Chapter 3 Bonsai Myths and Misunderstanding

Talking with people at bonsai events, I’m always surprised at some of the myths that surround this hobby/art form/socially acceptable obsession with trees. I’ve tried to dispel some of the most common ones below, and explore how they got started.

3.1 Bonsai trees are on the edge of survival at all times.

This myth (like many) is not accurate, but contains a kernel of truth. Keeping a tree healthy is the first priority of every stylist. Unhealthy trees do not respond well to training and tend to lose branches. We rely on vigorous growth to build the nebari, taper, and branching that makes a tree appear much larger and older. That said, woody trees and shrubs ARE harder to keep in containers than herbs ands houseplants because they are adapted to being in the ground. They have larger root systems that take up more of the container, leaving less spare soil to provide a buffer for over- and under-watering.

Large feeder root networks need the proper balance of water and nutrients. Too much water can promote root rot; too much fertilizer, excessive growth of the tree. Too little of either, and the tree overheats and starves.

That does not mean bonsai are on the edge of survival, just that they need more consistent attention than a lower-maintenance houseplant or succulent.

3.2 Bonsai are tortured or abused to keep them small.

This is not true. Bonsai stylists manage growth through root and top growth pruning techniques. Root pruning and training probably is the most important (of many) innovation that Japanese artists contributed to this art form. Penjing artists rarely pruned roots; when a tree outgrew a pot, it was moved to a larger size pot that was still appropriate for the school or style. Japanese artists perfected techniques for pruning roots that let a tree go back into the same pot it had been in.

Why does root pruning work? Trees use tiny feeder roots to take up water and nutrients. In a field–grown tree, these are concentrated near the tree’s drip line. Larger roots anchor the tree and conduct nutrients back to the trunk but do not actually take up nutrients.

The Japanese learned that pruning back the roots at the proper time stimulates many species of trees to form a network of feeder roots resembling those found beneath a clump of grass. Other pruning techniques will push the root mass out laterally from the trunk rather than downward. Popular bonsai species like Chinese elms and trident maples form feeder roots easily and tend to have shallower roots, which is partly why they are used widely. Other tree species are genetically programmed NOT to develop feeder roots readily or NOT to respond well to root pruning. American native dogwoods are a good example of trees that do not adapt to bonsai methods.

Once a tree has ample feeder roots close to the trunk it can thrive in a surprisingly small pot. In a well–maintained mature specimen, the nebari (spreading heavy roots at a tree’s base) may only extend a quarter inch below the soil line. Feeder roots fill the majority of the pot. These small roots can be pruned back routinely without harming the tree or even slowing its growth much.

3.3 The secret training methods take years of study to learn.

No, but there IS an interesting back story to this particular myth.

The basic principles of bonsai are pretty straightforward. A first year college biology course covers the physiological principles needed to understand how a tree responds to bonsai training. Bonsai growers use many of the same cultivation and pruning techniques and tools that commercial nurseries use to produce the stock trees sold in home improvement stores and garden centers. Learning basic repotting, pruning, and wiring skills takes a few hours or days. So our training methods cannot be THAT secret.

What takes time is learning how to bring all of these skills together to solve the problem of turning a stock tree into living art.

The myth of secret training methods comes partly from how bonsai masters historically trained students. From the 1300s to the 1950s, Japanese teachers did not provide structured classes. Students watched their teacher work, and absorbed mainly through observation. They might observe their teacher for a year or more before they would be allowed to complete even simple tasks such as removing weeds or clipping out damaged leaves. This approach took considerably longer than what we think of as bonsai training today.

