How to make a Chinese arborvitae bonsai? Detailed explanation of shaping and care methods

Chinese arborvitae is also called flat pine, flat cypress, yellow cypress, etc. The flowering period is March to April; the fruit matures in October to November; it is currently cultivated all over the country. Chinese arborvitae is a temperate sun-loving tree species, with advantages such as well-developed lateral roots, strong sprouting ability, tolerance to pruning, long lifespan, resistance to smoke and dust, and resistance to sulfur dioxide, so it is one of the main species for bonsai. So, how do you make a Chinese arborvitae bonsai? Below, let's study the production methods and care of Chinese arborvitae bonsai together with the editor of Huinong Network.

1. Material selection

To make a Chinese arborvitae bonsai, you can use seed propagation, and you can obtain many small seedlings at one time, but it takes a long time from propagating small seedlings to cultivating them into shape. This method is suitable for nurseries or bonsai production bases. You can also go to a nursery or flower and bonsai market to buy potted Chinese arborvitae with a certain degree of form.

2. Bonsai shaping

Tip picking and shari (whitened dead trunk) are important techniques that must be mastered when making a Chinese arborvitae bonsai. Tip picking is actually pinching leaves. Because the young branches of Chinese arborvitae develop and grow from scale-like small leaves, pinching off the young tender branches and leaves can control excessive growth. The purpose of tip picking is to standardize the tree shape. The usual practice is to carry it out on the basis of trunk chopping and branch accumulation, and it can produce results together with wire training.

3. Bonsai care

(1) Light

Chinese arborvitae likes light, but also has a certain tolerance for shade. In spring and autumn, keep it in a sunny, well-ventilated, and relatively humid place for care. In hot summer, shade cloth can be used for appropriate shading. Potted plants should be moved into a low-temperature room indoors in early winter.

(2) Watering

Chinese arborvitae likes humidity. During the growing season, keep the potting soil moist. In addition to watering into the pot, you should also sprinkle water on the ground. But the pot must not accumulate water. Water less in winter.

(3) Fertilizing

Chinese arborvitae can tolerate barren soil. Applying 2-3 times of decomposed dilute organic liquid fertilizer in spring and autumn is enough. Fertilizing is not suitable in hot summer and winter.

The above is the Huinong Network editor's summary of the production methods, shaping, and care of Chinese arborvitae bonsai. In the process of bonsai cultivation, shaping, pruning, and care are also very important. Friends who like bonsai must study more.

A brief discussion of the production methods, shaping, and care of Chinese arborvitae bonsai

Shaping and care of Chinese arborvitae bonsai, appreciation of Chinese arborvitae bonsai pictures [text and pictures]

[Common questions] Shaping and care of Chinese arborvitae bonsai, appreciation of Chinese arborvitae bonsai pictures

[Expert answer]

In recent years, Chinese arborvitae bonsai has developed rapidly, and both specifications and quality are remarkable. Chinese arborvitae has an extremely long lifespan because it does not fear the carving and erosion of time. To date, some ancient cypresses that have experienced thousands of years of vicissitudes and still have lush charm and towering strength can be found all over the country. However, Chinese arborvitae mostly grows into dense forests, straight and without “scenery.” Some grow on overhanging cliffs and precipices. Although they have ancient, unusual appearances, digging them out is not easy, and they are extremely difficult to keep alive. How to find good trunk material suitable for potting and capable of being made into a landscape is the primary topic in making Chinese arborvitae bonsai.

