Bonsai Nut
Nuttier than your average Nut
I wanted to start a discussion about how to approach bonsai development, because I see a lot of people struggling with it, conceptually - particularly when they are working with trees from scratch. It is critically important to lay out a development plan, and that development plan needs to start by prioritizing the big steps first. It is only too easy to get the cart before the horse, and spend years working on branch wiring or ramification development, while your tree still has fundamental development flaws. You can waste years - if not taking your tree backwards - if you do not address big problems early.
This should not be considered a novel or surprising approach. I have seen it in every good bonsai book, and heard it mentioned by every good bonsai practitioner. But for some reason, it is easy to forget or to ignore - and you risk getting in the way of your own success.
Strategically, you should ALWAYS approach a tree's development in a priority order that starts with:
(1) Nebari/trunk base
(2) Trunk line/taper
(3) Primary branching
(4) Secondary branching
(5) Ramification/refinement
These steps are listed by the difficulty and time necessary to address them. Do not proceed to a next step if the prior step has not been addressed or completed - or you risk losing all your finer development work when you realize you have to step back in to address more significant structural issues that you should have addressed earlier. It should come as no surprise that many judges at bonsai shows use a similar approach when evaluating show trees. You may have the most beautiful refinement in the world, but if your tree has structural issues, you may be frustrated because you never win an award. Likewise, you may often hear experienced bonsai enthusiasts commenting on "for sale" trees that superficially look impressive... but the underlying flaws require too much work (or too much work for the money being asked).
It brings to mind a workshop that I had with a very experienced bonsai master on the west coast. It was a "bring your own tree" workshop. One of the people at the workshop brought in a tree that had an obvious issue with the primary branch. The master's advice: "Cut it off! No branch, no issue!" And he proceeded to cut it off - even though (in the short term) it made the tree look noticeably less impressive. However he was quick to point out - from that point forward the tree will only get better, whereas as long as the bad branch remained, the tree would never progress.
And now the caveats
Any time you post a general "rule" like this, it is a western tendency to jump on the dozens of times when it might not apply... versus focusing on the millions of times that it does. There are instances when you can work on two steps at once - for example working on trunk taper on a pine while also maintaining ramification of lower branches. Or making sure that you aren't losing inner foliage on a Hinoki cypress while you are still laying out branch structure. Yes there are exceptions. But make sure you understand the rules before you break them.
This should not be considered a novel or surprising approach. I have seen it in every good bonsai book, and heard it mentioned by every good bonsai practitioner. But for some reason, it is easy to forget or to ignore - and you risk getting in the way of your own success.
Strategically, you should ALWAYS approach a tree's development in a priority order that starts with:
(1) Nebari/trunk base
(2) Trunk line/taper
(3) Primary branching
(4) Secondary branching
(5) Ramification/refinement
These steps are listed by the difficulty and time necessary to address them. Do not proceed to a next step if the prior step has not been addressed or completed - or you risk losing all your finer development work when you realize you have to step back in to address more significant structural issues that you should have addressed earlier. It should come as no surprise that many judges at bonsai shows use a similar approach when evaluating show trees. You may have the most beautiful refinement in the world, but if your tree has structural issues, you may be frustrated because you never win an award. Likewise, you may often hear experienced bonsai enthusiasts commenting on "for sale" trees that superficially look impressive... but the underlying flaws require too much work (or too much work for the money being asked).
It brings to mind a workshop that I had with a very experienced bonsai master on the west coast. It was a "bring your own tree" workshop. One of the people at the workshop brought in a tree that had an obvious issue with the primary branch. The master's advice: "Cut it off! No branch, no issue!" And he proceeded to cut it off - even though (in the short term) it made the tree look noticeably less impressive. However he was quick to point out - from that point forward the tree will only get better, whereas as long as the bad branch remained, the tree would never progress.
And now the caveats
Any time you post a general "rule" like this, it is a western tendency to jump on the dozens of times when it might not apply... versus focusing on the millions of times that it does. There are instances when you can work on two steps at once - for example working on trunk taper on a pine while also maintaining ramification of lower branches. Or making sure that you aren't losing inner foliage on a Hinoki cypress while you are still laying out branch structure. Yes there are exceptions. But make sure you understand the rules before you break them.
Last edited:
) don’t follow this approach and jump the gun 17 steps in advance. How many fully wired 2’ tall seedlings do we see here on bnut? Compared to the number of trunks built node by node there’s a big discrepancy.
