The cypress is a very nice choice for anyone creating a bonsai even if your a seasoned gardener or a beginner. It can be trained into a very wide variety of styles and this makes your choices fun and easy with a little work on your part.
First you always want a good nebari for your Cypress or really for any bonsai for that matter. You will want to look for good placement of the branches and limbs for your tree.
I tend to usually start with a good one gallon size nursery stock plant and then work from there to begin a style and I tend to leave it in the one gallon pot for a year or two to just get some growth and then I will take it out in early spring and plant it up into a desired bonsai pot.
Or if you have plenty of time and are not in a rush you could plant your tree in the ground in your garden and let it grow on for six or eight years and obtain a really nice caliper for your trunk and then did it up and start the process of shaping and creating into a desired bonsai.
I have started many cypress just from cuttings as they do seem to root well for me easy. I can not say that they would for everyone. I discovered actually by accident one year that the Squirrels around my place like to bury there winter forage into some of my bonsai pots and along with that for some reason they always seemed to deposit a piece cypress leaf or branch and that begin to grow in my pots along with the other bonsai.
In fact this happened on several occasions so the next time I trimmed some of the longer branches off my cypress I scraped the ends of the stem to scar it some and then just dipped the ends in some root tone and stuck them down into the bonsai bowl and they actually rooted and begin to grow.
So then I deduced that it must be fairly easy to start from just a leaf or branch.. So now every year I stick a few and let them grow on to a size that I can work with. Sometimes this takes an entire season to happen but it does never the less at least for me anyway.
One thing I have learned about cypress as well as junipers do not trim your plant with scissors as this will turn the ends brown and unsightly. Instead pinch them out with your fingers and its actually easy to do.
This cypress pictured above is very old around sixty years or more and well developed and the shape and style is very close to a informal upright. I have worked on this tree for many years to obtain what I now have and it won two show awards this year. One for the customers choice and one at yet another show for best in the show.
I'm very happy with this Cypress. I did screw up a bit on it later this year as I had it sitting near my air conditioner exhaust to the outside of the house and it burnt the top of one of my branches and turned it ugly brown and so now I have to wait till next season for this to grow out and put on some new growth to hopefully fix and cover over the ugly brown ends.
I use a very granular soil mix for all of my conifers and this Cypress is no exception as with most all conifers they do not like wet feet and so you should always strive to have a good granular mix for these types of plants to increase the flow of water out of the pot. The type of soils I make will actually draw up some of the water and disperse it later out into the pot as the tree begins to dry out and need it.
I pinch my plant out in the early spring after it has established a considerable amount of new growth.
Then sometimes I will pinch it out yet again later in the season if it seems to have any branches that are in the way of the viewers eye from front to back. I like my tree to be well podded up and the branches well rounded and this makes for a nice looking bonsai to view.
Pests are none that I have dealt with and if any at all sometimes some small spiders may try to build there egg laying nests in the tree and I keep a keen eyes out for that and spray right away if I see any.
Watering is pretty much every day in the hot season and misting a couple times a day if its really hot out. Other than that I water normal every day and I do not do anything special for this tree in the winter I just leave it out where it gets the winter rain and as long as it does not get way down in temperatures below freezing for any long periods then I just leave it out in the garden and it does just fine form season to season.
As with any plant if the temperature does drop below freezing for any long periods then I will take the plants into a sheltered area of my back store room shed. Over the years my bonsai have withstood the test of the times for sure with rain sleet hail snow and freezing rain and temps well below zero and they still survive simply because I do not baby them. My rule of thumb has always been to let a plant get well acclimated to the out doors and then it seems to do just fine.
If indeed the tree is for your climate region to begin with and I always try to get material that is at least if at all possible two to three climate regions below mine that way I know for sure it can with stand the harsh climate if it gets real bad out. Say for instance your in a climate region of say eight then I would try to get a plant that will survive in region say five or even three..
The key here is time watching as I like to call it. If the weather changes real rapid to real severe and bad then I will act but other wise I just let nature take its course of action and only in the spring will you tell if they truly survived or not. Lots of your bonsai as well as mine will go to sleep so to speak in the winter months and not grow at all and in this state of sleep they will use water as they need it and very little nutrients and only begin to bud up again in the spring as the weather becomes gradually warmer.
Deciduous trees will loose all there leaves in the winter months and be bare and so this is a good time to get rid of some of the unsightly and unwanted branches and kind of restructure your tree if it needs it. I do not get too carried away clipping out limbs just the dead ones or ones that I no for sure need to go to get my desired look and shape.
Cypress are wonderful trees and make lovely bonsai as they are pretty easy to train and shape and style and I love all of mine and I have several in my garden.
Feeding should be every other month through out the growing season and then slack off till spring again. Make sure you try to re-pot your Cypress every three to five years depending on your pot size and overall size of the tree of course.. Some will need to be sooner and some of course can wait for another year of later.
So grab up some cypress of your choice and begin and you will soon have your self a nice looking tree to add to your collection.
Thanks, for reading,
By: Harold Yearout ©Copyright 2014 Harold Yearout All Rights Reserved for more information feel free to contact me: h.yearout@gmail.com
