silvertron
Newly Registered
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2011 11:47 pm
Location: ft worth texas

Can Any Tree be a Bonsai? Making a mango bonsai

ok.. I am pretty sure I know the answer to this.... can any tree be bonsai'd..??? I have a friend with a greenhouse that can take any seed and get it to grow... I am wanting to have a little bonsai hobbit orchard of bonsai trees... now just assuming the climate is favorable for growing... can I turn any fruit seed into a bonsai tree? I want a mango one, a pear one, a banana one and a kumquat one! can their growth be stunted into a bonsai and still produce the fruit? also is it possible to create a bonsai pecan tree? and can you actually take grafted limbs and turn a limb into a tree? my late grandfather grafted black walnut and pecan trees together... I would like to do the same in bonsai form... imagine the possibilities.... a red and green apple tree...and possibly even grafting different specias. ... apple pear etc... /.. if anyone has any info on if the trees can go from a sapling to stunting it to bonsai form please let me know

kdodds
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Posts: 1436
Joined: Thu Mar 06, 2008 7:07 pm
Location: Airmont, NY Zone 6/7

No, you can not "bonsai" any tree. There is far more to bonsai than "a dwarf tree in a pot". Mango can be done, but not realistically. The leaves, to my understanding, do not reduce well. Bananas, forget about it. Buy a dwarf species, but it will never look like a bonsai. Some people have done apples and pears, so possible there, but they're not easy trees and you're likely to kill a dozen or more before getting it right. Kumquat is definitely doable, and the only one of the trees you've mentioned that I'd seriously even consider suggesting for a beginner. Growing from seed is NOT the best way to start. It will be years before you can pot it, and years more before you can work it in earnest. Look at a 5-10 year window from seed to semi-finished bonsai. Fruits on bonsai fruit trees do not dwarf. And, if they're larger fruits, the tree will only support very few. These fruits will also weight down branches. Most remove overly large fruits. Nut trees (some) can be used, but not pecan or walnute, AFAIK. You can graft RELATED tree species effectively, but WHY? This is not an aspect of horticulture that lends itself to bonsai. I think, you're looking more to have an orchard of potted trees rather than bonsai. Farms and farming would be better avenues for you to explore to get help if that is the case.

tomc
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Posts: 2661
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 2:52 am
Location: SE-OH USA Zone 6-A

If you look at the habbit of a mature tree, oh things like leaf size, internode length, blossom size, fruit size and what has been tried by others in tray training you may get to the point that other growers have for their selections of trees.

Trees with compound leaves like any of the juglans family don't fit into tray training very well. I can think of seeing only a couple in over a decade of looking on the internet-none in books.

Trees with large leaves, like pawpaw will not tolerate root pruning. They are a flop, a dead flop at that, in a tray. I'll wedge banana in here.

Tree families with large leaves like oak, maple, peach, have easier to acheive smaller cousins, or cousins with smaller leaves-shorter inernode length naturally, which are better candidates. But I have seen rather more examples of 'impossible' oaks, sugar maples, prunus--they only make larger examples, no matter what you do to the tree.

Still if I was to direct you to a tree, and you have horticultural connections, Look about for trees-shrubs that are already in your biome and are orphans. In the northeast USA, that might be a ditch growing larch, or a boxwood being pulled from a hedge. Mmm and maybe an upland blueberry.

Providence already grew your training stock, sometimes for decades. So you have a tree already with things that only time can give you like a thick base and existing trunk motion. Keep a few of these alive for something to fiddle with while smaller seedlings and air-layers build up their size. Like your speculative pear.

Your horticultural mentor may also be of help in propagating (or airlayering) and in securing access to fruit trees. Hey, you haul brush for them if they prune orchards, they show you how to propagate some of what you have hauled.

Fruit size is one of the things that reduce least. This is why I am such a sucker for crab apples. I'm utterly stuck on them, but they do make a 18" to 30" tall specimen. I expect selecting citrus first for small fruit size, is going to be a similar option for you.

If you aint going anywhere for the next 15-20 years, you can probably get some Texas Ebony (pithecelobium flexicaule) seed off of ebay. It is tender to anywhere north of sanAntone TX, so your green house link will be a winter time imperitive, but it blooms and is a gem of a tree.

Can you graft more than one crab apple or pear cultivar together on their correct root stocks and train them as bonsai? Your betcha', you can.

I've never fully actualized what is in my minds eye for quince, its one I will probably secure or buy again, someday. I'm still sure I can do something good with the existing natural habbit of contorted quince.

I think I'll shut up now, I've already outlined work for you to do over the next 30-40 years.

apples
Full Member
Posts: 14
Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: usdazone9

Guava have small fruit a leaves though I don't know how small you can make the leaves.
Iv had one in a 12" pot for years and it does very well,comes to fruit every year!

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Citrus especially the miniature citrus like kinzu makes a good bonsai that fruits.
Mango and Avocado do not take well to root pruning nor are their branches flexible enough to bend without snapping.



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