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Chapter 5. Miniature Bonsai

Zeko Nakamura*

How to raise and enjoy them

For the past twenty years I have been growing and enjoying miniature dwarfed potted plants, or Name bonsai, as a hobby. I have endeavored to create ever smaller miniature bonsai, in smaller pots than have ever been used before. Indeed, I am growing these plants with the minimum amount of soil in the smallest pots in which they can live.

Mr. Nakamura and part of his collection of bonsai and some of the tiny containers in which he grows them.

*The writer's name is well known among Japanese as a comedian on stage and screen, but his hobby of miniature, or Mame, bonsai is known only among professional and amateur fanciers of bonsai. Having no garden space, he is growing all his hundreds of miniature bonsai on the roof, as is often done in a big city like Tokyo. While he was a young priest in southern Japan, where he was born, he was interested in growing the plants found on the mountains and in the fields around the temple. That interest was intensified on his return to secular life and grew to the maximum when he went to live in the big city. This is the first time he has ever taken his pen in hand to write on the growing and training of Mame bonsai (pronounced mah-may bone-sigh)—Guest Ed.

Water. The main point is that they are given plenty of water: in the summer they are watered about five or six times a day; and even in the winter, they must be watered once a day by all means.

Soil. Since a great deal of water is applied, it is essential that the soil be "well drained. Fine copper wire netting is placed over the hole in the bottom of the pot, for perfect drainage; this is covered by a layer of soil with particles the size of grains of rice; finally the pot is filled with soil having finer particles (the size of grains of millet). Both of these soils consist of a mixture of equal amounts of red clay subsoil and fertilized topsoil. These well sieved granulated soils allow good drainage and never hold excessive water. Even when water is given every thirty minutes, it runs through the hole immediately, and so the soil is kept sweet and well aerated. The soil may be sterilized before use, to destroy insects and disease-producing organisms. When I bring soil home, I sieve it into three or four grades according to sizes of particles and expose it to the sun for several days until it is smooth and dry as sand.

Potting. Before putting the plant into the pot, the root system should be examined and the older roots removed. One should then see which side of the plant is best to face the spectator. If a rectangular or elliptical container is used, the tree should be planted toward one end, the right or left end according to the shape of the tree; in either case it should be placed at a point seven-tenths of the distance from one end and just back of the middle. That is the best spot, not only from an aesthetic point of view, but for trimming, training, and developing the plant.

The plant should be watered as soon as it is potted. For a week or so, the pot should be kept in half-shade and the foliage sprayed freely; then it should be placed in the sun half of the day for four or five days, and after that, exposed to the sun all day.

Fertilizer. I make my own fertilizer, of dried fish. I pulverize the fish, add water, and keep it in a covered jar for half a year or a year or more. Then I use the clear liquid in the upper part of the jar, diluting it fifty to 100 times.

Rape cake, soy bean cake, and herring cake are equally good. † Fertilizer should be applied to miniature bonsai generally once a week. (Also see chapter 14)

As Maine bonsai are wee lovely things, often displayed in the living room and admired in the palm of the hand, these fertilizers should not be placed on the surface of the soil but should be applied only in liquid form. The liquid fertilizer is made as just described and diluted as mentioned or diluted until the liquid is without smell or only very slightly odorous.

Containers. By comparison with the ordinary, larger bonsai, Maine bonsai are lacking in grand appearance; and so I train them to look like the larger bonsai or like the mature big trees. Also I prefer to use pretty pots or pans or containers, as this ornamental earthenware is in itself greatly to be admired. In the prewar days, I used to make and bake the containers at the pottery; but those and other containers, as well as all of my plants, were turned into ashes when my house was burned by a bombing during the war. My present collection of Mame bonsai and containers, as seen in the accompanying photographs, has been made and grown since peace has come to us.

Some of the writer's miniature bonsai for display. Cigarette packages among plants give an idea of their size.

† These fertilizers have been sold for centuries in Japan and are extensively used. Comparable plant foods here are- fish emulsion fertilizer and cottonseed meal. (See chapter 10)

Length of life. Unless one is careless, miniature bonsai will not die; they may live through three generations of man— grandfather, father, and son. Some trees which are 1¼ inches tall when full-grown will live through several decades if well cared for. In my twenty years of growing several hundred of these tiny trees, I do not remember that one has died because of any fault in watering, fertilizing, or other care. I am always amazed to hear of the death of such plants.

General care. Since Mame bonsai are very little things, some fanciers say that it is better to grow them indoors or under bamboo blinds or in half-shade or in a cold frame, but I think it is better to grow them in full sunlight and exposed to all changes of season.

Except when I am afraid they might be blown away by strong winds, I keep them outdoors on the growing shelf all the time, even in the cold season. However, in Tokyo, if the plants remain outdoors in January, February, and March, the containers are often broken by freezing; and so they are brought indoors for these three months.
Some Mame bonsai, growing in larger containers, pass the whole winter outdoors without having their containers broken, though they are occasionally covered with snow and severe frosts are experienced every day. In such cases the growth in the spring is finer.

