new bonsai question ??

[petunialover]

I have two 1 year old black walnut trees in small pots, Are they bonsaiable? Also a blue spruce, can any or all be made into bonsai trees?
I should mention that my plants are volunteers and after reading everyone's posts I see I should have bought an already started one, rather than dig them up from the ground. But my Black walnuts are a year old in pots, not in the ground, the blue spruce was a slip in a Christmas card that I planted in a small pot.
I also have my lovely year old Rosemary that I'm 'training' to be beautiful. Actually it's doing That itself.

TIA
pl

[The Helpful Gardener]

Hey Tia,

You can turn most any tree into a bonsai; the trick is to know the usual habit of the tree and look for a style to fit it. Individual trees have individual traits, so there is latitude here, but all in all, a little homework might be in order. F'rinstance, I wouldn't try to do those walnuts as cascade styles; it wouldn't suit the growth habit. Check the bonsai pages to see more on styling...

I buy very few "started" bonsai and prefer to style them myself from nursery stock or pre-bonsai starters; cheaper and it gives you far more control over the finished product, so nope, you didn't do anything wrong.

Start getting those trees into shallower pots; I find that simply cutting the tops down on plastic nursery pots helps expose roots early and sets your soil level for years to come, so that's a good start. And I've seen some lovely rosemary bonsai, so have fun with that...

Remember that slow and easy are the by-words for this art and it's easy to do more later and impossible to undo cuts and pruning, so gradual change is best...

Scott

[petunialover]

Thanks so much, Where do I find the pictures of these styles? I can imitate anything I believe from a picture, black walnuts tend to be very tall and stately...

Pl

[The Helpful Gardener]

Yep, they sure are, so an upright style. Formal upright would be good, but it has the most rules of any style to do it right, so not a good style for beginners, but...

The link below takes you to our bonsai index, on which you will find a link to Bonsai Societies of Florida. My old friend Tom Zane has graciously allowed people to make copies of his Intermediate Bonsai Course handout, and I would definitely download that to learn more than I could teach you from one of the best teachers in the country. Good stuff...

[url]https://www.helpfulgardener.com/bonsai/index.html[/url]

[petunialover]

Thank you so much, I'm not really a beginner, I've bonsaied a few other plants, hahaha, including coleus....

PL

[The Helpful Gardener]

Tom's syllabus is definitely intermediate, so I expect you'll find a few things you didn't know (like the rules for formal uprights...)

Scott