Strategic approach to bonsai development

[Deep Sea Diver]

… in the saddle again about the progression posted as the main topic…

While 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

This is a worthwhile list. Yet it seems there is more to be needed to make this a useful guide to new and intermediate hobbyists.

Drilling down deeper there are a number of actions and reasons for these actions which divert folks from the path to decent bonsai.

One psychological reason for continuing in a flawed process was mentioned, The Sunk Cost fallacy. For those not familiar with the phenomenon. It’s when a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it…. Despite it being obvious abandoning this strategy would be the best course of action.

To this replied, Sometimes going backwards is helping the tree go forward. The sole reply was sounds sorta like eliminate flaws in the order of priority… the former was a psychological counter to the sunk cost fallacy vs a process statement.

That said, what I’m more interested in is addressing the nuts and bolts and how they might pertain to the above list vis a vis new and intermediate folks.

For example (generally) identifying when in the process is it best to put a tree becoming a bonsai in:
- Bonsai media - and btw what does this look like? Size, amount of native soil removed etc.
- A “real Bonsai pot” - btw what effects do certain pots have on the tree’s ability to withstand bonsai techniques?
- when/how to deploy modified clip and grow to achieve best results
- when/how to deploy guy wires
- how to keep (or identify) a critical mass (of foliage and roots) while performing the bonsai techniques embedded in this process?
- how to balance competing goods throughout the bonsai process?
- is there ever a time when there are reasonable exceptions to the “priority order”

To name just a few.

Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Wulfskaar]

This is a worthwhile list. Yet it seems there is more to be needed to make this a useful guide to new and intermediate hobbyists.

Cheers
DSD sends

Yeah, I think it's a good first day of school for people just starting out. But there are so many nuances and caveats to consider, depending on numerous variables (species, climate, styling goals, etc).

For example, I think one must consider all of the steps while developing pines. You can just chop low and expect fresh buds to appear like you can on many other species. You sorta have to use what you've got.

 

[shohin_branches]

Yeah, I think it's a good first day of school for people just starting out. But there are so many nuances and caveats to consider, depending on numerous variables (species, climate, styling goals, etc).

Ah shoot you owe Ryan Niel $50

 

[Jrmcmich]

… in the saddle again about the progression posted as the main topic…

While 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

This is a worthwhile list. Yet it seems there is more to be needed to make this a useful guide to new and intermediate hobbyists.

Drilling down deeper there are a number of actions and reasons for these actions which divert folks from the path to decent bonsai.

One psychological reason for continuing in a flawed process was mentioned, The Sunk Cost fallacy. For those not familiar with the phenomenon. It’s when a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it…. Despite it being obvious abandoning this strategy would be the best course of action.

To this replied, Sometimes going backwards is helping the tree go forward. The sole reply was sounds sorta like eliminate flaws in the order of priority… the former was a psychological counter to the sunk cost fallacy vs a process statement.

That said, what I’m more interested in is addressing the nuts and bolts and how they might pertain to the above list vis a vis new and intermediate folks.

For example (generally) identifying when in the process is it best to put a tree becoming a bonsai in:
- Bonsai media - and btw what does this look like? Size, amount of native soil removed etc.
- A “real Bonsai pot” - btw what effects do certain pots have on the tree’s ability to withstand bonsai techniques?
- when/how to deploy modified clip and grow to achieve best results
- when/how to deploy guy wires
- how to keep (or identify) a critical mass (of foliage and roots) while performing the bonsai techniques embedded in this process?
- how to balance competing goods throughout the bonsai process?
- is there ever a time when there are reasonable exceptions to the “priority order”

To name just a few.

Cheers
DSD sends

Good asks on this. I am new and entering my 3rd summer. First year I would get a tree and immediately tried to put it in a bonsai pot not knowing any better. Researching and this forum and other things second year tried to grow things out in grow pots and did spring repotting but still used bonsai soil. This year trying cheaper media for growing early development trees in perlite / coco coir mix and other soils in larger pots for couple larger trees trying to develop apex. I know I have Seen multiple ideas on trunk development including large growth then large chop. Also seen moderate growth with multiple chops to allow smaller scars which sounds intriguing but still struggle to know when exactly to perform these.

