Bonsai in Singapore Neighborhood
Experience Nature in Miniature Form
Super Mini Bonsai
As I do not have many semi-matured and matured Bonsai plants, I have to start cultivating Bonsai materials by cutting off branches from younger plants. This is more challenging as the younger plants lack mature trunk and ramification structure. Despite this limitation, I am determined to try out and to experience the growing process for myself.
Space constraint has limited my collection to just 12 pots, in which I consider them as the Super Mini Bonsai series. In fact, Plant 1 & 4 are relatively large as compared to the other 10, where the pot size (opening width) is about 3 to 4 cm. Most plants having been growing for about 1 year or more except 2 plants. The two plants in Photo 9 & 11 are relatively young and need more time to shape.
Here is a description of the 12 pots in my collection:
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Plant 1 - 水梅 (Wrightia Raligiosa); The shape of this plant was not groomed intentionally. It started off from a root that has been cut off from another plant. This plant has since gone through 2 trimmings and repottings and is now stable.
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Plant 2 - 壽娘子(Premna obtusifolia); This plant was grown from the cutting method. The shape of the plant is achieved mainly through trimming.
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Plant 3 - 水梅 (Wrightia Raligiosa); This plant was grown from the cutting method. The style of this plant was initially up-right, but later tranformed into inclination (cascading). Like Plant 1, both are about 2 years old.
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Plant 4 - 水梅 (Wrightia Raligiosa); This plant was grown from the cutting method from single to twin trunks. Some time is needed for the joints of the 2 trunks to heal before considering it as mature.
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Plant 5 - 壽娘子 (Premna obtusifolia); This plant was grown from the cutting method. The shape of the plant is achieved mainly through trimming.
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Plant 6 - 壽娘子 (Premna obtusifolia); This plant was grown from the cutting method. Initially, I was unable to decide whether to nuture the plant as twin-trunks or to keep the third trunk to become a triple-trunk.
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Plant 7 - 水梅 (Wrightia Raligiosa); This plant was grown from the cutting method. The shape is not ideal and appears quite unnatural. It will require more time for the plant to grow so that I can re-shape it.
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Plant 8 - 福建茶 (Carmona microphylla); This plant was grown from the cutting method. The plant looks the same except stronger after I repotted.
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Plant 9 - 福建茶 (Carmona microphylla); This plant was grown from the cutting method. I bent the plant into the shape of a semi-cascade to suit the shape of the pot. This plant is very young with no sub-branches, so it looks very unnatural.
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Plant 10 -金枝玉叶 Baby Jade (Portulacaria afra); This plant was grown from the cutting method.
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Plant 11 - 水梅 (Wrightia Raligiosa); This plant was grown from a seed. I decided to shape the plant into a cascading style to suit the shape of the pot, which is the only one left in my mini-series collection. This plant is pretty young - will need another 1 to 2 years to before it becomes stable.
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Plant 12 - 水梅 (Wrightia Raligiosa); This plant was grown from the cutting method. The shape looks better than Plant 7 but still does not look natural. More time is required to groom the plant.
Photos taken on 21 May 2016
Photo taken on 23 Mar 2016
Bonsai in the Nature
I was amazed to discover this tall tree (far left) at Springleaf Nature Park when I took a walk there in 2014. This tree in Literati style is an example of Bonsai in nature.
It has inspired me to shape one of my Bonsai materials to resemble this tree. The plant had its 1st trimming on 19 July'15, and 2nd trimming on the 04 Jan'16. This plant requires further training to strengthen the right lower branch.
Decided to remove the left branch by air-layering; I have addition of a mini-Bonsai after 6 month of shaping.
Photo taken on 26 Dec 2016
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Training Bonsai Plant
It was hard to handle this tiny and long trunk material initially after transferring it from the ground into the plastic pot. The shape of the plant suggests that it is more ideal for a Cascading or Literati style.
The plant has since kept in a downward bending position for some time. I realized that I can shape it into the Literati style when the trunk has grown strong enough to stand upright. This gave me an impression of how the final shape of the plant might look like. Today, the main trunk is stable, but more time is needed to grow the sub-branches to proportional sizes.
Photo taken on 29 Aug 2015
Imaginary shape
Photo taken on 04 Jan 2016
Photo taken on 26 May 2016
Photo taken on 28 Sep 2015
When I pulled this plant out from the ground, it had a long and tiny trunk with no condition to form any shape.
After giving it some thought, I noticed that there was a chance of shaping the plant into a 3-layer, semi-cascade style.
This plant is in a better shape after 6 months but still relatively young. It would need another 6 months to 1 year of training
for the shape to stabilize.
Photo taken on 12 Mar 2016
Low-cost Hobby that Excite you
You don't need to spend hundreds of dollars on Bonsai plants to start this hobby. It only takes a few dollars to cultivate your own Bonsai plant.
I used the cutting method to grow the first Shui Mei plant (top-left), which came from an unwanted stem that was trimmed from other plants. After more than 9 months of training, the plant stands at 9cm tall, considered a Mini Bonsai.
A plastic pot of Baby Jade cost about $3 at the Nursery Garden. The pot came with multiple plants but their stems were tiny and had no shape.
Baby Jade is considered as one of easiest bonsai materials to grow. The one in the top-right photo took about a year in training. It is about 23cm long in Semi-Cascading style.
The two plants in the bottom row were cultivated using the cutting method as well. Both plants were relatively young when I repotted them. I did not shape them but only trimmed away the unwanted leaves. Soon these will become two additional Mini Bonsais in my collection.
Shui Mei (Wrightia religiosa)
Baby Jade
