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Detailed Explanation of the Cultivation Method for Exposed Roots in Goji Berry Bonsai

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Goji berry has strong sprouting ability and adaptability, prefers low temperatures and is not afraid of severe cold; it sprouts early, sheds leaves late, and its fruit does not drop, giving it a long ornamental period; each year in spring and autumn it produces new leaves twice, blooms twice, and sets fruit twice. Moreover, it is small and dense, with small but abundant flowers and numerous bright red fruit, and its fruit is also a fine tonic for strengthening the body. Therefore, it is a very popular material for small bonsai. However, thick goji berry trunks are hard to obtain, so roots are often used in place of trunks to make bonsai, but its roots are mostly single and rarely branch. This makes it difficult to create a small, perfect goji berry bonsai with exposed hanging roots and claws. In recent years, the author

Goji berry has strong sprouting ability and adaptability, prefers low temperatures and is not afraid of severe cold; it sprouts early, sheds leaves late, and its fruit does not drop, giving it a long ornamental period; each year in spring and autumn it produces new leaves twice, blooms twice, and sets fruit twice. Moreover, it is small and dense, with small but abundant flowers and numerous bright red fruit, and its fruit is also a fine tonic for strengthening the body. Therefore, it is a very popular material for small bonsai. However, thick goji berry trunks are hard to obtain, so roots are often used in place of trunks to make bonsai, but its roots are mostly single and rarely branch. This makes it difficult to create a small, perfect goji berry bonsai with exposed hanging roots and claws. In recent years, in pursuit of more perfect hanging roots and claws, the author has made some cultivation attempts and initially achieved relatively ideal results. The specific method is:

In spring, or in the latter part of the second fu period (a few days before the Start of Autumn), that is, when the summer dormancy period of goji berry in the south caused by hot weather, powdery mildew, and pests is about to pass, carry out necessary pruning on the goji berry stumps dug up from the wild, keep good branches and trunks, and use a sharp knife to clean the wound surfaces where roots need to grow. Then disinfect them and carry out cuttings. First, insert them in sand first, and after they take root and survive, transplant them to continue growing roots. Second, insert them directly in the ground to grow roots. Because goji berry cuttings propagated by using roots in place of trunks mostly take root at the cut surface, but do not produce many roots, often two or three main roots just keep growing. In order to make them produce more roots and increase ornamental value, the author adopted the double-cutting method. That is: after the first cutting survives, first let it grow vigorously in the ground for one year; before budding the next year, dig it out and cut off the newly grown roots, keeping only 1 to 1.5 cm, trim the cut surface with a sharp knife, and at the same time cut away the part of the original cut surface that has healed but has not produced new roots (giving it another chance to produce roots), then carry out a second cutting, and place a little plant ash at its root. In this way, the surviving old goji berry stump will produce many more roots at both the new wound surface and the cut surfaces of the new roots than in the first cutting. After it has been cultivated in the ground for two years, it can be dug out and potted to make a relatively perfect goji berry bonsai.

In order to make the new roots coiled and twisted and achieve a better effect, the author also used a guiding method to cultivate root claws, which likewise achieved very good results. The method is to first dig a pit 20 cm * 20 cm * 30 cm and fill it with river pebbles or brick rubble, with a mixed layer of stones and sand 15 to 20 cm, and then fill 2 cm of coarse sand on top. Then place the trimmed goji berry stump into the pit, cover with sand or loess, and water thoroughly. After the water seeps down, mound up some more soil to prevent the old stump from losing too much water and dying. When the new roots produced by the goji berry stump that survives such cutting encounter hard objects such as river pebbles, they will turn and extend along the sand-filled gaps; the sand gaps between the hard objects guide them to grow into coiled root claws. After two years, dig it out and a relatively ideal coiled-root goji berry stump material can be obtained.

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