I. Production techniques of Chinese arborvitae bonsai

1. Key points of landscape making

After the Chinese arborvitae landscape trunk survives, it must undergo at least one or two years, or even longer, of careful care. Only when the top branches are grown vigorously, the side branches are grown strong, the leaves are grown plump, and the branches and roots are accumulated to make them lush, can wire training and pulling be carried out. Chinese arborvitae can be made into various forms of landscape, but landscape making requires insight and imaginal thinking. The Huangling cypress of Shaanxi and the Han cypress of Dai Temple are all regarded as national treasures for their unique personality, natural charm, and rich historical and cultural connotations. Their solid and heroic image is exactly a model and good teacher for our shaping and landscape making. Image is personality, is strength of character, is charm. Chinese arborvitae landscape making must respect the tree nature of Chinese arborvitae and respect the image of Chinese arborvitae. High-level Chinese arborvitae bonsai mostly have twisted and powerful trunks, ancient, clumsy, and peculiar; roots extending in four directions, with nature when entering the soil; leaf posture clustered; the crown either like clouds condensing rain, or like layered green peaks, mostly triangular and scalene triangular. Chinese arborvitae shaping is extremely suitable for a solemn appearance, containing movement in stillness, with a far-reaching artistic conception. Its style should emphasize scholarly elegance. Techniques should maximize strengths and avoid weaknesses; absorb both north and south, and be flexible and varied.

2. Shaping techniques

Tip picking and shari are important techniques that must be mastered when making a Chinese arborvitae bonsai. Tip picking is actually pinching leaves. Because the young branches of Chinese arborvitae develop and grow from scale-like small leaves, pinching off the young tender branches and leaves can control excessive growth. At the same time, tips are also the only choice for organizing leaf posture, standardizing tree appearance, and beautifying the landscape. It is usually carried out on the basis of trunk chopping and branch accumulation, and interacts with wire training.

Shari and jin give Chinese arborvitae more connotations, and can fully display the towering strength of character and heroic spirit standing firm in the firmament after enduring countless calamities in the baptism of nature. Many Chinese arborvitae landscape trunks have dead tops above, scars below, and decayed holes at the base; or the growth layer has been bored to death over a large area, or the trunk has many knife wounds and axe cuts and the cut openings are too exposed. You can follow nature and use shari techniques to turn ugliness into strange beauty. Shari can be applied to parts that have died or can die, and can also be applied to dry branches with twisted and beautifully swirling posture, or implemented because of the need for line body and color contrast. Bark stripping is suitable in mid-spring, carving is suitable in winter, and jin is suitable for making and turning. You must grasp the contrast between dead and flourishing, and grasp the viewing side. However, doing shari should proceed from reality; the key is to examine the landscape trunk and see whether it is necessary and possible. Shari techniques must not be overused, otherwise you will be too clever by half. In bonsai art, there is no fixed method and no fixed form. Authors have different cultivation and different styles. Every move and every posture must be completed by the author's inspiration and impulse. Chinese arborvitae bonsai shaping should expand exchanges in practice, improve oneself, earnestly summarize experience, and constantly innovate.

II. Planting and care techniques of Chinese arborvitae bonsai

1. Material selection

When searching for landscape trunks in the mountains, you should have poetic and artistic feeling in your heart, and many beautiful artistic images, artistic postures, artistic combinations, and exaggeration and freezing of artistic lines should dance in your eyes. You must be good at taking form from the formless and finding scenery in chaos; otherwise, it will be difficult to recognize which material is worth taking. Furthermore, you must have a sense of fine quality. When you find a good trunk, treat one as ten and regard it as a rare treasure. You should look for mutated trunks with straight roots, clumsy trunks, divine bearing in both high and low views, and great potential for landscape making. Steep slopes produce dragon claws, and wind gaps produce phoenix branches; all are creations of nature; while thick, short, ancient, and clumsy mutated trunks are often caused by mountain villagers cutting and grazing year after year. As long as you have discerning eyes, good trunks can be found at mountain tops, mountain feet, streamsides, and roadsides.

Chinese arborvitae sprouts multiple times a year, and can be collected in spring, summer, autumn, and winter. But it is best after winter dormancy; March and April each year can be regarded as the golden season. Before collecting, prune and cut on site, remove the excess, retain the essence, and on the premise of fully reserving reserve branches, decisively change and organize the disordered trunk. When collecting, permission from the relevant parties should be obtained, and you must absolutely not ignore mountain forest protection and take by force.

