Boxwood bonsai - part 2: Understanding Twin Trunk styles | Blue Sky Bonsai

Welcome to Part 2 of this mini-series on Boxwood Bonsai trees. In this episode I work on a "Mother and Daughter" arrangement, and explain why it is not exactly a Twin Trunk bonsai tree.
Part 1 of this boxwood series is here: • Boxwood Bonsai - part ...
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Music in this video - thanks to these wonderful artists:
Mokka - Sweet Home / @mokkamusic

[@BackGardenBonsai]

I didn't realise there was a difference between twin trunk and mother/daughter. I always thought the names where just interchangeable, clearly not. so now i wont looks stupid in the future. lol. also the tree looks great.

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Thanks!! That's a good call, and like with all style nomenclature I think it's open to some personal interpretation. I think of mother-daughter to be the arrangement of the overall tree image whereas twin trunk or multiple trunk speaks to the nature of the tree or its formal style. They are venn diagrams with a lot of overlap. I guess most double trunk trees have a mother-daughter arrangement, but not all. Maybe I should have called it "mother-daughter arrangement" rather than "style"!

[@BostonBonsaiIdiot]

Excellent! That first tree is a beauty, really like where it’s headed. It’s already a charmer in my opinion! Great vids, keep em coming.

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Thanks Boston! I really appreciate your encouraging words. Part 3 coming soon!

[@paulw9792]

Another excellent tutorial. All of your work is inspirational. I've a box outside which I am just going to relook at now!

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Thanks for your kind words, I'm glad you found the inspiration!

[@KarIiah]

Very educational, nice choice of music and well done editing! :)

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Thank you for your kind words Karliah! 😊

[@basismac2578]

Another fantastic video with nice music.. Thanks,

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Thanks so much for your kind words! 😊

[@davidbercher9927]

Thank you for an excellent tutorial.

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

You are welcome and thanks for watching and commenting 👍

[@bayvlogadang]

Yes 👏👍 ok bonsai của anh đẹp

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Thanks! 😊👍🏻

[@kilthsenarc]

Thanks for another great video. Gracias.

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Thanks Paul! I sure enjoy working on these 🌳👍🏻

[@katedodd79]

I'm so glad I found your channel, I love my boxwood pre-bonsai, but struggled to find YT videos at a similar stage (though yours is way more refined styling). Found you after shout out by Boston Bonsai Idiot, via Back Garden Bonsai

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Thanks Kate, and great to have you in the team! Hope you can make some videos of yours for us to see sometime. Yes there's so many hours of bonsai video available but to me it's all incredibly relaxing. Where in the world are you?

[@katedodd79]

@@BlueSkyBonsai I'm in the UK (Coventry), gather you are somewhere warmer? All my trees are just saplings with delusions of grandeur! I have Acer, Smoke Bush, Thuja, Hornbeam, Privet, Cotoneaster, Birch, Oak, Hazel, Hawthorne and Yew - Basically anything that will survive our winters with no more protection than a corner wall!

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

@@katedodd79 all great bonsai species! I used to live near there, in Leamington. Nice area. Moved back to London for work and to Spain for love 😊

[@Dineshlovegardening]

Wow you have a good technic of bonsai plants 👌👌

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Thanks so much Dinesh! 😊👍🏻

[@davidstokes925]

Really nice!

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@tasanastasi7799]

Very Nice work

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Thanks!

[@matttibbott9393]

Hi, great videos, love watching the ones that aren’t “exhibition ready”!! Gives us mortals a hope…heard you say about rooting box cuttings: what did you do? I have a box blob and am just stocking random branches in water…they haven’t died yet…. What do i do???

