Gill Taylor-Duxbury brought with her some of her collection of superb mame bonsai. Some were displayed on stands and others dotted around on the display table. There were many expressions of admiration for the size, quality and condition of the displayed miniature trees.

Gill indicated that the definition of a mame bonsai depended on which set of rules were followed. Some people used 6" in height including the pot whilst others used the height as taken from soil level. She admitted that she often broke rules and felt that a more flexible approach was to class bonsai as mame, small bonsai and bonsai with Shohin bonsai as a small bonsai of about 12" in height. It was difficult to apply rigid bonsai rules to mame. For example sometimes one or two leaves had to represent a foliage pad.

Small leaf species were best for mame e.g. hawthorn, gooseberry, quince, potentilla (if kept clipped), mountain ash, blackthorn. Whilst in plentiful supply, sycamore were not successful. Any species could be tried in any style. It was a question of knowing the species and determining what could be achieved with it. Grow a few, kill a few but learn from your mistakes.

Although mame can be started from collected material they are best developed from seedlings or cuttings. Collected trees should be potted into plant pots watered and stood in the shade. Root development is important irrespective of the source of the tree. Gill`s method is to start with a 4" pot and to prune the roots over a four year period removing large roots if there are plenty of fine roots. After this initial development the tree can be potted into an oversized mame pot. The pot can be reduced in size in subsequent years. Buds are important in mame growing. Surplus buds should be rubbed out retaining the important buds. Re-potting should be carried out when buds have fattened. Development is essentially by the "clip & grow" technique. Leaf pruning is rarely used. Occasionally branches and leaves are allow to grow out of control and then pruned back hard.

Mame feed used by Gill consists of fish emulsion given fortnightly and "brown" Maxicrop given monthly. Rape meal, fish emulsion, fish, blood and bone meal mixed with a little water containing insecticide can make feed cakes in plant plug trays. The filled trays are then inverted on a board, the cakes turned out and left to dry out.

Compost for mame is the same as for larger bonsai but with finer grains of grit and other ingredients. Arthur Bowers composted bark (New Horizon), Acadama, rounded grit and Biosorb mixed in equal parts can be given a final sieve though a flour sieve to remove dust. Danish pink cat litter is a good substitute for the more expensive Biosorb. A good handful of fish, blood and bone meal can be added to every bucketful of compost.

Generally overhead watering is sufficient but be prepared to water trees as individuals as needed. In summer it may be found necessary to water twice a day. Gill uses grow-bag trays with 3/4" holes drilled in the bottom and filled with Hortag. The trays are mounted on blocks to allow drainage when standing on benches. Overhead shade netting is used and the trees are watered through the netting.
Since a demonstration of creating a mame bonsai from garden centre stock was unsuitable for a large audience, Gill created a small bonsai of under 12" high from a juniper with several trunks. All small and dead growth was removed from between branches and up the trunks. Gill explained that she determined the front of the tree as early as possible and cut a notch in the edge of the black plastic pot to mark the front.

The front had to be a choice which balanced the trunk with any root spread. The larger branches were assessed for appearance and flexibility before some were removed. Gill reminded the audience of a good rule that if first you pruned the roots then you should prune the top but after pruning the top you do not have to prune the roots. The creation of a jin was carried out for members less familiar with the technique. When wiring, two turns around the trunk gave a solid anchor and wire should never be placed into the crook between trunk and a branch. Gill demonstrated how wiring enabled branches to be bent up, down or from side to side.
To finish the tree was potted up to give a neat ending to an enjoyable and informative evening.

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Long long ago.

In 1827 a gentleman called James Main was sent to China to collect double camellias. During his travels he kept a journal. Commenting upon the variety of Chinese gardens he had viewed he recorded these opinions of bonsai.

"There is one curiosity in Chinese gardening which rarely escapes the notice of Europeans, viz. their specimens of dwarfed forest trees. To train such they plant a young tree in a small porcelain pot, either rotund or square or most commonly an elongated square, twelve or fourteen inches long, eight inches wide, and about five in depth. Along with the trees they place pieces of rugged stone to represent rocks, among which moss and lichens are introduced. The tree thus planted is not allowed to rise higher than a foot or fifteen inches. No greater supply of water is given than is just sufficient to keep it alive, and as the pot soon acts as a prison, its growth is necessarily impeded; at the same time every means is used to check its enlargement . The points of the shoots, and the half of every new leaf, are constantly and carefully cut off; the stem and branches, which are allowed to extend only a certain length, are bound, and fantastically distorted by means of wire; the bark is lacerated to produce protuberances, asperities, and cracks. One branch is partly broken through and allowed to hang down, as if by accident; another is mutilated, to represent a dead stump: in short, every exertion of the plant is checked by some studied violence or other. This treatment produces in the course of time, a forest tree in perfect miniature! Stunted and deformed by the above means, it certainly becomes a curious object, bearing all the marks of extreme old age. Its writhed and knotty stem, weather-stained and scabrous bark, its distorted and partly-dead branches, its diminutive shoots and leaves, all give it the aspect of an antique vegetable dwarf ! Various kinds of trees are chosen for this purpose: but two of the most commonly met are the Ulmus Parvifolia Sinensis, and a species of Ficus, very much like the Indica."

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Next Meeting. 14th August 2001

"Beginners Bonsai "
Back to basics from some experienced committee members