2. Processing

The operation must be slow and careful. Determine the size of the soil ball according to the thickness of the base. When digging trenches and grooves, cut whenever roots are seen. The cuts on thick roots should be flat; do not let them split skin or rot. The dug soil ball must be strictly protected from air-drying. It should first be wrapped with wet grass or fresh cypress leaves, and only after being tightly wrapped and bound can it be transported. The collected landscape trunks are best first potted in clay pots. Large landscape trunks should be planted in soil beds raised above the ground. Lay river sand at the bottom, and use slightly alkaline loess on top; sandy loess that has been fertilized by water from sunny soil cliffs is best.

3. Planting

Before planting, clean the dirt and grass roots on the surface of the soil ball, remove exposed stones, seal and coat the cut openings of thick roots and dry branches with latex, then spray carbendazim or potassium permanganate, place the landscape trunk in the correct position, fill soil and tamp it firmly, and finally water repeatedly until the entire clay pot is soaked through. After watering thoroughly the first time, the old bark on the trunk and thick branches should all be scraped off immediately. This can remove dirt, remove bacteria, and eliminate eggs, ensuring the cleanliness and hygiene of the trunk landscape, and at the same time it is also beneficial to the metabolism of the epidermal tissue and the display of the beauty of the surface texture.

4. Watering

After the landscape trunk is potted, water must be strictly controlled. Cypress belongs to yin, pine belongs to yang. The so-called “dry pine, wet cypress” immediately contains the principle of yin and yang; it does not mean that pine trees tolerate dryness and cypress trees tolerate wetness. Generally speaking, newly planted Chinese arborvitae is especially afraid of waterlogging; waterlogging causes root rot and death. Water control means watering less and spraying more, with no standing water on the pot surface, and it is best to see wetness and dryness every day. On especially dry or strongly windy days, you can appropriately spray and water a little more. In rainy seasons, you can place bricks under the pot bottom; when the potting soil is found to be too wet, you can add dry soil to absorb water, or switch to a new pot with good drainage.

5. Pest and disease control

Chinese arborvitae landscape trunks generally will not die from local damage, but pesticides should be applied in time for disinfection. The fatal natural enemies of Chinese arborvitae landscape trunks are especially longhorn beetles and bark beetles. The most common are the star longhorn beetle and the cloud-spotted longhorn beetle. Their antennae are extremely sensitive; upon emergence they seek mates and copulate, and then lay eggs in the bark of Chinese arborvitae. After the eggs become larvae, they bore under the bark, gnaw the growth layer, and their feces and gnawed wood shavings are discharged from the bore holes. The feeding tunnels of longhorn beetle larvae are mostly horizontal and slanted, and can cut off the water-conducting line and cause the landscape trunk to die. Because after the larvae become adults, they still remain dormant in the bark to overwinter, and only crawl out from the bore holes in warm spring, so when the longhorn beetles emerge from the holes, you must seize the opportunity to catch them. You can also spray dichlorvos, fenpropathrin, and other pesticides before and after emergence to kill them. The longhorn beetle is nicknamed “tree-sawing man,” while the bark beetle is called “wood-eating insect.” Bark beetles are extremely small and mostly reproduce in mixed wood and garbage. Once they invade the cortex of a Chinese arborvitae landscape trunk, they will also gnaw away the growth line of the trunk wood. Frequently cleaning up sanitation, removing miscellaneous wood, and diligently spraying pesticides on landscape trunks are the best ways to prevent bark beetle damage.

[Editor's comments] The above is the introduction by the editor of First Agricultural Economics to the shaping and production methods of Chinese arborvitae bonsai and its key points of bonsai planting and care. In detail, after reading this article, everyone will have a deeper understanding of Chinese arborvitae. Interested friends can try planting it and prune and make bonsai shapes themselves. I believe you will get a lot of fun from it. Thank you for your attention to and support of our website!