Can Bonsai Seedlings Be Trained To Grow In To Specific Shapes?

The whole point of growing a bonsai from seed is so that we can end up with a bonsai, but I think there is a lot of misunderstanding around how and when this can happen.

When you have a seedling, it will need to be pruned to shape, it isn’t magically going turn into a bonsai …but they are also very small and delicate, so they can’t really be worked on just yet.

You need to find the balance between allowing your seedling to grow and also developing it in to a bonsai.

Always Remember That There Are No Special “Bonsai Seeds”

You always need to remember that when any one is talking about “bonsai seeds” they actually meaning, normal seeds, that you plan to let grow and train into a bonsai.

Bonsai has nothing to do with the seeds, any species of tree can be a bonsai. It is all to do with the techniques you use on the tree, such a pruning, which will keep things small and compact and “bonsai size”.

This does mean that any seedling you are growing can be trained to become a bonsai. It is not something that is going to happen right away, but you can certainly grow seeds with the intention of training them into a specific shape. 

(You can read more about – Where Can You Buy Bonsai Seeds?)

You Have A Lot More Control With Seedlings

The best part about using seedlings for bonsai is that you have so much more control over the final shape of the tree.

You have control over what size, direction and shape the tree ends up which can’t always happen with other techniques that are used for making bonsai.

If you take nursery stock for example, a lot of the main structure will already be set, it is just our job to unearth that and promote what is already there. You can’t control the shape or thickness of the trunk or where the branches are, you just have to work out what is there …but you can do this with seedlings, you can pretty much control every last detail.   

As a seedling grows you can train it to be the shape you want and have everything exactly as you want, it is still a slow process, but there is a lot more control.

You Can Wire Seedlings In To Shape Easier

You can use wire to help you create the shape of your bonsai and this can be made easier when you are using a seedling.

Seedlings are delicate, but they can still be bent into shape and as they are much slimmer and usually more flexible, which can make this whole process a lot easier.

Really you are only going to be setting the main structure of the tree at this point of its life, but this is extremely important. Once your tree reaches a certain thickness, it’s going to pretty much be set into that shape, so being able to get in early and create the shape you want is perfect and using a seedling gives you the freedom to do this.

A very common shape is the “S” shape, which really needs to be created when the tree is young, as once your trunk is a certain thickness you are never going to bend it very far, especially into any sort of dramatic shape like an “S”. This can also be true for cascading trees, which should also be set into place when the tree is young.

You also need to exaggerate the bends you put into a seedling, which can make it look very radical initially, but as the tree grows the bends usually soften.    

You Can Prune Seedlings In To The Direction You Want Easier

Pruning a seedling into a bonsai will be very slow, but you can again, end up with more control.

You are going to have to wait for things to grow, so it really will be a process that takes a good few years, but every time there is a opportunity to prune, you can do so in a way that is going to encourage growth exactly where you want it, while also removing anything you don’t.

This is really going to allow you to make sure the tree is putting its energy where you want it and as the seedling slowly ages you will have built up a lot of growth in all the right places and the bonsai you are trying to build will slowly start to appear.

This is of course very different to dealing with nursery stock, where there are basically too many branches and you have to remove a lot of them and hope that there are some in places you like that you can keep and then develop from there.

You Still Have To Let Your Seedlings Grow If You Want Them To Become Bonsai

While we may have a lot of control with seedlings, we actually have to wait longer to turn them into a bonsai.

Seedlings are not ready to be worked. They are small delicate little plants that don’t even look like real trees, we can’t just start training these into bonsai. We need to let them grow.

We can do some things after about a year, but really the whole process is very slow and may only involve one little snip of a branch here and there …but all these little bits of work can add up over the first few years and really put our seedling in a great position to have a lot of potential as a bonsai.

It is slow, but it can be a lot easier than taking a developed tree out of the ground and trying to train it to shape.

Trunk Thickness Will Be the Hardest Thing To Achieve

The biggest problem with starting a bonsai from seed is that the trunk will be super skinny and this will often be the part that you struggle to really develop.

To get a thick trunk we need to let the tree grow, but if we are trying to shape the tree thorough pruning, we are not going to get the thickness.

You can either prune your seedling often, but end up with a skinny trunk …or you can leave it untouched for a few years and allow it to thicken. Really it is down to you to find the balance between these two approaches with your seedlings and see what you think works best for you.

There are certainly pro and cons for doing both methods, and maybe somewhere in the middle will be what you find best, where you can still develop both the trunk thickness and the overall shape of the tree.  

The Whole Bonsai Process Is Slow

I think it is important to remember that training a tree into a bonsai is a slow process. This process is even slower if you are starting form a seed.

This is exactly why people dig trees up from the wild or buy nursery trees, some of the work will already have been done, but of course the trade off is that the tree will have already grown in a certain way, so you lose some control of what the final shape will look like. 

The more control you want, the longer it will take you to reach the final goal and this is the trade off you need to make when you are creating your own bonsai and deciding if you should grow from seed, or start with an already established tree.

(You can read more about – How Do You Care For Bonsai Seedlings?)

You Can Let The Seedlings Guide The Shape

When it comes to finding the shape of the tree, I try and balance this by working with the tree.

This means that I will let it grow and let the tree do what it wants, then prune to encourage this.

It is much easier to let it grow and see what happens, then look at it and say “it seems to want to become this shape” and then I help it get there, rather than saying “I want this shape” and then fighting the tree to do what I want.

It is a subtle difference, but I think it does really change how you go about things and makes life easier. You never really know where the tree will end up, and of course I will still make decisions to help it along, but it is the tree that is doing the hard work, not me.  

Seedlings are perfect for this as they really are blank canvass and the fact you can easily wire them means you make little adjustments a lot easier and really end up with a nice balance between the tree doing most of the work and you just refining its shape to help it along.

Conclusion

As you can see, seedlings can be shaped into a bonsai, but it does take time. You need to let the tree grow and then you can use bonsai techniques, but over the first few years of the trees life you can start to do little bits here and there and set the there up nicely for its life as a bonsai.

You get a lot of control with seedlings, so while they are very slow, they can be very rewarding. 

(You can read more about – Starting A Bonsai From Seed – A Guide For Years 1 To 5)