Chapter 8. Bald Cypress Bonsai

Toyotaro Aoshima

From cuttings or from seedlings

Bald cypeess {Taxodium disti-chum) is a deciduous tree inhabiting swamps along the larger rivers in the southern part of the United States. It was introduced into Japan in the last century, and now many fine old trees are found here and there all over Japan.

A few decades ago, some bonsai fanciers were attracted by the graceful feathery, pleasing green foliage, slightly pendulous spreading branches, and massive trunk with cinnamon-brown bark. They set out to grow and train these trees as bonsai and the results were very successful. Bald cypresses are now highly thought of as bonsai, and a few of the oldest and best ones have been sold at high prices in the past year. As this tree is easy to train with copper wire, it should be tried by amateur as well as professional bonsai growers.

Bald cypress bonsai about 12 years old grown by the writer

Bald cypress is called Rakuusho, or Feather-Falling-Pine in Japan, but bon-saimen prefer to call it Robe-of-Feather-Pine.

An acquaintance in an adjacent city had a very fine and well-trained bald cypress bonsai. I visited him, to take a photograph of the tree for this article, but it had been sold to a professional bonsai-man only the day before. Consequently all I can do is show one of my own comparatively young specimens. My tree is not a good example but it gives a vague idea how bald cypress is trained into bonsai to have a pleasing appearance. This tree was started by obtaining a very young tree raised from a cutting about ten years ago.

Cuttings are taken from the last year's growth; after the ends are cut cleanly with a sharp knife, the cuttings are inserted in clean sand kept moist. For the first two years the cuttings should be allowed to grow naturally, as in ordinary nursery stock.

Training. About the third year or so, ■one should begin to train them with copper wire, bending the trunk and branches as one likes. Before training is begun, the longer branches should be cut off; the aim should be to form a neat dwarf bonsai with low short branches.

Avery

Bald cypress growing in their native habitat in southern United States, showing the buttressed trunks and the projecting root branches called "knees"

Trimming of branches—removing or shortening them, or any cutting that causes a wound—should be done in the autumn, when the new growth is hardened. If trimming is done in the spring, when the sap has begun to flow, the sap will come out of the cut end, and the branch will die and may cause the loss of the tree.
If the branches are cut back to some extent when they are hardened, new growth comes out soon. If this cutting is repeated every year, nice bonsai can be formed in a few years.

Watering. Placing the bald cypress bonsai in a basin of water in the spring and summer is good for the tree and also helpful to the grower because then it does not need watering every day.

Repotting is done once in two or three years.

Seeds. Every year I try to raise bald cypress from seeds matured on near-by trees, but only one or two seedlings come up from all the seeds contained in a cone. If viable seeds are plentifully obtainable, I think it is better to raise bald cypress bonsai from seedlings.

Bald cypress about 60 years old, showing the slender pyramidal habit of the tree as it grows under cultivation in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.