 

[bonsaiwood]

Too many people treat bonsai as a solitary hobby.

Which raises another question- what exactly is it that holds beginners back from making meaningful progress in bonsai?
Pre-YouTube (2008 I think) bonsai seemed too mysterious and financially out of reach for me. (I’m sure it still does to many starting out today). I understood the general concept behind it (miniaturized trees in expensive pots) but had no idea how much time, effort and skill would be needed to invest into making something visually respectable.
There is also the intimidation factor that I’m sure young people and beginner’s of all ages face at some point. For instance, I had access to one very esteemed club near me for many years but I chose not to join as a young 20-something feeling I would be way out of league and out of place. Plus I had no friends or connections in bonsai at the time.
So like many, I mistakenly acquired sub-par material from different sources thinking I could self-teach. I also failed to actually see the flaws in my trees (common problem among beginners) because I had limited knowledge about the difference between good bonsai and flawed bonsai (malsai?). In short, I have probably gained more valuable experience in the past 3 years alone than the previous 20.

 

[bonsaiwood]

I agree it seems like a luxury.

It's great when bonsai is a team sport, but there's so few of us around, it's a luxury to hang out with friends while you're doing it. Even where there's thriving clubs, they generally only meet once per month, and that makes it a little harder to make friends while you're there.

I guess only time and continued involvement in your club may (or may not) allow for friendships to develop. Familiar faces over many years often become more comfortable working with one another. Not always of course.
My hope is that the longer you stick with it leads to better chances of finding yourself joining or forming a small workgroup with similar interests and more frequent meetings- if that’s your goal.

 

[Paradox]

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.

Sorry, took me a bit to be able to respond cause I didnt want to do a rushed post and wanted to consider what others were saying.

While I do agree with pretty much everything in the OP, and I realize that what Im about to say probably isnt what is meant with the first post, Im gona say it anyway...

I think new people are often too quick to jump in sometimes. I get the enthusiasm, the newness, the itch to do bonsai, but as we know going too fast can be a killer to the tree and subsequently to that enthusiasm. Sometimes taking a step back and learning from the beginning to be sure you have an idea of what should be next is a good idea. I know some people will disagree with that. Ce la vie.

So I am going to back it up a little bit before steps 1-5 for what I consider should be done first.
Of course when I am shopping for a tree, the first thing I look at is trunk size and shape, then nebari then branching.
Once I get the tree home, my first consideration before any of the 1-5 steps is tree health.
Dead trees cant be made into bonsai, and sick wont be bonsai for long if you dont address health.

So I evaluate for health first and go from there. I might not touch a tree for the first year while I water and feed it just to get to know the tree a little better even if I have 5 of that species already, each will be slightly different. The second is to give the tree time to acclimate to its new environment, my garden.

The second thing I will do is repot the tree if it needs it and its healthy enough for it. I have done this as the first thing when it was during repotting season and I got an otherwise healthy tree that was very pot bound and I was concerned staying in the current pot could cause a decline in health.

Once I get the tree to where I feel its ready and it has survived a repotting by me, then I will consider further development wherever it is on that list of 1-5.

 

[Gabler]

Sorry, took me a bit to be able to respond cause I didnt want to do a rushed post and wanted to consider what others were saying.

While I do agree with pretty much everything in the OP, and I realize that what Im about to say probably isnt what is meant with the first post, Im gona say it anyway...

I think new people are often too quick to jump in sometimes. I get the enthusiasm, the newness, the itch to do bonsai, but as we know going too fast can be a killer to the tree and subsequently to that enthusiasm. Sometimes taking a step back and learning from the beginning to be sure you have an idea of what should be next is a good idea. I know some people will disagree with that. Ce la vie.

