Detailed Guide to Pruning and Shaping Chinese Holly Bonsai

  "Gougou" is Chinese holly, scientific name: Ilex cornuta, also known as cat's thorn, tiger thorn, octagonal thorn, bird's roost, dog-bone thorn, cat's fragrance, mouse tree, etc. It is an evergreen shrub or small tree, with peculiar leaf shapes, bright green and glossy, evergreen all year round, covered with red fruits after autumn, not withering through winter, gorgeous and lovely. It is an excellent foliage and fruit ornamental tree species, often used for Christmas decorations in European and American countries, so it is also called "Christmas tree".

  Chinese holly belongs to Aquifoliaceae - Ilex - subgenus Ilex, native to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China, with unique leaf shapes, easy to identify in the wild.

  Tree form:

  Chinese holly is suitable for making straight-trunk style, slanted-trunk style, curved-trunk style and cascade style, etc. Large bonsai branches and leaves can be made into pad shapes, while small ones are better in natural style. Stump bonsai should highlight the beauty of exposed roots and bent trunks.

  Processing:

  Chinese holly leaves have sharp spines, inconvenient for processing. First cut off various unnecessary branches and leaves, then wire the remaining branches and trunks, combined with pruning. Because its leaves are relatively large and hard, metal wire is generally not used for wiring; palm fiber is better. Processing is best done during the plum rain season.

  Evergreen shrub or small tree, 1-3 m tall. Young branches have longitudinal ridges and grooves, two-year branches brown, three-year branches grayish white.

  Morphology:

  Leaves thickly leathery, dimorphic, quadrangular-oblong or ovate, 4-9 cm long, 2-4 cm wide, apex with 3 hard spiny teeth, the central spiny tooth often recurved, base rounded or nearly truncate, each side with 1-2 spiny teeth.

  Leaf surface dark green, glossy, abaxial surface light green, glabrous on both sides. Midvein sunken above, raised abaxially, lateral veins 5-6 pairs. Petiole 4-8 mm long, with a narrow groove above. Inflorescences clustered in the leaf axils of two-year-old branches.

  Fruit spherical, 8-10 mm in diameter, bright red when mature. Flowering period April-May, fruiting period October-December.