The myth also comes in part from how bonsai was introduced in the West. In the mid-1700s, Dutch, Portuguese, English and other traders started bringing back stories about bonsai trees they saw while in Japan, but they did not know how they were created. The first known live bonsai or penjing in Europe arrived in 1806, and one live specimen may have been on display in London in 1842 as part of a tour by Nathan Dunn’s Chinese Collection from Philadelphia (which included paintings with dwarf trees.) The first confirmed exhibitions in the US were of dwarf Chinese plants in Brooklyn in 1868, and dwarf trees at the 1876 Philadelphia Exposition. Dwarf trees were display at the Paris Expositions in 1878 and 1889. These exhibitions were intentionally sensationalized by their promoters, building a mystique around the origins of the trees. Trees on display had their own dedicated caretakers that traveled with them from China or Japan, limiting how much western growers could learn. Exhibited trees usually wound up in wealthy US and European collectors’ hands, but the few books on the subject focused on keeping existing trees alive and healthy. If a western owner of one of these early specimens figured out how the tree was created, it is doubtful they would have wanted to share that information, since it would lessen the prestige of their own specimen(s).

3.4 All bonsai trees are ancient.

Some very prestigious trees ARE quite old. For example, the oldest known bonsai in training (the Crespi ficus) is over 1000 years old. The Yamaki pine bonsai (which survived the atomic blast at Hiroshima) is approaching its 400th year in training. There are quite a few trees in the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum in Washington and other major collections that have been in training for 100+ years.

Most enthusiasts (including me) do not own such trees. Having trees of great age is not the goal though; rather, the goal is to create the ILLUSION of age. Ask most stylists how old a tree is, and they tend to say how long it has been in training, not the tree’s actual age. This is probably because they do not know its actual age.

Speaking VERY generally, the average bonsai being shown by the average hobbyist probably is somewhere between 8 and 35 years old. A typical enthusiast works on trees that were purchased from a commercial nursery, a bonsai nursery, were field collected, or were grown from seed. Standard commercial stock trees are sold at 3-10 years of age, with an occasional starter tree up to 15 years old. Styling time varies greatly, but most enthusiasts’ trees have been trained 5-20 years before they are displayed publicly. Pre-bonsai trees from a specialty nursery will not require as many years of training by the final owner, but the total number of years spent on growing and training overall is probably similar to standard nursery stock.

Estimating the age of a field collected tree is harder because the rates of growth vary greatly between species. A very large pine might be only 10 years old when it is collected, while a smaller oak could be several decades old.

Very young trees can be trained to produce very old-looking bonsai. One example I know firsthand is a delightful 10-inch Japanese maple bonsai that looks like a weather-scarred old maple from the mountains. Its creator bundled together over a dozen 4-year old seedlings until their trunks fused. The individual trunks form radiating buttress roots, then re-emerge at different levels as the branches. Total training time required to create this piece was about 5 years, or 9 years from when the seeds were sown to a show-worthy tree. The fused maple seedlings are an extreme example of what a stylist can accomplish in a short time.

There even are artists working entirely with chrysanthemums; their final show pieces are rarely more than a few years old.

3.5 Bonsai’s techniques are handed down from ancient masters.

It depends on your definition of “ancient”: decades or centuries. Much of what we think of as “traditional” bonsai was introduced within the last 200 years.

• The five “classical” bonsai styles were first codified and described around 1805 by a group of Chinese arts scholars in Itami, Hyōgo (near Osaka). They introduced the term bonsai, and established aesthetic ideals and rules of composition based on the 1748 Japanese edition of the Chinese art book Jieziyuan Huazhuan (Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden). The Itami scholars also promoted use of shallow containers rather than penjing’s deeper pots.

• In 1829, the book Sōmoku Kin’yō-shū (A Colorful Collection of Trees and Plants/Collection of Tree Leaves) was published. It includes a detailed description of the basic criteria for an ideal classical pine bonsai, with illustrations. Kinsei-Jufu, the first book describing bonsai tools and pots, was published in 1833.

• Mechanical shaping techniques started to appear in the late 1860s. Initially trees were tied with hemp fiber. Wiring techniques were first described in 1910 in the book Sanyu-en Bonsai-Dan (History of Bonsai in the Sanyu Nursery). Zinc-galvanized steel wire was initially used on most trees; copper wire was saved for more valuable trees. Copper wire mostly replaced steel by the 1920s. Now trees could be bent to a specific shape then sold immediately rather than waiting for branch shapes to set or for new branches to grow.