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Thanks Matt! The box cuttings take a very long time to root, but they do so eventually and gradually. Try putting it in some potting soil mixed with small grains of akadama, in a clear plastic pot so you can see when it does finally root out. Keep the plastic pot in a bowl of water so that the soil is as 100% waterlogged. (you can't get root-rot if there are no roots!) Also, you want to replace the water every two weeks (or in summer every week) just so the water itself doesn't go stagnant. Also add a drop or two of rooting hormone to the water each time. Basically the same process as in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iJ-ql4ibhqhqqJo but with boxwood you might be waiting 4 or 6 months before you see roots. HTH

[@matttibbott9393]

Brilliant! And thank you for replying so quickly; I’ll get on that and see what happens in six months…

[@matttibbott9393]

When would root rot start? I.e. when should they be taken out of the water tray? Two of my cuttings have started to root just in water, after only a few weeks…they’re in the same water as some pussy willow cuttings so maybe they’ve spurred the box on?!? I can’t seem to find any answers out there….

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

@@matttibbott9393 great wirk! willows are well known for rooting easily in water. Maybe they give off their own rooting hormones... I don't know. Root rot happens quicker in summer than winter because of the water temperature. When you've got a few distinct roots, it's time to pot up, but keep the soil saturated wet for the next 6-8 weeks and change the water regularly!

[@jjz3192]

Hi! If not twin trunk, what style do you plan to create for the first tree? Can you give some suggestions on how to induce a tree like this to develop new branches in negative spaces?

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Hi, this is how this boxwood looks now after this year's repot: flic.kr/p/2onR48F If I wanted to give the tree/shrub more chance of budding out a new branch in that gap, I would put it in a much bigger pot and let it grow unhindered for 3 or more years. The extra root and branch vigour is likely to encourage buds from existing trunk areas. But unfortunately you can't dictate where they will emerge. If you want to determine exactly where a branch must emerge, you could do a thread graft. I personally haven't done one of these and I am not sure if it will work here because if a boxwood branch loses all its leaves the branch will die (like conifers), so I would need to keep some leaves on the stem that I thread through my drill hole. I believe the thread grafting technique is much more likely to work with a deciduous tree that pushes out new leaves again and again, so you can thread a shoot without leaves through a smaller drill hole. To answer your dirst question: In the end, I've decided to keep it as it is, regularly hard-pruning the first branch so it doesn't thicken much, but leaving the upper branches to grow much more - pruning much less - so that after several years the main trunk will thicken more than the first branch. Sadly that could take 10 or more years on a slow-growing boxwood... but bonsai is all about patience! 😉

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Just re-reading my response here, and maybe an approach graft could work for a boxwood. Wouldn't need to thread a shoot through a hole- just create a horizontal slot in the trunk at the right position and paste the shoot into the slot (first pealing back a bit of bark). That's an option here.

[@jjz3192]

​@@BlueSkyBonsai Thank you so much for your detailed reply and suggestion on graft! However, if new buds do emerge from the existing area somewhere in the middle (like in your boxwood), will it throw off the flow of the thickness of the branches from bottom to up? The tree already has a thick first branch and then there's the developing branches on top. If thin new buds come out in the middle, will this be an issue to the overall image of the tree?

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

@@jjz3192 you're welcome! If new buds emerge, we let them grow into bigger branches before we decide what to do - you don't want to make a drastic chop and then find the new shoot dies off!! So, on a boxwood, or juniper or pine, you'd wait a couple of years before deciding. On most other species (deciduous, also olives, privets, ficus etc) almost certainly one year is enough for the new shoot to grow strong and dependable. Then... your dilemma of what to chop back, that's a good thing... having to many branches to choose from is a good problem to have!

[@daver9643]

I have a boxwood that still in the nursery container and some that I’ve already transplanted to a bonsai container. My question is, those that are in the bonsai container have the trunk thickness a little bit thicker than a pencil. Will it get much thicker in the bonsai container?

