growing mediums

For as many bonsai enthusiasts you speak with you will get an equal number of bonsai growing medium recipes. Each enthusiast believes their medium is best, and perhaps it is - for them. This article is about growing mediums, with a focus on the role each individual component plays equipping you with the information needed to mix your own ultimate growing medium.

Watering is an area of our art which I think is assumed you will intuitively grasp, after all it simply involves getting water into a container with a live plant in it! In reality though it is actually a rather complex technique which just like wiring and styling needs to be practiced and mastered. I have heard it said that it can easily take a full time apprentice 3 years to grasp the essentials, so how much longer will it take you and I as amateur enthusiasts? This is why I have entitled this post the ART of watering.

In this first part of this two part series I wrote about 5 things you SHOULD be doing with your bonsai in Autumn. In this the second part, I write about 5 things you should NOT do.

Every season, we need to be aware of what tasks are required on or around our bonsai trees. Here are 5 simple tips to ensure you get the basics covered.

Unlike deciduous trees, when we repot evergreens, or in this case an old Japanese Red Pine, we need to treat the roots with a little more respect. We cannot remove as much of the rootball neither can we wash the old soil off. In this post I will show you how to safely repot a pine tree using plenty of photos and accompanying descriptions.

This is the last in the blog series on repotting bonsai trees. In this post we will go through the steps of repotting your tree. Using a series of images with accompanied explanations and tips mixed into the mix, you should be able to repot your tree with confidence.

In this the first part of a 3 part blog series on repotting we cover the basic of repotting. We discuss the reasons why it is necessary to repot bonsai trees, the signs to look out for when repotting is needed and briefly discuss how often it is necessary to perform repotting on a tree. No discussion about repotting would be complete without some comment on growing mediums so we will briefly discuss the different groups of mediums with specific reference to some recommended products.