This illustration by Kyosuke Gun is from our Masters’ Series Juniper book. It is a perfect fit for this post that is borrowed from Michael Hagedorn’s Crataegus Bonsai.
Before the real summer heat hits, consider how you are watering your trees.
Have you ever seen your trees grow through spring just fine, only to get fried leaves at the first onset of early summer? Ever wonder why that happens?
Those trees just don’t have enough roots. Those are the trees that got overwatered, or simply never dried out, in the cool spring months. Their roots were never encouraged to hunt out water, so these trees could survive in the moist cool weather on about three roots. First hot day: bam, they get hit hard as they have a spindly root system, not enough to support their overlarge, over long leaves and shoots on dry hot days. (A bonsai version of a company that has overspent just before a recession…)
Especially on cool overcast days, if you can monitor them, water each tree only when it is really drying out and not by rote. Watering by a schedule is the surest way to have some really weak trees that show themselves in the hot summer!
Thank you Michael.
This makes perfect sense to me now. Finally, an answer/clue to ‘why’ over watering is a contiual problem I seem to have each season.
Ron Phair
Ok, if you have the correct bonsai soil you can not over water. I live in Florida and have been studying bonsai for 30 years.For the last 6 years I changed soil to straight turface. Our summer temps are 90+ in the shade. My trees are in full sun all the time. I water and fertilize aggressively. The folage, the more folage the more roots. I have no leaf burn, root rot, and no fertilizer burn. I have ficus ,juniper, oak, elm, chinese tallow, hackberry, Fl.bald cyprus and black olive. The soil is always, always damp. Never dry. So go figure.
Learn to watering… hah!
Well, is it not the big deal of bonsai-trees?
Thank you Michael ;-)
Al, Spain
Yeah. Certain soils allow for plenty of watering. However, with the soil that most Japanese (Michael studied in Japan) growers and many growers throughout the world use (including me), it is possible to water too much.
The disadvantage of soil that is completely geared to drainage is that it dries out very fast, which means, among other things, that you spend more time watering, time that could be spent doing other things.
Anyway, as they say, there are almost as many soil mixes as there are bonsai growers, and whatever works for you is certainly fine with me.
Excellent tips .I really appreciate all these points, and I agree completely…