One-year-old seedling, ready for pruning to shape its trunk

Two-year-old seedling. Note upright shoot removed, lateral branch allowed to grow

On windy days and on hot summer days, when the moisture is quickly dried out of the tiny containers, ice is given liberally. On some summer days when I was on the stage of a theater in the center of Tokyo, I took advantage of an hour and a half between two of my acts and went home, 3½ miles away, to give ice to each of my little plants. Now, when I am often away from home for months, my mother, wife, and children take care of my plants with interest and pleasure; and so I have no fear of losing any of my Mame bonsai.

Subjective value. Next to motion pictures and plays, with which I am professionally concerned, I seem to be living for Mame bonsai. Whenever I am at leisure here and there in Japan, I search for naturally dwarfed small things suitable for this kind of culture. I bring them home, plant them in containers, and grow and train them as nice Mame bonsai. Raising miniatures from such natural material, or from seeds I sow myself, or from material obtained by air-layering bigger trees, is far more satisfying than spending money for materials or purchasing Mame bonsai to admire.

It takes five to ten years to produce a Mame bonsai worthy of the name or fit to be admired. Indeed, it is a trial of patience between man and tree. It seems to me that this pursuit is good for hasty men in big cities in this hurried age; I feel that such impatient men learn to be deliberate as they become interested in raising Mame bonsai. In the course of growing and training these miniatures for years, a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction should be experienced.

Training

Now let me 'tell you the way to trim and train Maine bonsai.

Three-year-old tree, showing further training by pruning

Four-year-old tree: trunk beginning to assume picturesque form

Like Nature. The best style for them is to follow the nature of the materials used. They should be miniatures of Nature's giants. A miniature bonsai of a large-growing tree is trimmed like the mature shape of that kind of tree, though of course it is for smaller in size. Mame bonsai shrubs are like mature shrubs in shape and style; and Mame bonsai herbaceous plants are like herbaceous clumps in miniature. Thus, Japanese zelkova is broom-shape, cryptomeria is columnar, and pines are in the shapes characteristic of old specimens.

If the habitat of a. certain tree is to have a straight vertical trunk, the material selected for Mame bonsai of this tree should be young straight-growing ones. If another has, in nature, thick roots spreading in all directions on the ground, the young tree selected should have its taproot cut off short so that it will have good development of roots on the surface in the future.

Wiring and pruning. The trunk is trained with copper wire which has been previously burned in the fire to make it more easily managed. However, it is imposible to train young trees 1 to 2 inches tall with copper wire at an early age. Therefore a 1- or 2-year-old tree should be cut off at a dormant bud % to % inch from the base; after one or two years more it should be cut off an inch or so from the base. After such cutting back has been repeated for four or five years, the trunk gradually becomes interesting, looking like an old dwarfed one. Some tiny branches are formed very low; the lowest one should be kept longest and the uppermost, shortest; they are pinched back with the finger nail while they are very young. The manner of cutting back the leader to form a very dwarfed and interestingly shaped trunk is shown in the accompanying sketches.

In contrast with the one illustrated here, cryptomeria is straight-trunked in nature and shows its maximum beauty in that form. The trunk of cryptomeria is repeatedly cut back year after year, to make it shorter and thicker, to have branches as low as possible, and to keep them healthy. If the trunk becomes bent or twisted, copper wire should be coiled spirally around it from the base up, as shown in the sketch. The trunk can then be straightened, and the wire kept on until the trunk is fixed in the right shape and position. Copper wire burned in a fire of rice straw is most easily managed and best to use for training. American readers, or those in other parts of the world, may well be amused at the idea of annealing heavy copper wire in a rice straw fire (so it will bend easily). Most kinds of straw should be equally satisfactory, the only point being that the flame should not be too hot.

Young cryptomeria, showing where the leader is to be cut to keep tree dwarfed.

New leader developing from small branch just below first cut.

Cryptomeria japonica is one of the most valued timber conifers in Japan. Two specimens are shown in the accompanying photograph. The smaller one is only 1¾ inches tall, while the other is 14⅜ inches tall. The smaller one is the parent tree, 10 years old, from one of whose branches the bigger one was raised as a cutting taken two years ago and potted last year. Next year, in the spring, this young tree will be cut off about 1⅛ to 1¼ inches from the base; it will be gradually dwarfed, being placed in smaller containers year after year until it becomes a Mame bonsai. In the course of dwarfing, particularly, and also afterward, the growing tips of young shoots should be pinched off as regular pruning procedure.

A second cut has been made, on the new leader, and a third leader is developing. This procedure, repeated year after year, keeps the tree dwarf. Adapted from author's sketches
Drooping forms. If one wishes to have a Mame bonsai tree with drooping branches like those of old trees, it may be done by coiling copper wire around the branches and bending them downward, as is done with ordinary bonsai. However, since Mame bonsai are tiny things, the wires may cause damage; and so I sometimes hang a weight on the branch, to lower it.

Young cryptomeria bonsai, wired to keep its trunk straight.