So I am going to back it up a little bit before steps 1-5 for what I consider should be done first.
Of course when I am shopping for a tree, the first thing I look at is trunk size and shape, then nebari then branching.
Once I get the tree home, my first consideration before any of the 1-5 steps is tree health.
Dead trees cant be made into bonsai, and sick wont be bonsai for long if you dont address health.

So I evaluate for health first and go from there. I might not touch a tree for the first year while I water and feed it just to get to know the tree a little better even if I have 5 of that species already, each will be slightly different. The second is to give the tree time to acclimate to its new environment, my garden.

The second thing I will do is repot the tree if it needs it and its healthy enough for it. I have done this as the first thing when it was during repotting season and I got an otherwise healthy tree that was very pot bound and I was concerned staying in the current pot could cause a decline in health.

Once I get the tree to where I feel its ready and it has survived a repotting by me, then I will consider further development wherever it is on that list of 1-5.

So in other words, the list should look like this:

1. Health
2. Nebari
3. Trunk
4. Primary Branches
5. Secondary Branches
6. Tertiary Branches

Is that what you meant, @Paradox?

 

[jeef16]

So in other words, the list should look like this:

1. Health
2. Nebari
3. Trunk
4. Primary Branches
5. Secondary Branches
6. Tertiary Branches

Is that what you meant, @Paradox?

I think 'health' kind of applies to every step. learning more about a tree's rhythm of energy storage and expenditure, when the tree is "energy positive or energy negative" to paraphrase bonsai mirai, learning what healthy roots look and feel like, distributing light/energy evenly or deliberately proper watering techniques, learning when to repot, etc is a general pool of bonsai knowledge that exists outside of best practices/techniques for each of those steps. And poor health can affect every step of that system especially once you start getting dieback. but I still think health should be ranked #1 because its the very first thing you should try and learn

 

[Paradox]

So in other words, the list should look like this:

1. Health
2. Nebari
3. Trunk
4. Primary Branches
5. Secondary Branches
6. Tertiary Branches

Is that what you meant, @Paradox?

1. Health
2. Roots/soil/media, not nebari (ie surface root spread) per se but root health, space for development (proper training pot), proper soil
3. Trunk
4. Nebari, my observation is that this comes with good trunk growth and root development in a shallow training pot (note I do not mean finished bonsai pot) where roots are allowed to spread horizontally
5. Primary Branches
6. Secondary Branches
7. Tertiary Branches

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

1. Health
2. Roots/soil/media, not nebari (ie surface root spread) per se but root health, space for development (proper training pot), proper soil
3. Trunk
4. Nebari, my observation is that this comes with good trunk growth and root development in a shallow training pot (note I do not mean finished bonsai pot) where roots are allowed to spread horizontally
5. Primary Branches
6. Secondary Branches
7. Tertiary Branches

Good thoughts. Here are some back.

1. Health
2. Roots/soil/media, not nebari (ie surface root spread) per se but root health, space for development (proper training pot), proper soil.

-Consider folding 1+2 together. Also

Which media and when in development?? Experience shows a number of premium, well draining grower’s mixes are frequently superior to traditional inorganic bonsai media for initial growing out of quite a number of species. This includes grow mixes like professionals like Michael Hagedorn use.

- Have to disagree about nebari placement - experience reveals profuse healthy feeder roots provide more nutrient pathways, which create a wider, tapered trunk vs the other way around. This can occur in a moderate depth pot with frequent repots, pruning and rearrangement. Growing a really good nebari makes it much easier to ramify secondary and tertiary branches as the required nutrient pathways exist. Branches reflect the roots…

- While developing a good nebari, for a number of species can happen later, (Ebihara, ground layer, grafting etc) for many trees it’s harder to add roots later. While some just don’t respond as well.

