be removed from the bottom up to define the lower part of the crown. Expect to remove about half or more of the plant’s leafy foliage to keep it in balance as it recovers from potting. These plants grow quickly enough to recover rapidly, and can look very good after just another month or two of growing in a pot.
If you purchase your potential bonsai through mail order or over the Internet—which may be the only way to obtain some of the more unusual tropical varieties like guavas or green tea, depending on your location—you will probably get a small, young plant. My green-tea bushes arrived as single-stem unbranched rooted cuttings six inches tall. In developing a small tropical plant as a bonsai, the best results will be obtained by pushing its growth in a good-sized pot for a year or more with only minimal shaping before cutting it back. Over a period of several years, this will create a thicker trunk and a more dramatic appearance than restricting your bonsai-in-training to a small pot with more frequent pruning within that same time span.
Of the many ways to create your edible bonsai, the easiest but least satisfying is to purchase one already created. Perhaps the best way is to find a large nursery plant and carve an instant bonsai. Explore the recesses of your local nurseries. Talk to the greenhouse manager about your interests. Search online if you can’t find your desired variety locally. In more than twenty years of business, I’ve created tens of thousands of edible bonsai using the techniques described here, yet I am always on the lookout for new varieties and sources to explore.
CHAPTER 3
Bountiful Bonsai
Possibilities
There are many species and varieties of edible and useful plants that can be trained as bonsai. Traditional concepts of bonsai can be put aside to allow for varieties that have leaves or fruit much too large to have been considered acceptable through the long history of this art form. While most people think bonsai are miniature trees that couldn’t possibly bear enough fruit to be worthy of more than a symbolic harvest, even strict traditionalists in the art will consider and create bonsai up to six feet tall. To get a useful harvest from a bonsai, larger plants are a must—perhaps beyond six feet in height if the available space, the plant’s characteristics, and the artist’s desires make it suitable. The tree is still being shaped artistically and confined to a pot that is smaller than the chosen species would be allowed its natural habitat, growing in the ground.
While traditional bonsai are governed by artistic forms with strict guidelines, this book focuses on production of a useful harvest, which may prove a more important consideration than achieving the perfect artistic form of the tree. I personally have a difficult time removing a branch that is flowering or bearing fruit in order to improve the artistic shape of the tree. If I decide a branch must be removed for the long-term benefit of the bonsai’s shape, the pruning is postponed until after the harvest. There are no strict guidelines here. Everyone has different concepts and preferences as to what artistic perfection and bountiful harvests mean to them. Let these guide your direction to manifest the type of bonsai you wish to grow. Just as it is possible to train a bonsai for years or even lifetimes, one can also use a harvest to create products like jams, jellies, and canned fruits, or even teas, dry herbs, or wines that can be stored and savored for many years. It’s possible to freeze each year’s harvest over two or three years until you have enough volume to ferment a small batch of wine. My collection includes edible bonsai that have been in my training for over twenty years, and there are wines created from bonsai harvests in my cellar that are more than twenty years old. While displaying a bonsai that one has trained for twenty years is very satisfying, there’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of pouring someone a twenty-year-old glass of wine from the same bonsai that’s on display.
My focus here is mostly on tropical and Mediterranean plant varieties which are active year-round, although some species may have dormant periods even when grown indoors. These varieties may thrive outside year-round in some climates, but they all can be grown entirely indoors under proper conditions. I have grown and shaped all the varieties discussed here, although not all of them have produced a harvest for me. Some, like avocados, may never produce fruit when grown indoors, but can do so when grown outdoors in a suitable climate. I have collected and experimented with edible and useful varieties for several decades, and I’m always looking for new varieties to try. While I expect most people to choose varieties that appeal to their taste, few sources will have the wide variety discussed here. Be open to the possibility of experimenting with species that are new or unfamiliar to you.
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