Making Hawthorn bonsai flower – Rising Bonsai

In a earlier brief submit I confirmed this previous hawthorn (Crateagus monogyna) bonsai. In it I really useful to often trim to get new development which is totally appropriate. Nonetheless, to get flowers one wants to reduce sturdy vegetative development and stimulate extra mature development to type. Flowers on hawthorn solely come from brief spiky development known as spurs, fairly than from younger vigorous stalks. The spurs are brief branches with a transparent thorn on the top. These are those that, when left unpruned, can over time begin producing flowers.

Inducing flowering on hawthorn bonsai

You will need to notice that hawthorns solely begin flowering when they’re mature. This usually is after perhaps 15 years. Happily, Yamadori and vegetation offered in commerce are sometimes already flowering be it as a result of they’re previous (yamadori) or grafted (retailer). However if you happen to discover a younger plant within the backyard and pot it up, notice it usually takes over a decade earlier than it’s of age for flowering.

In case you do have a mature specimen, it may possibly nonetheless be troublesome to get it to flower. The three essential causes all relate to the plant rising too vigorous:

• Repotting too often
• Fertilizing too closely
• Pruning too strongly

Every of those result in sturdy vegetative development, and reduces the event of flowering spurs. As such, so as to get flowers one ought to lay again on the (particularly nitrogen) fertilizer. Repot solely when actually wanted (leaving it with out repotting for five+ years just isn’t unusual in any respect) and as a substitute of pruning branches, take the tip away from vigorous development as quickly as you see it growing.

Right here subsequent to one another the fall-pictures of this hawthorn in 2019, 2020 and 2021. In 2019 for the primary yr I ended pushing for structural branches and started specializing in flowering spurs. In 2021 the primary flowers appeared. And within the 2021 fall image it’s clear there are various flowering spurs on the tree, let’s hope they offer me a number of flowers in spring!