drainey0
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Is Bonsai a plant or is Bonsai the art

is bonsai this art of making a small plant look like a old tree? Or is bonsai a plant? Like could I make a acorn turn into a bonsai or turn a oak cutting into a bonsai.

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I think it depends on what you put into it.
A pen in one set of hands creates art. In another pair of hands it creates a doodle.

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Gnome
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Bonsai is not a specific plant, many species can make convincing bonsai. Bonsai are just trees (or shrubs) that have been trained. Allowed to grow freely they would revert to their natural habit.

Not all plants, however, make equally good subjects. Plants with smaller leaves make better subjects in general.

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rainbowgardener
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Bonsai is the art. Almost any woody and relatively long lived plant can be treated as a bonsai, although some are much better adapted to it than others.

Yes there are oak tree bonsais as well as many other tree varieties.


Here's an image of an oak tree bonsai:

Image

Note the thickness of the trunk. The art of bonsai as you mentioned is in trying to make a small tree look like a minature version of a mature old tree. Having an actual trunk is an important part of that. There's a general guideline, that is not a hard and fast rule, but will give you an idea of what you would be trying for. The guideline says that the height of a finished bonsai should be about six times the diameter of the trunk at the base. Therefore if you want a 6" tall bonsai, you need to have a trunk an inch in diameter.

So trying to produce an oak tree bonsai by sprouting an acorn is a project that likely wouldn't be completed in your lifetime (unless you are a lot younger than I am :) ), since oak trees grow and put on diameter pretty slowly. If you can get a decent sized cutting to root and grow, that takes a few years off of that. If you can find a small, gnarly oak tree somewhere where it is ok for you to try digging it up and replanting it, that would take a few more years off.

Bonsai is a very slow, patient art. In the meantime, while you are working on growing yourself an oak tree with an actual trunk, you could buy yourself some faster growing shrub or tree, like at the end of season sales, or a pre-bonsai/ bonsai in training. These are trees that have been grown out a bit and have had there first shaping, but are still in large nursery pots. There are a number of websites that sell them for very reasonable prices. This would allow you to start practicing, learning some bonsai skills. And do a lot of reading! You could start with all the bonsai information here:
https://www.helpfulgardener.com/bonsai/

Best wishes.

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rainbowgardener
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Just so you can see what I mean:

You can find pre-bonsai trees

at wigerts: https://wigertsbonsai.com/store/index.ph ... x&cPath=66

at wee tree farm: https://www.weetree.com/bonsai-in-training/

tomc
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"Bon" = Tray (or shallow pot)
"Sai" = Tree.

This is what my memory tells me of what the characters mean. By practice bonsai is the training of a tree to appear to have great age.

The very rare tree grown from seed in a shallow pot is a creature of a single piece. And is often a century or more in the production.

Just about everybody else get their bonsai by pruning. Starting out most often with an attractive stump, and building from that.

The key horticultural blessings that make the tree you are training desirable for bonsai are: back-budding well, leaves and internodes that reduce, branches that will accept wiring, the vitality to heal over wounds.

Most often compound leaves won't reduce. Bloom and fruit also don't reduce. So a little lemon is going to be a better bet than a grapefruit. A Japan-maple is a better-bet than a sugar-maple. All that said I have seen chestnut and sugar maple trained as bonsai.

In short I think the answer you seek it bonsai is a horticultural practice, not a breed of tree.

drainey0
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do bonsai hold there form or do they always need the wire in place?

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applestar
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I'm curious -- is there somewhere you are going with these questions? Are you trying to decide something?

From what I've seen from just looking not doing myself -- since they are trees, the basic framework -- the bones -- once hardened will hold their form, but Bonsai is a living, fluid art as the tree grows. The skill seems to me is in the eyes that can see when the subject is "worthy" of being shown and vision and experience and technique to take it there by a certain time -- when they are to be entered in a show or display.

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Most of the bits that get wired (read weighted to look old), are part of top-pruning, and get done periodically. Generally wires stay on for a matter of months and will get done one year in three. The newly wired branches harden soon-ish. Changing the orientation of thicker-older branches, gets done with clamps. And has a lower chance of success.

Wire left on too long will cut into bark and leave disfiguring marks.

imafan26
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A potted plant or tree is not automatcally a bonsai. A hacked potted tree is definitely not a bonsai.

Bonsai are usually long lived trees and shrubs that have been carefully grown and trained to show off mostly the beauty and age of the trunk and branches. There is symmetry in its parts a branch to the right and then the left and then back. The tiers are in layers usually in a pyrimidal shape. Bonsai is an art that immitates nature. It is very respectful of nature.

Good bonsai look and sometimes are very old. They show the beauty of their age by the knarliness of the trunk, and bark that has been stripped to immitate lightening strikes. Trees are grown to look as though they have been clinging to the edge of a cliff windswept and struggling against gravity. Part of the beauty of the real trees has been their ability to withstand the stressors of time, and the elements (adversity of wind, erosion, and lightening.)

When a branch breaks in the wild, it does not have a clean sawn top or leave nibs. It is jagged and pointy and sometimes the bark strips off along with the branch. The wound would form a callus that would eventually heal over in time.

Bonsai is a form of topiary. Both art forms shape trees qnd shrubs. Topiary shapes trees and shrubs into geometric or whimsical forms that do no look anything like what a natural tree would do.



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