Best
DSD sends

 

[shohin_branches]

Which raises another question- what exactly is it that holds beginners back from making meaningful progress in bonsai?
Pre-YouTube (2008 I think) bonsai seemed too mysterious and financially out of reach for me. (I’m sure it still does to many starting out today). I understood the general concept behind it (miniaturized trees in expensive pots) but had no idea how much time, effort and skill would be needed to invest into making something visually respectable.
There is also the intimidation factor that I’m sure young people and beginner’s of all ages face at some point. For instance, I had access to one very esteemed club near me for many years but I chose not to join as a young 20-something feeling I would be way out of league and out of place. Plus I had no friends or connections in bonsai at the time.
So like many, I mistakenly acquired sub-par material from different sources thinking I could self-teach. I also failed to actually see the flaws in my trees (common problem among beginners) because I had limited knowledge about the difference between good bonsai and flawed bonsai (malsai?). In short, I have probably gained more valuable experience in the past 3 years alone than the previous 20.

I did have a great uncle in bonsai. He got me my first bonsai book for my 13th birthday and he took me to the Chicago show to buy a concave cutter and an elm. Then he moved away to Florida so in 2002 at the age 14 I joined my club.

The Novice class I took (now called Bonsai Fundamentals) is a four part intro class and a lot of people make their first club friends through that class. For me it was two teachers who were also beginners and without those women dragging me to events and paying me to do yardwork so I could afford some of the club workshops I wouldn't be where I am today.

I also volunteer to work on the professional collection at the Lynden Sculpture Garden and I am a member of a gang study group called Arbor Arts Collective that consists of people who have been in bonsai awhile and we get together once a month just to hang out and work on trees.

I also took a DNA test and found out last December that one of the current club members is my half brother so we joke that bonsai is in our blood.

When I first joined it was an hour drive to get to the club meetings. I was fortunate to have the support I did to learn bonsai and have access to all the garbage trees and shrubs at the garden center my relatives owned.

I never was rich enough to study in Japan but the community of people I had over the years have really shaped my development and drive to be better and better at bonsai. Clubs are worth the effort. Sometimes you need that person telling you that they agree the branch has to go or a workshop with a professional that finally makes wiring click for you.

 

[Paradox]

Good thoughts. Here are some back.

1. Health
2. Roots/soil/media, not nebari (ie surface root spread) per se but root health, space for development (proper training pot), proper soil.

-Consider folding 1+2 together. Also

Which media and when in development?? Experience shows a number of premium, well draining grower’s mixes are frequently superior to traditional inorganic bonsai media for initial growing out of quite a number of species. This includes grow mixes like professionals like Michael Hagedorn use.

- Have to disagree about nebari placement - experience reveals profuse healthy feeder roots provide more nutrient pathways, which create a wider, tapered trunk vs the other way around. This can occur in a moderate depth pot with frequent repots, pruning and rearrangement. Growing a really good nebari makes it much easier to ramify secondary and tertiary branches as the required nutrient pathways exist. Branches reflect the roots…

- While developing a good nebari, for a number of species can happen later, (Ebihara, ground layer, grafting etc) for many trees it’s harder to add roots later. While some just don’t respond as well.

Best
DSD sends

one could argue that trunk and nebari could be combined into one as they do kind of happen together mostly and are dependant on each other.
As the trunk gets bigger, the roots get bigger to support/anchor the bigger tree.

However we are trying to keep things less convoluted for newer folks so I think listing them separate is fine.

I cant really combine 1 and 2 because while they are dependent on each other I dont necessarily combine them at the same time.

 

[Paradox]

Which media and when in development?? Experience shows a number of premium, well draining grower’s mixes are frequently superior to traditional inorganic bonsai media for initial growing out of quite a number of species. This includes grow mixes like professionals like Michael Hagedorn use.

Sorry I forgot to address this question.
I left it vague on purpose because I didnt want to get into another soil war debate.
I have a difference of opinion from many here regarding soil so Ill just keep that to myself.