HoneyBerry
Greener Thumb
Posts: 1216
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 1:10 pm
Location: Zone 8A Western Washington State

Accidental Bonsai

I bought a small tree on impulse from the garden store “Little Gems” shelf. I thought that it would grow to be a small tree. Well, it certainly is that. But it is much smaller than what I had envisioned. It is over 10 years old now and is only 9 inches tall. It is a small variety of Korean Fir. Very cute little outdoor tree.
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TreesEasey
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Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:07 pm
Location: Detroit

Most slow growing stock is grafted on cheaper varieties of stock to bring it to market sooner. Since most are sold as landscaping material, it doesn't matter. Grafting makes it unsuitable for bonsai because the 1st couple inches where the graft is almost always is ugly. There can be several factors for slow growth, if two occur at the same time the results can be poor or too little growth to survive. If your plant was growing in Minnesota, it wouldn't be 10 years old.

(Possible) Factors: 1. Genetic disposition of dwarf scion. 2. Root stock incompatibility (as in poor choice of species); ~slow growing grafted on poor growing. [This can be due to the fact that the most common choice of understock being too strong-growing, causing suckering if the scion grows too slow.] 3. Poor or miss-matched graft position; pathway from roots to scion too small to support growth expected in one season. 4. Poor site selection (this is a full sun variety), or site soil may have a problem from wrong pH to one or many micro-elements missing.

I leave to your imagination the effects of any two of these factors being present.



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