Welcome to Back Garden Bonsai. My name is Ian and you can follow my trees as they grow. (I have about 50)
I upload a new video every Sunday, where I show the progress of one of my trees in a year long time lapse showing the monthly progress and the work I do along the way.
I have put a decade of knowledge here for you to learn from and start growing your own trees. My website is full information on bonsai techniques where I cover common questions, care guides and also some progress updates of my own bonsai trees.
Bonsai doesn't need to be difficult or expensive and with a little bit of knowledge and time you can turn basic material into some interesting. It is a very slow hobby, but its isn't hard and I will happily tell you everything I know.
If you are new to bonsai you should start by reading my bonsai resources page - www.backgardenbonsai.com/beginner-bonsai-resources/
Nice video, crazy how much growth it pushed out, fair bit of warning sometimes pruning trees mid/late summer just send then into dormancy and they stop focusing on growth and just set buds.
Unbelievable how quickly your tree woke up this year. Not much you can do - especially if you don't have a greenhouse for good after care repotting in sub-par conditions. Can't count how many trees I've killed doing this. Leaves are pretty. Curious as to your future styling decisions. Hope you get that second flush of growth!
Cheers Sue, yeah the mild winters seem to cause confusion to a few of them, i think my prunus was doing this in mid Jan lol. Im also curious to see what my future styling will be lol. it will be some kind of formal upright though, so long as it wants to play that game.
cheers, you could grow it inside, but you would not need to make sure it was cooler over winter so it can go dormant. not impossible, but hard if you have the heating on the time. you could just move it to a cold garage or something
Hey Ian, I really like your creative use of sweet tins, biscuit boxes, margarine tubs etc. in your videos. It can be easy to forget that trees don't care what their pot looks like and that we don't have to buy expensive pots if we don't want to. Keep up the good work!
Cheers, yeah as much as the nice pots are great, the trees dont care. I guess you can argue different material, like clay, are better for growth, but id say its not that important ...so long as there is good soil and space, it doesnt matter to much, especially for trees like mine that are not too old. ...and all those tubs are like the perfect shape and size, just makes sense to use them.
oh really. i have not really had any trouble at all with this one. i think it maybe had a touch of mildew near the start when it was inside (but that might have been a different tree, i cant remember), but overall it has been fine do you think its your climate or the species of apple?
Very pretty and natural shape. Its great that you can keep buds close to the trunk - this is a struggle on some of my crab apples, which makes pruning back challenging. I hope you get another flush of leaves this year - they always look so vibrant when they come out. If not, there are plenty of leaves to power the tree through to winter.
Really enjoying the series. Started growing my own here in Eastern Cape South Africa because they were freely available everywhere. Only 4 months in but its already growing like crazy even through the winter. Any other African trees you might want to grow?
Cheers, i imagine it grows like a weed there which is exactly what you want. They are great trees you will have fun. As for other African trees, i dont really know any, and im not even sure they would do well here. I have no space anyway, so maybe that is something to look into in the future
Your willow reminds me of one of my cats - beautiful, independent, and absolutely strong willed! You have the patience of a saint! Growth looks really good this year. Fingers crossed lol!
One of my least favorite trees. My inlaws have them and they are always a mess. I swear they seldom look good with any regularity. They had a big one in their front yard when it FINALLY was looking healthy, it got hit with a bad ice storm and broke apart. I said chop that ugly weed down and be done with weeping willows. I applaud you for attempting one as a bonsai, but I say plant that thing in the woods and walk away from it! 😛 Someone here said they are moody plants and that is spot on. Look at it cross eyed and it will look like hell for the next year just to spite you! No thanks!
haha yeah they are fussy. I do think some of them look good in parks, but i guess they are probably decades old ...and even they have random dead branches at time lol. i swear the tree i took this tree from had a dead top branch! i dont think it will get very far as it is always going to die back every time it gets some development, but it still fun to watch and see how it acts, even if it is a pain!
If it starts to dry up/to die then roots are the problem usually, not enough air, pots is too small, or it's too wet. Either way, you need more air for the roots and more space.
Willows absolutely are very moody plants, sometimes they keep all of their branches and the next year, they almost kill off half of their whole mass. I took a brittle willow cutting last year, I'm hoping I can turn that one into something interesting.
I have no idea. that sounds like it would do nothing as the stems are quite firm ...but try and it see what happens and let me know. maybe it will do something.
Very pretty! The lemon tree is bouncing back nicely after the repot and hard pruning. Nice to see all the new options coming up. The leaves remind me of laurel a bit, but then there are those thorns...
You will probably find its fine. The fact it is in a bag usually means the water cant escape, so it will stay wet the whole time. I would still check every few days though, to make sure and water if need. ..then when its actually growing you will need to check daily to see if it needs water or not.
Oh I am SO excited! I found you by randomly looking up if I could turn a lemon tree from seed into a bonsai, I have one about 2 months old, called Ferdinand! He’s quite mighty. I also saved a sycamore seedling that popped up in my planter on the balcony, from the massive tree outside; I did think secretly ‘what if I try a bonsai’, not knowing there’s a whole world out there! Will definitely do it, he’s still young! I shall call him Humphfrey! I think they respond well to being given identities, Ferdinand has a name tag on the pot, I talk about him to my husband as if he was a pet (to the point I was telling him once, worried that I had forgotten Ferdinand out in the rain while we had gone out, the lady next to us accused me of animal cruelty:)) ) PS: I hardly know anything about bonsai but honestly sir, skimmed over your channel, I think I prefer the look of your trees as I could tell the honest work, process and actual response the creatures give, for me the perfect bonsais seem overly manicured PPS: also based in London, even more excited to follow your advice!
haha sounds like you are having fun with it, which is the main goal:) its a slow hobby, but its worth it. lemons and scyamore are also a great starting place so you are already on the right tracks.
Cool little pomegranate. You've inspired me to start my own from a store bought pom. They are 2 years old this summer and I've clumped 5 of them together hoping to fuse as you've done. The leaves are surprisingly a decent size considering I got the seed from a regular size pomegranate.
Cheers. i hope yours is going well. Mine is from a regular supermarket pom too and the leaves seem fine. Makes me wonder how small the dwarf type must be
Shaping out to be a very pretty tree. I didn't realize that you could fuse pomegranate. I really love the composition - should take right off this summer. Repot again in 2 yrs?
Cheers Sue, you can prettyy much fuse anything given the right condtions. and i think it will be another 2 years for next repot since it seems to be a bit slow growing
This is a new tree to me. I don't believe I've finished editing anything long form on it, know I've filmed it 😅. How cold do it get for you? I haven't found much over wintering info for my area, we get to -30 regularly, -45c isn't unheard of. If I remember right the tag said only 10c?
-45c ...lol what!?! where do you live!! hahah or should i ask HOW do you live! But really, Id imagine anything in a pot is going to struggle long before it gets that low. i would think the -10 would even be too much if its in a pot. I would be protecting that somewhere that is around zero or just below. Also I think the lowest it got here was -2c and that was a for a few hours over night, so mine is fine to just sit outside.
Cheers bro. I think it will be easy enough to get off .. once i chop everything below it off. but we will see hahah. At least its plastic so i can just cut it out if needs be.
I collected a Downey Birch from the forest I walk in, planted it in my back garden.. Will keep an eye on it for a year or so, but this video had given me inspiration to give birch ago, as apparently they not the easiest to bonsai.. great video and thank you from Cork
Intense repot for sure - I bet the roots will really benefit from this hard work and the foliage is so vibrant again. I love how this tree looks like a beautiful large orchard apple - the scaling in incredible!
