A Shohin bonsai Sageretia or Chinese Sweet Plum

First of all let me explain the word shohin. The word shohin is a Japanese word meaning a tiny-thing or something very small. But then what really is a tiny thing or something very small in the terms of a bonsai?

To tell you the truth nearly any bonsai material can be trained to be a tiny thing or in the shohin method and in nearly any style or shape that you wish to attain.

But if you were to follow the rules of shohin then your plant no mater what material it is will be no more then 25 centimeters or 10 inches and this height should be measured from the rim of the pot to the top of the tree.

The plant and pot should be easily held in the palm of your hand and not be more than the limit in height of 10 inches. It would be rather hard to express the feeling of a shohin bonsai or tiny thing if the limits were to exceed this.

Other than the basic size differences shohin are really no different than regular sized bonsai. However they are really different in the aspects of care.

Since these tiny plants will dry out much faster than your regular bonsai then it would be safe to say that you must really be on top of the watering of these bonsai.

Also the plants over all size and pot will make it very prone to getting blown over really easy if not protected in your garden. Make sure you keep these tiny beauties protected at all times from high winds and most certainly from full direct sunlight.

They would most assuredly burn a lot faster than any other plant due to there shear size. Feeding is also on a much smaller scale for these types of bonsai.

Pruning, pinching, cutting and wiring of course will also be on a much smaller scale.

A good tip for anyone wanting to grow tropical sohin type bonsai would be to try and keep your tiny plants on a large humidity tray and keep the tray filled with very small sized pea gravel.

Fill the humidity tray with water and set the shohin bonsai right down into the gravel and they will then tend to draw up humidity and moisture as they need it from the tray.

Showing these little beauties can really be fun also especially once you have a few in your collection that are different types and styles.

One of the materials that I choose about five years ago for a shohin bonsai was the The Sageretia or Chinese sweet plum this material is a very good choice for bonsai and can be fairly easy for the beginner to start and work with.

Let me tell you about what I know from the experience of growing and training a few of these wonderful plants so far.

Fist of all the material is very brittle and there for does not respond well to wiring as you would expect in the traditional style of Japanese bonsai but it will work out rather nicely as Penjing bonsai in the Chinese tradition of clip and grow.

They tend to wilt really fast so a real vigilante plan of attack for watering is an absolute must for this plant. The tree will enjoy moist soil nearly all of the time and certainly will die very fast if left to dry out for any period of time.

The tree will do very well outdoors during the warmer months and will even survive outdoors in the winter depending on where you are located.

You’ll want to feed you Sageretia with a slightly acid type fertilizer and of course feed through the entire season about every 10 to fifteen days from early April to September.

Unless you want your tree to really grow fast then it would only be necessary to repot your tree when it becomes root bound in its pot.

When you see the growth really slow or roots pushing out of the bottom of the pot then this would be a sign that you may need to repot.

Be especially careful to keep the roots most at all times when you do repot this plant.

Most bonsai at repotting will require that you remove at least one third of the root mass to reduce the plant but with this material I would tend to leave more than the usual.

Pruning can be done through out the season with this plant and it will respond well to clipping and cutting and it will sprout new growth fairly fast. As I said this plant can be trained into a very nice looking bonsai by simply using the clip and grow method.

My worst experience with Chinese Sweet Plum so far is that I actually had one of these plants loose nearly every leaf that it had because of my careless attention to watering.

I have several bonsai plants in my office at work and sometimes if I miss watering one of them on Friday before the weekend a disaster can occur.

However I saved the plant by quickly immersing the entire plant in water and letting it soak for a couple of hours and with in less than two months it had a complete new canopy of growth.

Of course the one good side to this material is that it will root very easy by simply talking cuttings from a mother plant and putting them in a glass of water. Or you can sow seed with out any special needs nearly anytime.

Pictured above is one of the tiny shohin bonsai that I started about five years ago and it is Chinese Sweet Plum.

Thanks for reading and looking, Harold Yearout

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