how long does it take a bonsai tree to grow

 How long does it take to make a bonsai?

It is said that bonsai is a school of patience because it takes a long time to train them. But how much is it? After how long can we expect to have transformed a tree into a bonsai? Back to the definition of a bonsai, it is an iterative process that we repeat every year on a cyclical basis with the intention of getting closer and closer to a certain desired result. The total number of years will depend on your ability to apply the right techniques at the right time, but above all on the distance to be covered between the starting tree and the final project.

how long does it take a bonsai tree to grow

It all depends on the starting material

We may think that making a bonsai with an old tree is faster than with a nursery plant or even a seed or cutting. Yes, to a certain extent, but neither should immediate bonsai be believed to be a reality. There will always be an incomprehensible phase of refinement, regardless of the starting material.

Bonsai from seedling or cutting

The small seed or cutting allows you to think about forming a bonsai from the start. So, making a bonsai from seedlings will take you at least 15 years. Provided that during this period you have cultivated correctly and applied the right techniques.

Make a bonsai from seedlings. Many believe that to create a bonsai, you have to start from seed. This is one of the many possibilities available to us, and it is not the easiest.

The nursery plant

If you start from a nursery tree, you are bound to gain those few years of cultivation that the grower will have done for you. So choose a tree with a trunk that is already the right size, rather than a small plant that you will need to grow. try

The difficulty is choosing the right tree because all the ones you will see were grown to be planted in a garden, but not to create a bonsai. You will often have to look at dozens of them before you find one that qualifies. Look first to see the base of the tree, the spreading of its roots, eliminate all the trees which have big defects. Then look for a trunk line, the tree in the tree.

Once the structure size and shaping are done, count at least 5 years of good care before you can talk about bonsai. The branches will have to branch out, some will certainly have to grow to be in accordance with the general aesthetics of the tree. And so that the bonsai has the level to be presented in the exhibition, add another 5 more years, which brings the total to 10!

Sampling

One of the solutions to make a bonsai faster is to take an old tree from the wild and put it in a pot. The interest is to take advantage of the qualities of a tree that nature has formed. We are looking for movement, a beautiful bark, and that little something that nature has inimitable.

Avoid taking a tree for which you could find the equivalent in the nursery. There is no point in taking a stake so the trunk is only a few centimeters in diameter. Favor trees of character.

Make a bonsai from yamadori, taken from nature wilderness has this ability to create trees with extraordinary shapes that attract bonsais lovers.

But is making a bonsai with a yamadori really faster? Let us take the example of a pine, once collected it will have to spend at least 3 years in order to recover and acclimatize. Then comes the first shaping, which defines the lines of what will one day become a bonsai. The trays seem a little empty, they are only sketched, they must be densified. It will take at least 5 years of pruning and pinching to get there.

When removing a hardwood, it is possible to work it more quickly, the recovery phase is shorter. But often a lot of branches are cut because they cannot be tied and shaped like on a pine whose wood is softer. With a leafy tree, you will have to rebuild branches and branch them out. Count at least 5 years

By embarking on bonsai, you will take at least 10 years!

Finally, we realize that starting from a nursery plant or a tree taken from the wild does not allow us to create an immediate bonsai. It is about a rough outline, which one tries to transform little by little into bonsai. Even a yamadori can't go that fast, it just lets you start from a tree with a lot of character.

A beautiful bonsai is very often 10 years of work. Pinching, pruning, repotting, tying, and of course watering and fertilizing. This is the time required for a job well done.

The worst thing is that the closer we think we are, the further it seems to us. The more we erase the traces of human intervention or the scars, the more we get a finer branching, and the more we see other things to improve. A bonsai is never finished, it is always evolving.

When you realize that you have been working on a tree for 10 years, you realize that you will take it forever!