The Okinawa Holly Makes An Excellent Tree For Bonsai Based On It's Popularity With Bonsai Lovers

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With its green, serrated leaves, the Okinawa Holly is a beautiful tree and also a good candidate for bonsai. The Okinawa Holly is native to the northern hemisphere. It produces attractive pink flowers in the spring and summer, which are offset beautifully by the toothed, glossy green leaves. It's easy to grow indoors, copes well in semi-shade outdoors, and is very popular with bonsai lovers.

It's important to make sure this plant gets lots of water. This is definitely the case just before the fruit bearing period, otherwise the berries will be damaged. Misting is the best way to water the Okinawa Holly, but this isn't advised in the middle of the day. You should also reduce watering during the winter months.

By careful pruning, you can shape the Okinawa Holly into any shape you like. It has a very tender trunk, so you need to avoid using wiring for shaping. The branches are also quite brittle, and can be damaged by wiring. If you cut new shoots very close to the trunk you'll be able to obtain a good shape. You can also prune the holly's leaves to make them smaller if you need to.

Hollies can generally be shaped and sized in any way you choose, except for the evergreen varieties that don't like being shaped into a broom style. You need to pay attention to growth patterns when you're pruning. Some holly species grow upwards, and others grow horizontally. You should make sure that any pruning or wiring you do complements these tendencies.

It's easy to propagate a holly. If you have a deciduous species of holly, then you can propagate it by any one of three methods - air layering, seeds and cuttings. Evergreen varieties generally do better when propagated from cutting. This is because the seeds need special cold pre-treatment, and may still take up to three years before sprouting. If you take a cutting from a one-year-old plant, it should set roots well and grow easily. In the spring and summer months you can also repot hollies, generally every 1 to 2 years is recommended.

Some of the most common problems with Okinawa Holly include fungus infections, twig gall, as well attacks by pests, leaf spots and caterpillars. So you need to check for these issues regularly and treat them if required.

Quickly and easily learn more about the wonderful world of Bonsai gardening and Bonsai pruning by visiting Beautiful-Bonsai-Trees.info where you will find helpful information on a variety of Bonsai styles to include the Chokkan, Forest, Kengai and Shaken style of Bonsai gardening.

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Bonsai Tree Gardening – Basic Tips for Growing a Beautiful Bonsai

>>  Click Here To Know HOW You Can Grow Your Own Bonsai Tree

The art of training the bonsai tree has been enjoyed for ages, and can make for quite the enjoyable and rewarding hobby. In fact, early forms of this practice actually began over a thousand years ago, when the Chinese started growing potted trees of a single specimen, this practice was known as “pun-sai.” The Chinese admired the gnarled and twisted trunks and branches for their fantastic appearances, sometimes resembling dragons and animals, while the Japanese approach was more for the appreciation of the simplicity and harmony in the natural beauty of the tree itself, and how that fit in with Zen Buddhism. The Japanese adopted the art form around the year 1195, and while Buddhist monks mainly practiced it at first, it soon became an activity that people all over Japan would enjoy. From its early stages as tree planting, over the years it has developed into the act of training a tree through meticulous pruning and care.

Today, bonsai is the act of training a miniature tree to look similar to its larger counterparts. Bonsai trees are actually not miniature trees by nature, but stay that way through constant trimming and binding.

Choosing Your Bonsai

Bonsai trees are typically sold in one of two ways: as carefully trained plants or as starter plants. Carefully trained ones are often found in good garden/landscape centers and have had lots of work and already have many branch formations. Because of this, they can be quite expensive. The other option you have is buying starter bonsai trees – those plants that are commonly seen around shopping malls, for this reason these tree are also referred to as “mallsai.” You can train a starter plant, but it will take a lot more work and time to get it to be as lovely as professionally trained bonsai are.

Watering Your Tree

Since bonsai trees are typically grown in pots, like many potted plants, they need to be watered often. This is for the simple fact that water can quickly drain from pots leaving the plants dry. In summer, you’ll want to water just about every day, making sure that your bonsai is moist to the touch at all times – but do not over-water or else the roots will rot. This may be the beginner bonsai enthusiast’s greatest problem – watering the tree too much. In winter, it is advisable to water your bonsai about once every three days.

Fertilizing Bonsai Trees

Feeding your bonsai with the right fertilizer at the right time of year is imperative for keeping it in good health. The best types of fertilizers for bonsai are the pellets that slowly release nutrients into the soil, with these, you can make sure that it’s not all washed away when you water your tree. Soluble powder and liquid fertilizers will work, too, though. The best time to fertilize your bonsai is from early spring to late summer. Look for a fertilizer that has a low nitrogen content to feed to your tree year-round. And in autumn, look for a fertilizer with very little to no nitrogen.

If you keep these tips in mind and give your tree lots of proper care, you’re likely to end up with a beautiful bonsai that you can enjoy for years to come.

Katya Coen provides information on garden supplies and garden tools for GardenSupplyGuide.net - your guide to growing beautiful gardens in your own backyard.

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