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Bonsai trees
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"Ahhh, Daniel son, Mr Miyagi will teach you well on this. "  | |||
"Ahhh, Daniel son, Mr Miyagi will teach you well on this. "  | |||
"The young Japanese maples, acer japonica, are fairly small trees naturally and good for bonsai, imo. You can buy fairly cheap seedlings, such as morrisons which have them for £2.50 ish now, on offer. The key thing is to restrain their roots, which will dwarf their above ground growth. Whilst they may be in a small pot now, you could reduce the size somewhat, and trim roots. Over time they will outgrow their pots, but you can repeat root restriction. This is a hardy tree, so not suitable for spending much time indoors. If it did, it would not really get sufficient light, weakening it. For potting mix, Id either mix my own to a John Innes no 3, or buy ready made. This will have fairly good drainage. You can train their shape with something like florist wire. It is best to do this progressively in smaller steps, so that it does not stress the plant too much. Dont over feed your plant too much, else you could get excessive growth, that may then need more pruning than you would overwise. You can pinch them out or prune to help them grow as you wish, or just let your tree develop the shape it wishes naturally. Hope this helps and please message if youd like more ideas and info. Good luck! " Thank you. I'm considering buying one as a gift for someone who generally has green fingers but it would have emotional significance for him, so it would be a really bad thing if he killed it. On one hand it would mean a lot but on the other, if anything went wrong it would really upset him. | |||
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" How easy is it to kill the trees? I'm interested in a red maple of some description." Are you on a mad tree murdering mission missus  | |||
" How easy is it to kill the trees? I'm interested in a red maple of some description. Are you on a mad tree murdering mission missus "Noooo. I'm trying to find out if it's likely that an inexperienced bonsai owner will kill their first tree. I don't want to buy one as a gift if there's a good chance it'll die and the recipient will be really upset. | |||
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"If kept outdoors and given their natural growth requirements - light, temperature, water as well as nutrients which can come from their growing medium, then they should be hard to kill. If a uk hardy tree is kept too long inside it could become weakened and then prone to infection or infestation - but those could be treated. In smaller pots, plants that are as good as pot bound can fairly easily dry out - that is probably the biggest risk. You can set them upon mats that allow water to soak up into the pots though. The red Japanese acers are beautiful trees and I can thorougjy recommend using them for bonsai. " Thank you. I've saved all this for future reference. | |||
