THE FORMAL UPRIGHT BONSAI

Possibly one of the most majestic bonsai is the formal upright bonsai. This style is very bold looking with a trunk that is straight up vertical and has a very well pronounced apex.

Nearly all other styles can be somewhat derived form the formal upright bonsai. Some of the best materials for this style are Pine, Spruce, Needle Juniper, Redwood, and False Cypress.

This style of bonsai is the real classic of bonsai and if you’re planting one then you would want it to represent as close as possible the conditions that it would grow under normally in the forest.

Let’s take a look at what makes this tree so special. Out in the forest this tree’s ideal conditions would be a very good amount of rain fall for its water needs and the soil around this tree would be very level. It would also require a good amount of air flow and a good deal of sunlight to induce it to grow well and strong.

This tree would not like a lot of other trees close competing for the same space either so it needs its space. It likes plenty of room for the roots to spread and it doesn’t like rocky conditions around its base.

Ok now that I given you somewhat of an idea of the ideal conditions for this type of tree in the wild forest then let’s take a look at what we will want to do in order to create one as a bonsai for our collection.

First of all I would go out to my local nursery and take a look at what is available to me in the group of trees that I mentioned above here in the article. You should be looking for a tree that has good strong bold roots and you’ll want a tree that has very well pronounced good strong branches.

Your first branch on the tree should always be the strongest and it should begin at about one third the ways up the trunk of your tree from ground level. We want our tree to look like a triangle if we were looking straight on into the tree from the front view.

We want our root display to be very strong and rugged looking for this tree as it will certainly depict a very strong and firmly rooted tree and that’s what we want to convey to the onlooker.

We want our tree to have branches that work there way up the tree so that we could climb the tree as if it had steps on each side of the tree in other words I want my branches from left to right on my tree to be nearly at the same height and be directly across from each other moving up my tree towards the top of the apex.

You will want to be selective of the type of pot that you use for the final home for this type of tree. You want a pot that of course has plenty of room for the roots to spread and you want a pot that usually has straight sides and you do not want a pot that is to ornate or distracting with a lot of design.

You want a pot that if at all possible will be rectangular in shape and you want a pot that has nice looking but still fairly simple feet. You want pots that have subdueed colors and not ever fired to a glaze.

I may decide at some point later on after my tree is well established that I want to Jin part of the uper trunk to inhance age in my tree and if you so desire you can preform this work on your tree. I will write an article on this procedure at a later time as it is rather involved.

But if in the mean time you simply can’t wait to find out what is involved then there are books and articles on the net about this subject. Pretty much in a nut shell the art of Jin is to make your tree look much more aged by methods of carving or otherwise preparing some part of the trees trunk or a branch or branches by a method of bleeching out the wood to give it an appreance somewhat like driftwood.

Thanks, for readingBy: Harold Yearout©Copyright 2006 Harold Yearout All Rights Reserved For more information feel free to Contact Me: