Bonsai Garden

Spring shows its face when the morning sun starts to warm her face as she wakes. 

Carefully she sits up, smiling and basking in the rays. Dressing comfortably, but in layers. To accommodate the weather if the sun decides to shine and make her warm or if the winter winds still choose to blow while she works outside. 

After a hearty breakfast, one sure to give her all the energy she needs for the lovely, sunny Saturday that is shaping up as she watches out her window. Once her plate is clean and glass empty, she makes her way outside into her backyard. Starting her task by going by all of her trees and plants on the benches. Her bonsai garden was not large compared to others. There are maybe a few dozen trees in total that are more than seedlings. But she revels in the feeling as she walked along the two benches that she somehow was brought into a forest. 

After looking at them, generally checking their overall state, she begins watering the miniature trees. Bringing her spray hose from closer to the house as she again walks along the sides of the benches. With one hand, she checks the soil of each Bonsai she passes. Determining if it is dry enough for watering, or if it could wait till later in the afternoon or the next day for its water. 

Every tree she determines needs a drink, gets the hose turned onto it. Dousing the soil with water until it begins draining through the holes in the bottom of her pots. Surly giving them a well-needed rain shower.

While finishing watering, the woman notes a few wilder trees. Ones that have gotten slightly overgrown over the last summer. Picking several to prune today, she returns the hose to its spot and goes to pick out the unkempt trees. In total, three go on a cart, as they are all just under two feet tall and difficult to carry, to be wheeled back near the house to be worked on. A small group of seedlings in a tray are also chosen to be potted up by themselves, too. 

With the last stop at the shed to pick up her soil mix, pruning tools, and some plain plastic plant pots, she returns to the table by her back door where she sits to work. 

Her first tree is a Maple, a Sugar Maple, if she is correct. Given to her as a seedling, someone pulled from their yard. They put into a pot for her a handful of years ago before gifting it to her. It has grown well, and while it is bare and leafless now, the buds can be seen just under the bark of the tree, a swelling of green showing the tree is preparing to come out for the growing season. In a month or so, beautiful lobed leaves will cover all the curvy, willowy branches she worked so hard to perfect. 

But there are a few outliers to the tree. Several long shoots, tall and far too high above the rest of the tree’s shape. Carefully, paying attention to where the buds are and will be growing, the woman clips them off with her concave cutters. Being sure to leave the slightest nub before a place the next leaf will grow. Allowing room incase the tree decides to die back. Each cut is slow and deliberate. Made only after turning the tree several times to ensure it is the choice she wants. 

Repeating such careful work on the other two, she pulls the three wild, bushy trees into a shape much closer to what she envisioned for them. Looking truly like trees in miniature, at least as much as they could. 

Once the work on her established trees is done, she picks up the tray of seedlings she planted. They must have been two or three years ago now, she thinks as she studies them. The shortest of the little cedar trees is a foot and a half tall, with several branches already grown out. 

None of them have particularly thick trunks. But several of them have lots of movement in them. Thick trunks could be developed, but the lady is pleased to see these seedlings have natural interests.

Picking her favorite, the one with a curvy trunk thanks to being pushed out of the way by its siblings, she also chooses a standard plastic nursery pot to allow it to grow thicker and begins by pulling the seedling out of the tray. Gently and carefully, with practiced hands, she begins to tease the roots and free the dirt trapped between the fine roots with a root rake. She doesn’t need flat radial roots for this young tree, especially since the tiny thing won’t be going into a proper bonsai pot yet. 

But it is never too early for improvement, she decides and is sure to make it as flat and round as possible. 

Once done, she quickly fills in much of the bottom of the pot with bonsai soil. Her cheap mix of perlite and turface, with a handful or two of compost added in. This is a simple mix, but exceptionally well-draining and would help the health of the roots so they grow as strongly as they can. Before setting the seedling int and covering the roots with some more of the dirt. Than taking water to it and being sure it is beautiful and watered so it can begin growing and recovering.

Before she moves on, she takes her pruners. Clipping off an inch, maybe two at the top where it had grown tall and out of shape compared to the rest of the tree.

 The first of hopefully many pruning and stylings, she thinks. Looking at it, she can imagine it grown out and worked on. More branches shaped like a grand, old pine with dense, dark green foliage against the reddish trunk. It would take many years before the tiny seedling resembled anything like the mature, developed cedar tree she sees in her mind. Countless prunings and growing phases. Wiring operations to put the branches where she wants them.

But it would happen one day. With more careful care like she has done today, surely this seedling will become something beautiful. 

With that done, she moves on to the other little pine seedlings in her tray. Imagining them growing and joining her small miniature forest of tiny trees, as well. All the potential they also have.