Getting started with a sapling

[Winterfrost]

Hi

I have just uprooted an oak and a sweet chestnut that have self seeded in my allotment, and rather than add to compost we have put in pots. My 10 year old and I have decided to try and bonsai them (she has chosen the sweet chestnut, so I have the oak). They are single stem, about 8” tall, the oak has 6 leaves, the sweet chestnut 4 and they still have their seed attached. It therefore seems they germinated this spring. At the moment they are in wide, shallow ish pots that I had spare but I’ve ordered bonsai pots.

Questions:
- would you leave them to get over the shock of their initial uprooting before moving them to a bonsai pot or do asap?
- their tap root is already deeper than a bonsai pot. Do I plant tree in a bonsai pot with it bent or trim?
- is it right we would then leave for 2-3 years before doing anything else?

It’s a little friendly competition and an education exercise with my daughter, if it doesn’t work, nothing lost!

 

[AshleyMammal]

Hi, welcome to the forum!

I'd leave them in the pots they're currently in - it's the wrong time of year for digging up/repotting but as they're so young they should be ok. let them grow, learn how to properly water and feed them. Ideally, they'd be best off in the ground for another 5 years or so until the base of the trunk gets to the diameter you want. Both of the species work best as bigger bonsai so you'll be waiting a while!

However, as it's just a bit of fun, you could have a go at wiring them into a shape you like now whilst they're still so young. I still wouldn't repot into a small bonsai pot for a couple of years though.

In the meantime, for cheap/quick entries in bonsai, check out local garden centres for regular old cotoneaster shrubs and chinese junipers (just please don't buy anything they're selling as a "bonsai"!). Also worth getting a few cheap bare rooted japanese larch next winter for fun bending. Last winter I bought myself and a friend of mine a £8 cotoneaster each as a bit of friendly competition, they were cut back hard and repotted in spring and are now beginning to look like 'proper' bonsai.

 

[gooeytek]

And this is how it starts...

 

[rockm]

Hi

I have just uprooted an oak and a sweet chestnut that have self seeded in my allotment, and rather than add to compost we have put in pots. My 10 year old and I have decided to try and bonsai them (she has chosen the sweet chestnut, so I have the oak). They are single stem, about 8” tall, the oak has 6 leaves, the sweet chestnut 4 and they still have their seed attached. It therefore seems they germinated this spring. At the moment they are in wide, shallow ish pots that I had spare but I’ve ordered bonsai pots.

Questions:
- would you leave them to get over the shock of their initial uprooting before moving them to a bonsai pot or do asap?
- their tap root is already deeper than a bonsai pot. Do I plant tree in a bonsai pot with it bent or trim?
- is it right we would then leave for 2-3 years before doing anything else?

It’s a little friendly competition and an education exercise with my daughter, if it doesn’t work, nothing lost!

Welcome! Getting to understand bonsai can take some readjustment of popular ideas of what they are and how they're developed.

First--FWIW, small bonsai generally don't grow up into big bonsai. Big bonsai with substantial trunks are typically "cut down" from larger trees where the top branching is re-grown. Growing from seed is the longest path to a final bonsai

A foundation fact for bonsai is that once containerized, the tree's growth is greatly restricted. Seedlings of the size you have are not really bonsai material, per se. They're candidates for sure, but they have a considerable path to follow before they're ready for bonsai culture. The first step is to develop the trunk. Depending on what you're after (there are several "finished" sizes for bonsai, from mame--only a few inches tall, to trees that take four people to lift them) The "final" size (bonsai are never really finished, since they continue to grow), depends largely on the size of the initial trunk you're working with--anything above the first six to ten inches of trunk is largely expendable over time. The initial six to ten inches of the trunk is crucial for the final image you're after. It is the foundation on which everything else is built. That can be particularly true of oaks. Trunk development can take a decade in a container to get something impressive. A few years of unrestricted growth in a container may get you a trunk that might be able to hold up the leaves on an oak or chestnut. A smaller bonsai pot will slow that even further. Tap roots should be shortened before containerization--it's too late to do anything about that since root work is done in early spring before leaves emerge.


So now you're working with seedlings that need a lot of growth to be of much use for now at least. They need to simply grow and expand, get substantial, strong root systems developed that can fuel further development. The "final" diameter of the trunk depends on what you want to do. Also, small trees require more attention and care than relatively larger ones--soil mass, foliage load, etc. become more crucial as containers get smaller--small pots with their small soil mass dry out faster and can be more vulnerable to weather. Both your trees should be outside their entire lives. Bringing them inside with lead to slow deaths for both. They will have to be overwintered which can be done by mulching them into a garden bed once leaves drop in the autumn.