How to make a Chinese hackberry bonsai? A detailed guide to the latest methods

The Chinese hackberry has strong sprouting ability and roots easily; old stumps are mostly dug from the wild. In southern regions, digging is mostly chosen for February and March, when temperatures rise and humidity increases, so the dug stumps are less likely to dry out and are easier to keep alive. When digging, choose stumps that are old, have good tree form, short trunks, and naturally transitioning curved trunks. After lifting them, you can coat the roots with yellow mud slurry or wrap them in plastic film, and process and plant them immediately after transport back. This tree is often cultivated as a bonsai.

The bark of the Chinese hackberry is smooth and gray. Its external features are alternate leaves, long petioles, and leathery blades that are broadly ovate to narrowly ovate, with tips acute to acuminate and bases rounded or broadly wedge-shaped, oblique, with shallow serrations along the margin above the middle, three main veins, hairless on the upper surface, and sparsely hairy along the veins and vein axils on the lower surface. The Chinese hackberry is mainly obtained as a bonsai plant through artificial propagation and collection from the mountains and wild.

1. Material collection and cultivation measures

1. Artificial propagation: The Chinese hackberry is usually propagated by sowing. The seeds mature from September to October, and the fruit turns reddish brown. They should be harvested in time, spread out to dry in the shade, cleaned of debris, and stored mixed with sand and soil. Sow in March of the following spring. Before sowing, the seeds must be treated by cracking the seed shell with a wooden stick or scarifying the outer seed coat with sand, which helps the seeds germinate. The seedbed soil is best as loose, fertile, well-drained sandy loam. After sowing, cover with a layer of fine soil about 2 cm thick, then cover with rice straw and water thoroughly once. Germination can begin in about 10 days. After seedlings emerge, remove the straw in time. During the seedling stage, do a good job of maintenance and management, paying attention to loosening the soil, weeding, and topdressing, and thin the seedlings appropriately. In the current year, the seedlings can reach 30-40 cm tall. For young saplings cultivated for Chinese hackberry bonsai, pay attention to pruning and shaping, suppressing the apex and promoting side growth, controlling the height growth of the sapling, and promoting thickening of the trunk and growth of side branches, so as to facilitate potting and styling.

2. Collection from the mountains and wild: The Chinese hackberry is commonly found growing wild along hills and low-mountain stream valleys in the Yangtze River basin and areas to its south. You can collect old, sprouted stumps with ancient and unusual postures that have been cut back for many years, and grow them out for training. After pruning, promote root development and sprout new branches, then shape and cultivate them. After 1-2 years, pot and process them, and within a relatively short period you can make a vigorous and aged-looking Chinese hackberry bonsai.

2. Potting process

1. Pot selection: Chinese hackberry bonsai is known for its antique elegance, so purple clay pottery pots or glazed pottery pots are suitable. Pot shapes are best as rectangular, square, or oval, depending on the tree form. Because the Chinese hackberry has dense leaves, deep green leaf color, and grayish-brown, rough bark, pot colors of light yellow or ochre brown are best, creating a contrasting and setting-off effect.

2. Soil: The Chinese hackberry is not particular about soil and has strong adaptability, but grows better in fertile, loose, well-drained sandy loam. For bonsai cultivation, a growing medium is generally prepared by mixing garden soil with sandy soil or rice husk ash.

3. Planting: It is best done after autumn or before spring sprouting. When planting, the root system should be properly pruned and arranged, cutting off overly long main roots and keeping more lateral roots and fibrous roots, mounding with loose fertile soil, and also properly thinning the branches and leaves. If planting in a medium-shallow pot, the roots must be fixed to the bottom of the pot with wire to prevent lodging.

3. Styling techniques

1. Processing: The Chinese hackberry is mostly styled by the method of coarse wiring and fine pruning, while the Lingnan school large-tree style processing completely uses the pruning method, imitating Lingnan painting techniques, emphasizing pruning skills, accumulating branches and truncating the trunk, and valuing the overall composition effect. A shaped stump specimen can maintain a beautiful form both when the branches and leaves are lush and when the leaves have fallen in winter.

2. Tree forms: Chinese hackberry bonsai is suitable for forms such as the formal upright style, slanting style, curved-trunk style, lying-trunk style, or root-over-rock style. The branches and leaves can be wired into pads or pruned into steamed-bun-shaped round pads, and can also be processed into a natural tree form.

4. Maintenance and management

1. The branches of the Chinese hackberry are flexible and not easy to break, making them easy to shape. In addition to visible buds, there are also many adventitious buds on the branches, making it convenient to select branch positions. Its callusing ability is stronger than that of the elm, and larger wounds can also heal during shaping, leaving almost no trace.

2. Because the leaves of the Chinese hackberry are relatively large, in bonsai composition you should consider designing it more as an elegant and unrestrained tall type. If it is a large-tree-style stump material, the positions of the matching branches should be more scattered, so that the appearance does not lose the charm of clustering and dispersion because the leaves are too dense.

3. The Chinese hackberry is relatively drought-tolerant, so do not water too much. In spring and summer, keep the pot soil moist frequently, and in autumn watering should be on the low side.

4. The Chinese hackberry has strong sprouting ability. When new shoots grow to 6 cm-8 cm, keep 2-3 leaves and cut off the rest. Usually, buds and shoot tips should be removed at any time to maintain the tree form.

5. Repot once every 2-3 years, with the best time being before spring sprouting, though autumn is also acceptable. Combine repotting with pruning old, weak, and damaged roots to promote the development of new roots.

6. The Chinese hackberry likes light and should be placed in a sunny, well-ventilated place. Except in midsummer, it generally does not need shading, and in winter it can tolerate a little cold.