Im growing a bonsai bodhi tree

zidangus

I am going to try and grow a Bodhi tree as a giant bonsai for my house. Has anyone done this before ? If so any tips or pictures. I am going to grow from seed (I'm waiting for the seeds to be delivered) and I'll post pictures in this thread of the different stages of development over the next year or so from sowing to seedling to hopefully a nice sized bonsai.

Wish me luck !

Jeffrey

Making a metta prayer for your tree

zidangus

Cheers @Jeffrey with me looking after it it needs all the help it can get

tamm

Oh this is so cool! I don't have any advice on that kind of tree in particular, but I do have a small indoor money tree and it's so nice! I love having a nice cute plant indoors to pamper since our weather here is normally too hot or too cold for me to want to deal with plants outside. When it starts growing you'll have to send pictures of it!

Cinorjer

OH, I took some classes in bonsai tree growing while I was in Korea. Are you actually planning on growing a tree from seed? If so, better plan on more like twenty years instead of a couple. And by giant bonsai, do you mean growing it outside in the ground as maybe about chest high, or in a pot?

At the very least, I'd suggest you choose a nice fast growing evergreen shrub to plant, and trim and shape the branches to look like a gnarled, windswept mountain pine.

My outdoor bonsai didn't survive the winter so I only have a jade indoor grouping right now. I'm letting it grow this year on my porch with plenty of fertilizer and minimum pinching of growth, so the trunks get thicker. Here's a picture of what it looks like right now.

Mountains

Very cool! I've killed several bonsai trees in my day. Perhaps someday I'll try again. Mine died before the internets existed, so maybe I'll be able to figure out what I did wrong.

Cinorjer

The biggest problem people face is that the little bonsai trees sold in places like Walmart and such are already as dead as a chopped down Christmas tree, they just don't show it yet. So someone gets one and blames themselves when it quickly dies.

The rest is realizing that almost all of the bonsai you see are trees, not indoor houseplants. They cannot be grown indoors because most people don't have the temperature, humidity and light needed. Many trees need the cold weather of the seasons to thrive. On the other hand, being tiny and in pots, they can't survive a harsh winter outside, either. And those tiny pots mean you have to constantly water and I've had some die when I went on a week's vacation.

But the ones you see are absolutely beautiful, sometimes handed down through generations. The internet is full of useful info. An entire course I had to pay for is absolutely free.

zidangus

OH, I took some classes in bonsai tree growing while I was in Korea. Are you actually planning on growing a tree from seed? If so, better plan on more like twenty years instead of a couple. And by giant bonsai, do you mean growing it outside in the ground as maybe about chest high, or in a pot?

At the very least, I'd suggest you choose a nice fast growing evergreen shrub to plant, and trim and shape the branches to look like a gnarled, windswept mountain pine.

My outdoor bonsai didn't survive the winter so I only have a jade indoor grouping right now. I'm letting it grow this year on my porch with plenty of fertilizer and minimum pinching of growth, so the trunks get thicker. Here's a picture of what it looks like right now.

I am growing from seed, When I say one two years, I mean to post on the thread the pictures, I'll keep posting updates as long as I can. I want to grow a giant one in my conservatory.

Nice pics of your Bonsai Cinorjer, cheers for sharing

zidangus

Ok so I got the seeds on Saturday, I have soaked them in water for 24 hours and then sowed them in jiffy pots ontop of compost and damped the compost before putting them inside a propagator. I'll make sure the compost does not dry out, and now its jut a case of waiting and seeing. The Picture is below. Its hard to make out the seeds as they are very small, but they are there trust me



I tried this technique of sowing seeds a few weeks ago with Dorset Naga chillies which grow in the same zones as Ficus Religiosa and are meant to be extremely hard to grow. As you can see with the pictures I took today, it seems to have worked ok so far for them so hopefully it will work for Ficus Religiosa.



I'll post an updated picture when and if there are signs of life, fingers crossed