young ivy bonsai

[Sym]

comments and suggestions welcome

image by Sym.da.trainer, on Flickr

image by Sym.da.trainer, on Flickr

[tomc]

Sym, are the rocks glued on? If yes they will need to come off.

Ivy wants to vine. Your job will be to pinch out the growing tip(s). The closer you keep up with that, the quicker it will attain a vase shape, and look more like a tree.

[Sym]

Na the rock are just sitting on top. So do I just pinch the end or top that's attempting to vine??

[tomc]

The growing tip ends on Ivy look rather like your first two fingers held up. I would leave the larger leaf and pinch out the smaller leaf with its growing curled tip.

The more you keep cutting back that growth hormone laden tip, the more tips the ivy will make to try and go back to its preffered growing pattern.

Because your loading up on trees, some of which will be decades away from bonsai training, IMO a busy tree like your ivy should get you into the habbit of picking up and fiddling with your trees daily.

[Sym]

Thanks Tomc.