Must-Save: A Complete Illustrated Guide to Growing a Dwarf Champion Bonsai
"A champion is one who excels. It means being the foremost among the feudal lords." -- Mencius. Dwarf champion bonsai, as the name suggests, refers to those "small-statured" bonsai. Though "short" and "small," they lose none of a champion's commanding presence. The trunk of a dwarf champion bonsai gradually tapers from bottom to top, with even transition, and the branches also thin out in graded layers. Without a reference object for scale, it looks exactly like a standard large tree in nature. The bonsai technique of "expressing the grand through the small" is displayed to the fullest in dwarf champion bonsai!
The most direct, most influential, and one might even say the most magical and greatest method for making bonsai trees short is "trunk chopping and branch cultivation." The history of Chinese bonsai spans at least over a thousand years, while the history of trunk chopping and branch cultivation is less than a hundred years. Sources indicate that this unprecedented, era-defining technique was pioneered by the bonsai master Mr. Kong Taichu. A tree of ten years or even a hundred years is made shorter through "trunk chopping," and then after years of "branch cultivation" and transition, a tall tree is transformed beyond recognition. Its trunk becomes gnarled and weathered, its base as steady as Mount Tai.
The physical technique of trunk chopping and branch cultivation is a major action in the method of dwarfing bonsai trees, so the chemical approach of spraying to shorten internodes and promote stocky growth should be an auxiliary minor action! Additionally, when selecting bonsai trees beforehand, those raw materials that grew in harsh natural environments and were trampled and damaged by humans, livestock, and insects are the top choices. Because they have the potential to become naturally dwarfed, though such "natural beauties" are extremely rare and can only be encountered by chance, not sought.
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