The following is the way I usually do it and is the best way. The container is bound with string, somewhat as in tying a parcel, as shown in the sketch on the next page. The branches are lowered and held in the desired position by means of strings tied to them and fastened to the string around the container. The strings are left on for several months, until the branches are fixed in the desired position.

Flowers and fruits. The shoots of flowering trees and shrubs should be pinched about the middle of June. (That is the beginning of the rainy season in Japan, and the young shoots are hardening.) Only about two buds should be left on each shoot; from these buds new branches will grow in July and August. These branches are to remain untouched until autumn; in November they should be shortened, leaving some flower buds which have formed. It is desirable to use a small pair of sharp pruning shears.

I do not take special care to induce ray plants to form flower buds, but these develop well when the plants are exposed directly to the sun all the season, even on the hottest summer days.

As shown in the accompanying photographs, the containers for Mame bonsai are very small; one of the smallest is only ⅜ inch deep. Since the roots have so small a space in which to live and spread, in half a year (to say nothing of a year) they become bound in the container and often lift the soil some % inch above the rim of the container. Although they are very tiny in size, after becoming root-bound the flowering trees and shrubs produce flower buds in the normal season for each kind of plant. When the flower buds are formed, fertilizing should be stopped. A fruit tree that has borne fruit should be given diluted liquid fertilizer again about two months after the flowers are shed; this fertilizing should be continued, with some intervals, until autumn.

My Mame bonsai flowering cherries and flowering apricots are only a few inches high, but they bloom well annually, while apple, crab apple, and pomegranate bear fruit. I have flowering and fruiting peaches, too. I deeply regret that the season is so far advanced that I am unable to show you these in flower and in fruit.

All the plants I am growing have small and neat leaves, as these are most suitable for Mame bonsai. Floribunda and Multiflora roses are blooming continuously and attain a height of 2 inches or so as Mame bonsai.

Repotting. To bear fruit, apple and crab apple trees should be repotted in the autumn, not in the spring. All fruit trees are repotted every autumn.

All the other trees and shrubs are repotted annually in the spring, say early April in Tokyo—except pines; these are repotted once in five or more years. Pine trees grow better if they are repotted once in three or four years, but then they grow too vigorously, break the balance of the trained branches, and cause some of the lesser ones to become weak and die.

The plant is taken out of the container and a large amount of soil is removed, very carefully, little by little, so as not to damage the roots. Then some of the older roots are cut off or shortened, and the other roots and rootlets are shortened slightly. The plants are repotted in the same containers filled with fresh soil of the same kind. They are then watered liberally. For about ten days after repotting, the plants must have special care; the oftener they are syringed, the better.

Herbaceous plants are generally kept without repotting for five to ten years; in this way they look better and become daintier.

Three mimature bonsa, Left to right, Japanese red pine (Pinvs densiflora), 5 years old 2 inches tall; red sandalwood (Adenanthcra pavonina), 10 years old, 2¾ inches tall; Japanese black pine (Pinu thunhergi), about 30 years old, 3½ inches tall. The three empty containers are each ⅜ inch high and ¾ inch in diameter.

Two pomegranate seedlings, one 9 years old, 4 inches tall; the other 5 years old 2¾ inches tall, in fruit. Below, old Japanese porcelain containers.

The author, holding in his left hand a miniature Japanese white pine (Pinus parvi-fiora) and several of the small containers

Summing Up

These are the essential points in growing Maine bonsai.

It is most important to keep the container well supplied with water. Adequate fertilizer must be given. The plants must be well exposed to the sun. The growing shelf must be well ventilated.

When the new shoots begin to harden, they are cut back or pinched off, with two buds left at the base of each. Strong water sprouts are never allowed to grow.

The plants should be trained in their natural shapes. It is better to train and trim with pruning shears than with wire.

Repotting at the proper time should never be neglected. As the plants arc grown in very small containers, it is essential to cut off the older roots and encourage new ones to grow. The soil must be well drained. The plants must be kept particularly well watered for about ten days after repotting.

Soils are so varied in different places that I have not written in detail on soil. I am using many kinds of soil whenever they are available. Some trees need a particular kind of soil or compost, to be healthy in small containers; but each grower will soon find these.

In Japan the changes of the four seasons are clearly seen and felt. Flowers in the spring, dark green foliage in the summer, picturesque colors in the autumn—crimson, yellow, and other exquisite colors—and the still figures of deciduous trees in solitude in the winter, are all in poetic mood in nature. Also, and indeed in the same degree, such changes are shown in Mame bonsai growing in 1-inch containers.

Whenever you think that some of your own native plants are suitable to grow as Mame bonsai, take home some little ones and try them. It is not necessary to start with or buy finished Mame bonsai. You may bring home a few shells from the beach, make a hole in the bottom of each for drainage, fill them with soil, plant some young trees or herbaceous plants, and see how they will behave and grow. I should like, myself, to try some American plants as Mame bonsai if I could afford to live in America.

Mr. Nakamura with his 81-year-old mother, his wife, and his children, holding specimens of miniature bonsai. When Mr. Nakamura's stage appearances take him away from home, sometimes for months at a time, members of his family take care of "these wee lovely things."

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