Bonsai tree care: tips & tricks

Bonsai trees can help to bring a calming aesthetic to your home. In fact, they’ve been used to aid mindfulness and lower stress for thousands of years. They do however require a fair bit of maintenance and with all the advice and information out there, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Here are some top tips and tricks for bonsai tree care, helping you keep your tree looking its best, and your home feeling serene.

Bonsai trees require a fair amount of attention and care. Proper positioning that considers sunlight and humidity, daily watering checks, and seasonal pruning are all vital to growing a beautiful tree.
Pruning is key for bonsai trees. With maintenance pruning encouraging growth, and structural pruning – also known as wiring - helping to shape the tree.
Soil, fertilising, and repotting are all important if you want to make your bonsai tree last. Make sure to use well-draining, nutrient-rich soil, and carefully repot your tree every 2–5 years.

What is a bonsai tree?

A bonsai tree is a small house plant designed to mimic the shape and structure of a fully matured tree. It’s not just a dwarfed version of a standard tree; it’s a plant that is meticulously pruned to maintain its small size and achieve the classic bonsai aesthetic, which has been planted in a small pot to restrict its growth. The word ‘bonsai’ literally means ‘tray planting’ in Japanese and has been done for centuries across Eastern Asia with similar arts existing in countries such as Korea, China, and Vietnam. And it has now become a popular practise in the west.

How to look after bonsai trees

For a plant developed to bring calm to the home, Bonsai trees are some of the trickier house plants to look after. You’ll need to keep a close eye on your tree fairly often and learn how to tell when it needs pruning and watering, but this is part of the reason they’re so popular. Spending time cultivating and looking after a tree like this has been shown to boost your wellbeing and relieve stress.

Where should I position my bonsai tree?

There are two main factors to consider when deciding on the position of your bonsai tree: lighting and humidity. Ideally, you need to find a spot with plenty of sunlight but away from any direct heat or draft.

How often should I water my bonsai tree?

Watering your bonsai tree is a tricky balance. A watering routine won’t work. Instead, you’ll need to keep a close eye on your tree daily, watering it as and when needed. The best way to know when your tree needs watering is by looking at the soil. If the top of the soil appears dry, it’s time to water. The shallow soil makes it easy for a bonsai to dry out, so it may even need watering daily. Keep pouring until the water starts to drain out of the holes at the bottom of the pot.

Be careful not to overwater too. If you end up drowning the roots in water, you’ll deprive the plant of oxygen, leading to yellow leaves and shrivelled branches.

How do I prune my bonsai tree?

Maintenance pruning and structural pruning are both important for bonsai tree care.

Maintenance bonsai tree pruning is essential for encouraging new growth:

Using garden shears, cutting away younger leaves provides more sun exposure to the leaves underneath, making for a stronger and healthier tree. It’s best to do this in the spring if the tree is flowering. Pruning can also help to perfect the shape of your tree as pruning branches encourages the growth of smaller branches

When the tree is dormant, it’s time to carry out some structural bonsai tree pruning.

More advanced structural pruning involves removing the tree’s structural branches and should be done by a professional.

A less invasive pruning technique is to wire the branches. This lets you control their growth to achieve the shape you want.

What’s the best soil and food for my bonsai tree?

Soil with larger particles mixed in will help to offer proper drainage to your bonsai tree. Just add rocks and stones to introduce more air into the mixture. You’ll also want it to retain as much water as possible, and introducing clay into the mix can do this.

For your bonsai to receive all the proper nutrients, it may need some fertiliser. Before you add the fertiliser, you’ll need to make sure the tree is properly watered as fertilising dry soil can be harmful.

When should I repot my bonsai tree?

You will only need to repot your bonsai once every two to five years, but when the time does come, there are a few important steps:

Carefully remove tree from pot
Trim away outer roots and rot
Clean the pot
Layer soil on bottom and place tree on top, filling in the gaps

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How long do bonsai trees take to grow?

Growing a bonsai tree from the seed is no quick task. It can take at least 5 years to get anything that even resembles a tree, but different species can take different amounts of time. If you don’t have the patience for that, you can buy a pre-grown tree from a nursery. This means you won’t get quite as much control over its shape, but you can still prune it to suit your space and style as it continues to grow.

If creating a calm and serene space in your home is the goal, a bonsai tree can be a great first step. It’s not a fuss-free plant, but cultivating and nurturing it can be a very rewarding process, resulting in a beautiful miniature tree. If you take bonsai tree care seriously, some varieties can even last for up to 100 years.

For more tips on how to make your interior feel more relaxing, explore our interactive Paint Visualiser to find out which colours can help to calm the soul.