Starting a Rosemary Bonsai

[walawelo]

okay so I kept few sacrificial branches and many options open but I love the root flare going to mulch it with coco choir to keep it wet at the top for now and will wire and style once it recovers from repoting. I only racked a little on the top to expose root flare. I left all other roots intact without any racking or teasing.

 

[ABCarve]

You might find some info here. https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/the-rosemary-thread.13259/

 

[smilezzz]

Sorry guys, two didn't load. These were all potted just under a year ago.

You can see the massive root reduction from my first batch of pics. I think the secret is to wait for 2 conditions:

1. Roots must be pot bound
2. Wait until just before spring

Of course, it could all just be down to sheer dumb luck.

 

[Jure_v]

Absolutely! .....Nigel Saunders talks about it. I believe he has a playlist on rosemary.... he speaks DIRECTLY about the aforementioned phenomenon....

But this, also, will help.

View attachment 307429

In which book did you find those info?

Let me show my tree.
This is my rosemary unknown variety.
First i just put it in soil amd then realise it looks odd. Very thin long stem without brances so i decided to make groubd layer and it responded amazing. I am trying to make slanting tree.


EDIT: Some problems with uploading pics from phone

 

[HorseloverFat]

That is from “Growing Bonsai Indoors” from the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.. it is/was (?) available on Stone Lantern.

 

[Jure_v]

Thank you there seems to be a lot of good information

 

[HorseloverFat]

Thank you

Not a problem at all, friend.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

There are rumors that Rosemary plants are amongst the first Bonsai (Penzai) trees as foot traders in China would travel with the live herbs in small containers for multiple seasons...

This little "factoid" needs fact checking.
What is true is that bonsai may have originated with the traveling Taoist herbalists and shamans, carrying potted herbs. But there is NO EVIDENCE the herb was specifically Rosemary. Rosemary is not native to China, the scrolls mentioning the wandering herbalists predate contact with Mediterranean cultures. It is highly unlikely that the herbs the wandering herbalist shamans were carrying were anything other than species of plants native to greater China region and or possibly the Indian subcontinent. 4000 years ago there would not have been any Rosemary anywhere to be found in China. It is not a commonly used herb even today in the Traditional Chinese Medicine apothecary. Penjing was already a well developed art by the time Marco Polo visited China. Rosemary is strictly Mediterranean in its natural distribution. It simply would not have been known to the herbalists of the early Chinese history. Remember, the scrolls referencing herbalists date back to near 4000 years ago. At that time the Greeks and Romans were still just banging rocks together. Penjing, the Chinese ancestor to Japanese bonsai was already an art with hundreds if not a thousand years of history by the time Marco Polo arrived in China. There is debate if the Vietnamese were doing their version of Penjing, before the Chinese, or after the Chinese. Regardless, rosemary wasn't one of the "primary healing herbs" that would have been carried around at the time.

So true, wandering herbalists, shaman, healers were likely the original inspiration for Penjing, which a thousand years later became the inspiration for Japanese bonsai, that rosemary was part of the mix is highly unlikely.