplished by working with cold frames, window wells, enclosed unheated rooms, or mulch beds.
Your juniper bonsai tree does best when it has a “winter” in order to complete it’s natural cycle. Place it in a cool place in the winter, the colder the better. A freeze followed by an abrupt and quick rise in temperature will hurt your bonsai. Which means you could well be doing your plant much more harm than good by bringing it inside soon after it’s been subjected to freezing temperatures. The freeze alone won’t cause harm to your juniper. When the temperature remains below 50F during the wintertime your juniper bonsai will only need indirect light. And, if the temperatures stay below 50F degrees over the winter then the plant will not require much water.
If you don’t have a shed or a basement or another cold location to reproduce winter, and so you have to keep your juniper in the house, attempt to keep it somewhere where it is out of direct sunlight. During winter, continuing to keep your juniper’s foliage moist is very important should you be growing it indoors. It should be sprayed with a mister once or twice per day.
Japanese bonsai gardening is a hobby that is fascinating, affordable, and easy to get involved in. Bonsai can be enjoyed by people of all ages, and can last a lifetime. Click this link to learn more about growing your very own juniper bonsai tree: Juniper Bonsai Tree, and sign up for your FREE 7-part introductory mini-course on how to grow miniature bonsai trees. Or, to get started growing your own bonsai trees trees right away check out the highly regarded “how-to” bonsai book “Beautiful Bonsai Secrets”.
Previously in Part I we discussed the best way to properly water, fertilize, and give your bonsai plant ample measures of sunlight and humidity. In the following paragraphs we are going to talk about some additional, crucial juniper bonsai care recommendations covering subject areas such as re-potting your juniper bonsai, the best time to prune your juniper, getting rid of unwanted pests, and taking good care of your juniper during the winter.
About Pruning Your Juniper Bonsai
New growth will usually show up on the tips of your juniper bonsai tree branches in the springtime, and occasionally you will see more new growth in the autumn. In the course of these cycles of new growth you will want to nip off these new buds to prevent the branches from developing fast growing shoots and causing your tree to look slightly untamed. You should not start pinching the buds until around four weeks after new growth very first appears in late spring. Older more mature foliage must also be got rid off in the spring which will help reduce the amount of inner growth, and permit the sun’s rays to pass through without difficulty and much more air to circulate. The juniper bonsai will carry on growing through the summer months, producing new buds. Keep pinching these off in order to keep the shoots from growing which will make the tree appear untidy.
Pinching off new growth isn’t going to harm the plant. This is most likely the procedure that you’ll make use of more than any other to miniaturize your juniper for bonsai and to shape it into the style you have picked for it.
Repotting Your Juniper Bonsai
Junipers plants need to be repotted about every two years when they’re juveniles (fewer than five or six years of age) and after that only every three to five years once they reach maturity. A free-draining soil mixture should be used. The spring as well as the fall are the very best times of year to re-pot your juniper bonsai. Junipers are vulnerable to root rot. If you see root rot when you are re-potting, you should cut away all of the affected roots after which you can re-pot working with only sphagnum moss. Ensure that it stays in the moss for a full year or so to give the roots time to recover. Sphagnum moss is bacteria and decay resilient and also is really water absorbent. Right after repotting your juniper be certain to water it completely and then keep the plant in a shady place until the roots have recovered.
What You Need to Know About Pruning Your Juniper’s Roots
You can actually re-pot your juniper plant in either the spring or the fall. And when you do you ought to look to see if the plant is starting to become root-bound. After you have removed the tree from it’s container, with care remove some of the soil from the rootball. Cut away around one-third of the plant’s roots. Return the plant to it’s pot, putting it in a mixture of 3-parts planting medium with 1 part sand to replace the lost soil. Your juniper might be in a little bit of shock right after having it’s roots pruned and being re-potted. To help it recover faster you can include just a little transplant shock supplement to the water can and water completely. Keep the foliage moist by spraying 2-3 times per day for 2 weeks.
Pest Control
Should you be growing your juniper bonsai inside you’ve got to be particularly aware and on the lookout for spider mites. They could cause real damage to your juniper. Incorporate a regularly planned once a month spraying of your junipers using an insecticide designed for household plants. Indoors or out, make sure to spray all your other nearby plants which could also have the spider mites.
