Subject: Re: [nafex] bonsai apples
At 11:02 AM 02/01/2001 +0000, Mike Tomlinson wrote:
>where can
I get information as to how to bonsai apple trees? What
>type of
rootstocks should I use and will it work? thanks
Mike,
Mike:
The art of growing miniaturized "full size" trees is
called
"Bonkei" for outdoor landscapes, Bonsai pronounced bone-ceye
is the indoor culture.
Almost anything can be Bonsaied. What you are basically
trying to acomplish is maintaining a root ball within a
pot
and topworking the growth to shape and conform the growth
to
a particular pattern or shape. By keeping the roots
trimmed
on a regular basis you can successfully grow almost
anything
indoors or out. A lot of Bonkei is bagged with burlap
(Root
ball) and allowed to rot down signaling time for a root
trim
and rebagging when the crown starts to bolt. There are so
many
techniques for so many specie it's impossible to go into.
One trick is to take your hole for your target (Apple tree)
&
build a 5 walled receptacle out of concrete or some heavy
duty
plastic (allowing for drainage) making the receptacle 1/3
larger
than the rootball. This restricts the roots from taking off
and
allows you to train the growth and help the tree to get
settled
into growing stunted. The key is to keep the taproot snipped
or
tied and you can restrict a lot of growth but you will have
to
unearth the tree every so often to monitor what is going on
depending on what genus it is. If you start with saplings
then
it will be easier to keep them in check with a minimum of
labor.