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Bonsai

Growing A Brush Cherry Bonsai In Your Garden

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The Brush Cherry can add wonderful color as well as interest to your garden. This evergreen shrub will enhance your gardening efforts by yielding puffy white flowers along with round berries all in contrast with it’s glossy leaves which can have a lovely red tint.

The Brush Cherry Bonsai is an evergreen shrub that loves a warm climate like that of it’s native Florida. They do grow best outdoors, but if you live in a cold climate and simply must have one, you can try growing one indoors provided that you can give it enough light. This shrub can grow to upwards of 35 feet in it’s natural state, but will reach a height of about 14″ as a Bonsai.

If you are thinking about planing a Brush Cherry in your garden, be sure that the winters will be mild. The tree does fine in hot weather but ideally should be grown in temperatures ranging from 46 to 68 degrees.

Plant your Brush Cherry Bonsai in a slightly acidic soil and be sure it gets plenty of water in summer months, but don’t over water it. You should give it enough so that the soil is moist, but not so much that there is standing water in the pot. Let the soil dry between waterings. Bonsais love humidity so you might want to mist your plant and use a humidity tray. The bonsai should be set on top of the humidity tray so that it collects water that drains from the freshly watered bonsai.

Fertilize your Brush Cherry Bonsai every two weeks during the summer and a couple of times over the winter. The best type of fertilizer to use is an organic liquid fertilizer such as a seaweed fertilizer or fish emulsion. If you use a chemical fertilizer make sure you dilute it to half strength.

Pruning should be done with care and kept to the summer months. Pinch the leaves with your fingers and try not to use sharp objects like sheers on your Bonsai. Your Bonsai should be wired during the active growing season. Don’t forget to prune the roots as well, the Brush Cherry can survive quite well even with a two thirds loss of roots so you can be a bit aggressive in this task, however you want to be sure not to prune them too much when repotting as this can cause a negative reaction.

Bonsais should be repotted every two years, and the Brush Cherry is no exception. Repotting should be done in early spring and the plant should be watered thoroughly and kept in the shade for several weeks after repotting to help the roots grow into the new pot.

Although it is fairly hardy, pests can be a problem with the Brush Cherry especially the Caribbean fruit fly, aphids, red spider mites, meal bugs, and scales. You should treat your Bonsai with organic pesticides and insecticides and be sure to inspect it regularly for pests and other disease.

To add the finishing touch to your beautiful Brush Cherry Bonsai, think about adding moss to the pot which will help improve moisture retention as well as add to the beauty of this fun garden plant.

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Bonsai

Bonsai – The Journey East To West

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Since its beginnings in China, during the Han Dynasty over two thousand years ago, the art of growing miniature trees in containers, bonsai, has had an interesting history. Initially, penjing – as it is called in China, was considered too spiritual for the common folk and only nobles were permitted to own one. During the 14th century, the Chinese invaded Japan and brought with them many aspects of Chinese culture, including religion, calligraphy and penjing. Even today, the Japanese characters for bonsai remain the same in Chinese.

The Japanese developed and refined this art form, still remaining the privilege of the nobles. When they began to lose interest, the art form almost died out completely and was only practiced by a few people. Bonsai rose in popularity, but with the leaning towards coloured flowers and variegated leaves. The development of bonsai as we know it really began during the last century.

Although Westerners had encountered bonsai on their travels in the Far East, and a few had even written articles about them, it wasn’t until the end of WW2 that the hobby really began to catch on in the United States. GI’s returning from Japan brought with them small samples of these fascinating trees.

Many of them only survived for a short time, but there were enough people curious about bonsai to try to find out how to care for them correctly. The large Japanese-American population in the United States was the major source of information and encouragement, and for many years their knowledge and skills were in demand.

Today bonsai has become a household word. Small cuttings planted in shallow pots are sold as bonsai in department stores, garden nurseries, open air markets and even at gas stations. These are not true bonsai such as produced by artists in Western countries as well as Japan, but they are a start. They at least introduce newcomers to the idea of growing a miniaturized tree in a pot. It is then up to the individual to read books, join clubs and meet other bonsai enthusiasts in order to learn and improve their skills.

As your knowledge and enthusiasm grows, you will surely become more ambitious and begin to create your own bonsai from native plants. You will find the art of bonsai a hugely absorbing and satisfying pastime that will give years of pleasure.

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