Winter Care for Your Juniper Bonsai
To maintain good health, your juniper bonsai tree really should be kept in a cool (under 60 degrees F) throughout the winter months for them to experience a dormancy or rest period. If you keep your juniper outdoors ensure that you safeguard it from harsh drying winds.
Your juniper bonsai tree does best when it has a “Winter” to complete it’s natural cycle. Place it in a cold space in the winter, the chillier the better. A freeze followed by a sudden and quick rise in temperature will damage your bonsai. Which means you would be doing your plant much more harm than good by bringing it inside soon after it’s been subjected to freezing temps. The freeze itself is not going to lead to harm to your juniper. If the temperature remains below 50F in the winter your juniper bonsai will only require indirect light. If the temps remain below 50F degrees during the winter then the plant isn’t going to require much water.
If you can’t simulate winter with a cold room or basement or shed, then try, at least, to keep your bonsai plant away from getting direct sunlight. Whenever your bonsai is kept inside your home at room temperature, make sure you humidify it by misting it maybe once or twice per day.
Japanese bonsai gardening is a hobby that is fascinating, affordable, and easy to get involved in. Bonsai can be enjoyed by people of all ages, and can last a lifetime. Click this link to learn more about growing your very own juniper bonsai tree: Juniper Bonsai Tree, and sign up for your FREE 7-part introductory mini-course on how to grow miniature bonsai trees. Or, to get started growing your own bonsai trees trees right away check out the highly regarded “how-to” bonsai book “Beautiful Bonsai Secrets” at the website.
People that are not yet completely familiar with the art and horticulture of bonsai suppose that bonsai trees and plants must be grown indoors. This belief may be because all bonsai trees and plants are planted in small pots rather than planted in the garden, or perhaps they saw their first bonsai at an indoor garden show.
Sometimes this misunderstanding can result in the early on and untimely death of the beginning bonsai artist’s first tree, which may deter him/her from making another attempt at growing a bonsai. So be sure that you understand that some plants and trees are emphatically classified as an indoor bonsai tree, while others are more suited to be grown outdoors.
The trees and plants that are generally considered to be indoor bonsai are those that are native to tropical and subtropical climates, and they are being grown as bonsai in a more temperate climate. If you want your indoor bonsai trees and plants to thrive then you must be sure to keep them in a warm and humid environment, similar to that environment where they come from. Providing the appropriate levels of humidity is usually the largest challenge for the indoor bonsai gardener. One easy way to keep the humidity levels up for your indoor bonsai is to spray it frequently with a mister.
Indoor bonsai trees do not have the same growth patterns as bonsai trees that are grown outdoors because they are not subjected to the same seasonal light and temperature changes. As an illustration, a hardy deciduous outdoor bonsai will go through the cycle of new growth in spring, fullness of growth during summer, loss of leaves in the fall, and then a dormant spell of rest during the winter. Because they are generally native to topical and subtropical regions which don’t experience dramatic seasonal changes, indoor bonsai trees are usually “evergreen”, meaning that they are green all year. Under certain conditions an outdoor bonsai plant can stay green year-round rather than lose it’s leaves in the fall and go dormant during the winter.
The methods of pruning and training indoor bonsai is much the same as with outdoor bonsai, with the exception being the timing of the training and pruning. Pruning, cutting, grafting and other training methods are usually only done during preiods of growth and dormancy on outdoor bonsai plants. Indoor bonsai often have a continuous growing period, although they tend to be more active in the spring and summer.
You are better off shopping for a suitable plant to make into an indoor bonsai tree at a nursery or garden center than to purchase one at a supermarket. There is a wide variety of plant and tree types to choose from to create an indoor bonsai. You can even take some ordinary house plants and train them to become bonsai. In Part II of my article on Indoor Bonsai, I will report how to choose the best plant material for your bonsai, and also offer a list of 4-5 plants and trees that are greatly suitable as indoor bonsai, as well as highly suitable for the beginner bonsai enthusiast.
Mike Andrews is a gardener and author and has been a devoted enthusiast of the art of bonsai for many years. Read all of his additional articles on bonsai trees, including those relating to the indoor bonsai tree on his website at www.myjapanesebonsai.com. Please visit and sign up for his FREE 7-part mini-course on how to grow and train miniature bonsai trees.