Styling a Fuji cherry Bonsai

In this video we styled a Prunus incisa of about 5 years old, bought in a Bonsai nursery for about 10 USD. The Fuji Cherry Bonsai tree is really a great species to work with, and it flowers in Spring!

Bonsai Empire is dedicated to share the living art of Bonsai – we created this video as a DIY tutorial to help and motivate beginners. The video is part of the online courses that we offer, for more free videos go to:
https://www.bonsaiempire.com/courses

Bonsai techniques explained:
– Pruning: https://www.bonsaiempire.com/basics/styling/pruning
– Tools: https://www.bonsaiempire.com/basics/general/tools
– Wiring: https://www.bonsaiempire.com/basics/styling/wiring
– Repotting: https://www.bonsaiempire.com/basics/bonsai-care/repotting
– Substrate: https://www.bonsaiempire.com/basics/bonsai-care/bonsai-soil
– Bonsai care: https://www.bonsaiempire.com/basics/bonsai-care

We like to thank:
Clingendael (Japanese garden) and Bob Ruitenbeek (Technical supervision).

Serious about growing your own Bonsai trees? Then consider enrolling in one of our online Bonsai Courses, taught by expert teachers. For the curriculums and free lectures, go to:
https://www.bonsaiempire.com/courses

These trees are prunus and sisa or the Fuji Cherry about five years old with a nice ramification already it was grown to be a bonsai tree but it hasn’t been styled yet so this kind of trees are worth around 10 15 quite cheap but really nice material to work with Thank you so the flower in early spring very beautiful but right now it’s full so you can see that the leaves are turning yellow and falling off I have two exactly the same trees about five years old but I’m doing two different things with them so one of them I placed in a

Larger pot because I wanted to grow a little bit more so in the next spring I’ll place it in a slightly bigger pot even and for at least a year we’ll just let it grow and and gain a bit girth thicker trunk more more branches so this

One is I want to put away for now but the other three were styling today I’m going to prune it and also add some wire on the branches to set them in in position and that’s all I’ll do today so I won’t touch the roots I’m not repotting it for

Example so only pruning and wiring in the next early spring I’ll put this in a small Bonsai container maybe do a bit more pruning and that’s all for the next year that I want to do with this with this tree all right so having studied the tree a little bit more

I think we’ll have to make a decision as to which main trunk line to keep because there’s now two trunks pretty much parallel and they’re too thick to really Bend away from each other so one of them will have to go and then the slightly thicker one has some more interesting lines

And this has some straight sections that I don’t really like so my decision would be is to remove this one completely and only keep this this main line and use these as a side branches for example so this one I’m going to prune away now a nice thick branch like that could make

For a really nice cutting for now by the way I’m leaving a stump perhaps later I’ll I’ll shorten it a little bit more but for now I’m just leaving that as a little storm it’s done but like I said a branch like this could make for a really nice cutting it’s it’s

A little bit thick but that said I think that’s fine so what I do is I cut off the lower branches and then at a slight angle remove that so since this is a rather big cutting I would actually dip this in in root hormone and then stick it in in some soil

If you take a thinner one like for example this section I think the success rate is so high that you don’t even need a rooting hormone at all okay so with the the second trunk removed we can really see the structure now so I’m thinking that

This will be more or less the front so the the side that you’re looking at and I might change the angle a little bit just to make sure that this straight section is not too noticeable so by changing the angles that have make making it look very straight we can

Already make it a little bit more interesting so that makes this Branch the first main directional branch the tree is growing that way so the first Branch I want to have in that way as well and then this will be the main uh the second second Branch growing in

The other direction this we can bend a little bit a good back Branch as well so a bit more pruning and then I’ll start putting some wire around these branches to be able to bend them Deciding on the design of a Bonsai isn’t always easy especially when a tree is as full and overgrown as this plant if you are interested to learn more about these techniques consider enrolling in one of our online Bonsai courses here expert teachers explain the relevant techniques and you can ask them questions

For a free lesson go to bonsaiempire.com courses foreign Try to select pairs of branches that are more or less of the same thickness and wire these with one piece of wire start with wiring the main branches and slowly work your way up the tree smaller and thinner branches need a thinner wire as well Foreign Foreign Six months after its initial styling the initial styling was basically the the pruning and wiring of the of the tree we did that in Fall so right now it’s early spring which is a good time to repot you can see that the butts are already starting to be activated you see some

Green here and there so it’s it’s uh definitely timed if you want to do the repotting to to go ahead now another time to do the repotting would be after the flowering so that’s that will be late spring or summer well late spring mostly but for now it’s okay I don’t

Care much about the flowering anyway so it’s uh it’s definitely safe to to repot now in terms of pots I have a few options I have a few more as well but two that I like is a more oval one which could be interesting for the tree it’s a

Little bit smaller and this is another option as well so I choose a a light glazed pot I think because it matches well with the with the flowers as well but before we decide on pots we’ll need to study the roots so I’ll take it out of the pot

And work out the soil so there seems to be planted mostly in organic soil which is fine for you know young trees and development but since this is to become a bonsai we’ll use a much more inorganic mixture of lava pumice um and akadama and this inorganic mixture mostly just

Really drains much better which is good for trees in small pots so the roots are in good condition not super great but it’s also because it’s quite wet and that’s that has a lot to do with the soil mixture so I think the tree will be much happier in the inorganic soil mixture Oh really next we prepare the pot by covering the drainage holes with a mesh we also attach two lung wires which will be used to Anchor the tree to the pot firmly we add a layer of soil before placing the tree into the pot place the tree slightly off center in

The pot and make sure to plant it at the right angle using the two long wires we firmly attach the tree to the pot the soil mixture we use is a blend of akadama lava rock and pumice you can read more about Bonsai soil on our website monsterimpire.com

Learn how to create your own bonsai trees by enrolling in one of our online Bonsai courses we explain techniques like pruning wiring and repotting and you can ask questions to the teachers for the curriculums and free lessons go to Bonsai empire.com courses foreign