Classical bonsai styles and aesthetics are more the result of a convergence of popular tastes, commercial demands, and historical events, not received ancient wisdom. Bonsai is not static either; it continues to grow and change. Practitioners learn from each other, by observing trees in nature, and by watching artists who have more experience. Enthusiasts are constantly sharing new ideas and looking for new cultivation and styling methods that they can add to their toolbox.

Ironically, were it not for World War II, bonsai might have remained a strictly Japanese art form, or perhaps even died out. Three events were key to its survival.

• Post-World War II conditions in Japan were the impetus for master Toshio Kawamoto to develop saikei, a subdiscipline of bonsai. So many nurseries had been destroyed in the war that there was no specimen–quality material available. Saikei scenes could be created with very young trees, which helped keep the art alive until stocks were rebuilt.
• About the same time, the young Japanese master Yuji Yoshimura realized his art would die out if artists continued to follow the old teaching style of quiet observation over years. He examined old masterpieces, and codified the major styles, and placement and proportion rules. He (and other masters) eventually moved to the US, and became a major figure in bridging the cultural divide to ensure bonsai took hold worldwide.
• As people in the US and Europe embraced the art, they began developing new styles and techniques that the Japanese and Chinese had never used. Like artists before them, US practitioners also experimented with North American natives and species in the horticultural trade that were not traditionally used for bonsai. For example, oaks were almost unknown as bonsai prior to coming to the US, but many of the native oaks of California proved very well suited to bonsai. Having more species that could be adapted to bonsai made the art form accessible to more people. Enthusiasts adopted other North American natives too, including bald cypress, American hornbeam, Arizona cypress, and American hackberry.

3.6 Bonsai are special dwarf tree varieties.

Sometimes, but not always. There are some species that are smaller naturally, including snow rose (Serissa), and dwarf schefflera. Most of the popular species (ex. trident and Japanese maples, Chinese elms, hornbeams, most pines) readily grow to full size trees if they are removed from their containers and planted in open ground. Case in point: I grow most of my trident maple tree stock from seed I collect from a full-size street tree on the WFU campus grounds.

Some species do have specific cultivars that are much smaller than is typical for the species. These cultivars will not grow to the same size as non-dwarf cultivars of that species. Examples of dwarf selections include junipers (J. p. ‘Nana’), Chinese elms (‘Jaquelyn Hiller,’ ‘Seiju’), Japanese maples (‘Yatsubusa,’ ‘Kashima’), boxwoods (‘Kingsville’), and ficus (‘Kiki’).

3.7 Bonsai should be kept indoors.

Only if you want to kill them. Most bonsai are temperate species like maples, hornbeams, oaks, pines, junipers, and elms. All of these species need seasonal variation, including a dormant period in winter. Without dormancy, temperate trees will die. Some tropical species of bonsai can survive year round indoors, but even they like to be outdoors in summer. Our mid-summer heat and humidity are ideal for tropicals like ficus, citrus, and Fukien tea.

3.8 At some point a bonsai is finished.

No. A bonsai tree continues growing and changing each year. It needs to be repotted, pruned back, or thinned out to maintain branch health. Or, a branch dies and must be rebuilt. No tree is ever really finished.

3.9 It is an expensive art to learn.

Not unless you want to make it expensive. A good set of starting tools can be assembled for about $35. Chapter ___ specifically looks at how novices can try out bonsai with minimal investment.

3.9.1 Novices should start out small and work up to big trees.

This myth has some truth, but not for the reasons most people think. Smaller nursery stock is less expensive, so requires less investment. However, I personally think bigger trees are better when starting out. Smaller trees do not tolerate mistakes well. They have fewer reserve nutrients and smaller containers, so will die more quickly than larger trees.

If cost and availability were not barriers, I would teach introductory classes and workshops using 3-gallon nursery stock, ideally with a base caliper of at least 1 inch.