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Bonsai Tree Care - A Bonsai Restyle

By Thomas J.

One of the most fun things about bonsai to me, is to do a restyle on a tree that seems to have no hope or future. To give it new life, by changing its appearence, is as about as exciting as it gets in the art of bonsai. Many people will just throw in the towel and say the heck with this one. What I would like you to do from this article, is to look over some of your trees that you lost interest in, and see if you can do something special to any of them by reconsidering a new restyle on them. You may find something special in some of them as I did in this one, and it may become one of your favorite trees for that reason.

The format on this article will be a little different than I usually do. I won't be doing the talking here, instead my specimen will be, in sort of a non-fiction type story. I hope you like it, and I hope it will inspire you to do at least one restyle.

From Whence We Came
A bonsai restyle

Hi,

We're what's known as a Japanese Nire Elm group. We began our humble life together back somewhere in California many many moons ago. Sometime around 1990 or 1991 we were shipped off to Texas to be sold as a bonsai forest at this lonely garden center nursery. I guess you could say we were taken pretty good care of there. I mean check out that mound of moss we had going there to keep our feet cool. People couldn't believe that it was real, and oh how they loved to touch it. Yes those were the good old days boy, but life goes on, and we were finally sold to this guy who was just starting his new found joy in life with bonsai.

I guess you could say by judging from this picture taken about nine years later, that we were well taken care of, and maybe that's an under statement. He made sure we were well fed and our thirsts really quenched from that blazing Texas heat. We were pretty much content most of the time, but there were also times when we got pretty frustrated because of the way we looked. I mean come on, nine years into this and he aint got a plan yet?

Needless to say we felt a little top heavy at times.

We sure liked it when Fall and Winter finally got here so we could finally shed some of that weight off, but my god, look it how ragged out we looked. Even though we were well taken care of, we felt neglected. As his collection grew and his interests in other species along with his advancements in his styling, we were literally pushed aside. Why couldn't he try something new on us?

Finally one day after noticing us just sitting on the ground away from the rest of the trees that were on nice benches, he decided to do something with us. He looked inside through the mass of foliage we had at the time, and saw that a good portion of our inside was filled with dieback and scale.

He finally admitted to himself that he just about blew it with us. Without having a plan, he just started cutting and chopping away at us. I guess he realized that he would have to bite the bullet on all those years of growing us, and start over.

He did have one thing going for him though, he does know how to do a restyle with almost miracelous results. We were confident that when he was through with us, that even we wouldn't recognize ourselves, and that we too would find a place on one of his benches along with his other fine specimens.

Well what do you think? I told you we wouldn't look the same. This was taken after our first wiring and shaping, and repotting into a new Tokoname pot.

Here's another shot of us as we're loving our new look.

For some reason he just won't leave us alone now. He's constantly trimming and nipping new buds where they don't belong. I think we've become one of his favorites now rather than the old neglected forest that we used to be.