Rough Stock Procedure

[Tidal Bonsai]

I was discussing my procedure on working on rough stock to someone newer to the hobby, and I wanted to share the process with visuals. I have only been in this hobby about 2-3 seasons, so I am not claiming to be an expert, but this is my general 10 step procedure for working on stock:

1. Expose the nebari and identify a best front (for now)
2. Clean out everything that’s dead
3. Identify the trunk line, and remove things that cause inverse taper.
4. Remove branches that are too thick for the design (A general rule of thumb is any branch that is bigger than 1/3 the thickness of the truck section)
5. Reduce whorls of branches to one primary branch.
6. Reduce secondary branches to pairs of two (any more will risk swelling).
7. Wire main/primary branches and set them to your envisioned design.
8. Remove downwards growing branches if they can’t be wired flat.
9. Wire secondary/tertiary branches.
10. Enjoy all your labor!

This piece of rough stock I am demoing was a living Christmas tree I got for an affordable price. It took me a few nights to get from A to B. I find it best to work on a tree over multiple sittings (unless you are a bonsai professional who is working full time).

 

[Tidal Bonsai]

This is in the cleaning process, when what I had to work with was starting to be revealed! A large whorl had to be dealt with over time, and some reverse taper at the base from the previous soil line. After a few seasons of growth, I feel like this will be far less noticeable!

 

[Tidal Bonsai]

The branches that were too thick or would not fit with the design were removed. I started to set some of the primary branches.

 

[Tidal Bonsai]

This picture is from when I had the primary branches and some of the secondaries set. I decided to leave the tree alone and revisit over the next few days.

 

[Tidal Bonsai]

This is the tree “finished” for now. It’s being left in the red holiday pot to grow this season. Two big sacrifice branches were left by the base to help with the inversetaper. I mostly covered them up in this picture, since they will be removed in the future. Next year around this time I will monitor it’s progress again. Merry Christmas All!!!

 

[Vance Wood]

Ryan Neil has a video on (Bonsai Mirai) Youtube that is almost identical. Good job with your effort.

 

[Potawatomi13]

This is the tree “finished” for now. It’s being left in the red holiday pot to grow this season. Two big sacrifice branches were left by the base to help with the inversetaper. I mostly covered them up in this picture, since they will be removed in the future. Next year around this time I will monitor it’s progress again. Merry Christmas All!!!

Tree ends looking like Charlie Browns poor tree.