Pyracantha bonsai is fiery red like fire, with high ornamental value

Pyracantha is also known as "torch fruit", "flame tree" and "soldier-saving grain". Growing wild throughout the Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan regions, it can be found all over the mountains, and people have long dug it up for potting and made it into bonsai for ornamental display. Its presence is also seen at the border area of northern Guangdong with Hunan and Jiangxi.

After three to five years of large-scale seedling cultivation, there is a medium-to-upper-grade raw material with a circumference of twenty to thirty cm, and the resource is abundant, which is truly a good thing for closing mountains for afforestation and protecting the environment.

Seedling stock can be made into all kinds of bonsai more freely and with ease. Although it is not as "wild in flavor" as wild stock, its elegance has a charm of its own. Besides being made into the large-tree type, towering type and cliff-hanging type, it is especially ideal when made into the connected-root type, grouped-forest type, rock-attached type and water-and-dry type, all with beautiful and enduring forest scenery, one might say rich and varied. In particular, all kinds of forest scenes have red fruits pressing all over the branches, in clusters and strings, just like a dancing fire dragon. Especially in timely response to the seasons, it caters to the strong festive atmosphere of Christmas, New Year's Day and the Spring Festival. With green leaves and red fruits, it stands out as a leader, and the fiery red keeps going without cease until February and March of the following year. No wonder that in recent years it has attracted many bonsai enthusiasts to pursue the making of Pyracantha bonsai.

Pyracantha has red-fruited and yellow-fruited types. It is evergreen all year round and bears white flowers. The red-fruited Pyracantha is more favored by people.

Red-fruited Pyracantha can be called a new season of Lingnan bonsai. Its advantages are fast growth, high bud density, strong sprouting power, excellent wound-healing performance, good branch flexibility, and small and bright leaves. It tolerates pruning and is easy to shape. It is the best variety for viewing both branches and leaves as well as flowers and fruits.

After a certain period of trial planting and observation, and after exchanging experiences with some peers, the author believes that the causes of Pyracantha death lie in a momentary negligence in planting management, whether from waterlogging, mistakenly injuring the roots, or improper branch cutting, which causes disease and then infection, leading to root rot, black bark and dead branches; if not remedied in time, it causes the death of the whole plant. The chief culprit is root rot. Its characteristic is a soil-borne disease caused by a Fusarium fungus. Because of dampness and insufficient sunlight, fungi of the genus Fusarium among the Deuteromycetes become active. Once they invade the root and stem cortex, water-soaked brown spots appear on the roots, and after stem soft rot the plant becomes moldy and peels, the wood slowly turns black, and the bark becomes grayish white, then spreads to the trunk, causing the entire cortex to necrose, blocking the transport of nutrients and water; the branches and leaves lose water, physiological functions are destroyed, and finally the plant dies. You can drench the whole tree with 0.1% potassium permanganate solution, or spray and water with 75% thiophanate at 1000 times dilution, both of which achieve very good results. In addition, attention should also be paid to the insect pests that usually harm Pyracantha: lace bugs, aphids and so on. They generally occur easily in spring and autumn. As long as a water solution of 40% omethoate diluted 1000 times with water is used, they can be killed.

All fruit-tree bonsai basically share one common point. In particular, to make Pyracantha bonsai bear fruits that are red, large and plentiful, besides preventing and controlling pests and diseases, it is the timely, appropriate and rational application of fertilizer and water. Water should not be given until the soil is dry, and when watering, water thoroughly, while not allowing waterlogging. Fertilizer should be applied lightly, about once every ten days, and during the autumn fruit-swelling period, decomposed cake fertilizer should be applied frequently. Because Pyracantha is a plant of strong sunlight, give it at least 8 hours of sunlight. If you do these things, you need not worry that your Pyracantha bonsai will fail to bear fruits that are brilliantly fiery red and eye-catching.

At this point, borrowing a poem written by someone, "Poem on Pyracantha Bonsai": "In the pot, Pyracantha stands tall as winter enters, rousing its spirit to resist snow and frost. In the painted hall, new fruits are red in ten thousand dots, all of them the soldier-saving grain of years gone by."