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Hi Dave, once it's in a bonsai container it will hardly thicken at all. Much slower than in a large pot anyway. That's because you prune the roots every couple of years in a small pot. Both root pruning and branch pruning cause the tree's growth to slow down considerably, which pf course is what you want for a bonsai but not for a developing tree. There is something that you could consider: do a cycle of 1 year in a small pot, then slip pot into a bigger container for 3 years. That way you only root prune every fourth year and it still continues to thicken the trunk in the meantime (although still slower than if you never pruned the roots). HTH

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

One more thing, its good to have a collection of different sizes si it might be good to leave the last one in the large container for a few more years?

[@tejpunter5450]

Hey, nice video. Can you please give the scientific name of this variety of Boxwood? I had one plant which was badly infested and died. Now that I look for same plant material, I get different varieties of Boxwood but not this one.

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Thanks! This is Buxus Microphylla var. Japonica. But I think any variant of B. Microphylla would be excellent for bonsai.

[@SysterYster]

Is the algae on the trunk a bad thing? For the tree I mean. Because in nature, I rather like mossy tree trunks, so I don't think it looks bad. Is it just a thing of personal preference, or a health problem for the tree?

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

It's not a health issue. But, moss around the trunk does two things you might not want on a developing bonsai: it keeps the bark there permanently damp so that part of the trunk doesn't develop the craggy cracked bark that helps to make the tree look like a mature old tree in nature. And secondly, a permanently damp trunk can have the effect of sending out adventitious roots into the moss, higher up than your natural root plane. Adventitious roots might look cool for a while but they are detrimental in the long run because they fatten the trunk where they join so your trunk under-develops beneath the level of the false roots. In the long run that'll give you inverse taper, the exact opposite of the taper you want at the trunk base. In summary: keeping the moss there won't harm the tree but it could impede the development of an aging mature tree appeance over time. HTH

[@SysterYster]

@@BlueSkyBonsai Ooh, I see. Thank you so much for your reply. :)

[@richiepropster4313]

Bonsai toothbrush goes with the bonsai tools and not back in the bathroom. Note taken!

[@richiepropster4313]

So, stupid question... Would it be okay to use my old toothbrush (that I used for my teeth) on my bonsai? Or, is that, maybe, a no-no?

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

@@richiepropster4313 it would be perfectly okay to use your old toothbrush. At the end of the day, toothpaste is mostly non-toxic detergent, so if there's any still on there it will be fine. 🌳👍🏻

[@Tore1972Wisdom]

I don´t think it´s comming out to low at all. In fact i think i creates a much more interesting bonsai for the future.

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Thanks Tore! It's definitely staying on the tree for the foreseeable future. Maybe my issue with it, is that it's too fat for a first branch. But over several years the main trunk should fatten up, and if I continue to hard-prune the first branch it will stay as it is, and maybe it will gradually appear in better proportion to the trunk. Thanks again! 😊👍🏻

[@Tore1972Wisdom]

@@BlueSkyBonsai* I think it´s very important to remember, that trees in nature also can look very speciel. They are far from looking perfect and those trees i find most interesting. Way to many bonsai trees look the same.

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

@@Tore1972Wisdom that's a very good point. I completely agree. Thanks again!

[@davidstokes925]

Sorry, but that 2nnd tree would be a great place to start but then again you’ve done far more than I probably will ever do. Don’t pay any attention to me...

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

Thanks David, you might be right, these videos were last summer and to be honest I can't remember what order I did the five boxwoods in... 😊

[@LEO-xo9cz]

How do you know that it is a daughter branch? It could be any of the 30 odd genders 😅

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

😂😂😂 i suppose if I had said "parent child" it would be more politically correct but would really start to sound weird!

[@LEO-xo9cz]

@@BlueSkyBonsai Haha nothing surprises me anymore. We are living in the Twilight Zone. Could I please send you a picture of a tree and get your suggestion on what to do to it?

[@BlueSkyBonsai]

@@LEO-xo9cz sure, you can email it to [e-mail]

[@andremarais2706]

Now I had to puke, cos the tree is rotated all the time like a disco ball.