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Subject: Re: [nafex] bonsai apples

At 11:02 AM 02/01/2001 +0000, Mike Tomlinson wrote:
>where can I get information as to how to bonsai apple trees?  What
>type of rootstocks should I use and will it work? thanks
  Mike,

Mike:

The art of growing miniaturized "full size" trees is called

"Bonkei" for outdoor landscapes, Bonsai pronounced bone-ceye

is the indoor culture.

Almost anything can be Bonsaied. What you are basically

trying to acomplish is maintaining a root ball within a pot

and topworking the growth to shape and conform the growth to

a particular pattern or shape. By keeping the roots trimmed

on a regular basis you can successfully grow almost anything

indoors or out. A lot of Bonkei is bagged with burlap (Root

ball) and allowed to rot down signaling time for a root trim

and rebagging when the crown starts to bolt. There are so many

techniques for so many specie it's impossible to go into.

One trick is to take your hole for your target (Apple tree) &

build a 5 walled receptacle out of concrete or some heavy duty

plastic (allowing for drainage) making the receptacle 1/3 larger

than the rootball. This restricts the roots from taking off and

allows you to train the growth and help the tree to get settled

into growing stunted. The key is to keep the taproot snipped or

tied and you can restrict a lot of growth but you will have to

unearth the tree every so often to monitor what is going on

depending on what genus it is. If you start with saplings then

it will be easier to keep them in check with a minimum of labor.

Rotsa ruck!

Gianni

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