How Do You Avoid Pruning Scars On Your Bonsai Tree?

Large scars on your bonsai are often ugly looking and something you want to avoid …but you also need to prune your tree, which is going to cause them.

This can cause a bit of a dilemma and it can be hard to know what exactly you should do. I will go through some ways you can limit the amount of scaring and how you can still prune your tree and not have to worry about extreme scarring wrecking your tree.

How Bad The Scars Are Depend On The Species

The scars that are left behind from our pruning are not all going to be the same and this can often come down to the species of the tree.

Really it comes down to the bark and how thick or thin it is, which is of course species dependant.

Trees with thin, smooth bark will show scars much more noticeably than trees with thick, rough bark.

This can mean that two trees might trees have an equal amount of scars; it’s just that one is able to hide them better due to the bark and make them less noticeable. You can use this to your advantage, but of course if your tree cannot hide them well, then this is a disadvantage.   

It is good to know what kind of bark your tree has, so you can approach your pruning strategy in a way that is going to work best with what you have.

Scars Are Not Always Bad

I think it is also important to remember that scars are not always bad. Sometimes you will hear that a tree with no scars is better, which maybe true for that particular tree, but not always.

Sometimes scars can tell a story and they can add interest to a tree, so they are not always something you need to fear or avoid. 

It will really depend on what look and feel you are trying to achieve with your tree and sometimes scaring can help with that, and other times it won’t.

Try And Avoid Large Cuts

An easy way to avoid scars is to avoid big cuts. It sounds stupid, but it is true. The larger the cut, the larger the wound …so the larger the scar will be.

Of course this is a lot easier said than done, sometimes it cannot be avoided and you need to make big cuts.

There can be ways around this, and I will talk about that below, but if your tree has a big branch that you need to remove then you just have do it and try and get the wound to heal over as best as you can, which I will also discuss about in more depth below.

How You Develop The Tree Matters

How you develop the tree really can make a difference when it comes to scarring.

One of the quickest ways to develop a tree is to let it grow like crazy, and then cut it back hard. This is usually to promote a thicker trunk and you might end up growing the tree until it is like 10 feet tall. Hopefully a tree of this size is going to get you a really nice, thick trunk, which you can then cut right back down to only a few inches tall.

The big problem with this is that you are going you have a huge scar. It will be massive and will never truly heal over. Of course you can try and hollow it out and make a feature of it, or hide it around the back of the tree, but the reality is that the scar will always be there.

The other approach is to grow the tree a lot slower, in a smaller pot. Every year it will get kind of tall and you can prune it back and then just repeat this over and over again. Every year you will be pruning, and leaving scars, but they are only going to be small. These should heal over and with time and you will not be able to spot them. Of course the down side to this method is that it is extremely slow.

This means you need to decide what you prefer…do you want to get a thick trunk quickly, but have a large scar …or do you want to avoid scaring, but wait 10 times longer to get a thick trunk…

(You can read more about – How Can You Tell If Your Bonsai Tree Needs Pruned?)

Use Cut Paste

Cut paste is very common in bonsai, its purpose is to help with healing, which should reduce the final scarring.

A tree will heal over by itself, but the point of cut paste is to just make this easier for the tree. The paste acts as a barrier, which will of course will block anything from getting into the wound, but more importantly, stop moisture from getting out.

The wounds and the areas around them can easily dry out, which can result in the whole area dying back …making the actual damaged area of the tree greater. This is going to result in a larger scar and of course, the larger the scar, the longer and harder it is for it to heal over.

The cut paste should limit this and only really the actual wound should dry out, so while you still may have a large scar, it won’t get any worse as such.  

Personally I don’t use it, but I do believe it will help reduce the final scaring, so I do think it can be worth using at times.

(You can read more about – Pruning Aftercare Advice For Your Bonsai)

Reopen Wounds

Another way to reduce scaring is to force the scars you have to heal faster.

You can do this by reopening wounds that are not fully healed. This may sound counterproductive, but it actually works.

When you look at wound on a tree you will see that they callus over at the edges and this slowly rolls into the wound and it meets in the middle. Once it meets in the middle the wound is fully healed and you will probably not notice it as much.

However, this doesn’t really happen too often, especially with big wounds. The callusing just kind of goes part way and stops. You can encourage it to keep growing by reopening the wound. You just need to cut open the inner edge of the callus and you will find that the tree starts sending energy to this spot to heal it over, which should hopefully allow both sides of the callus to finally meet in the middle and heal over fully.

There will still be a scar, but the fact it has fully healed will make it look obvious than when there is a huge hole in the middle, which will stand out from a mile away. 

Time Heals Everything

A lot of the time you cannot avoid scars, you need to prune the tree and scaring is just a result of that. However, time will help soften things.

While some scars are always going to remain large, many of the smaller one will fully merge into the trunk with enough time.

Just because your tree is covered in scars today, doesn’t mean it will be forever, many of them will fade with time, you just need to wait and let nature do its thing.

(You can read more about – Healing Wounds On Bonsai Trees)

Conclusion

As you can see there are a number of things you can do to help limit the amount of scaring that occurs on your bonsai.

Of course it cannot be avoided at times and at other times it may be encouraged and might actually look better. So long as you know what look you want form your tree you can take the approach that is going to give you the result you want and hopefully your final tree looks very natural.  

(You can read more about – How To Prune A Bonsai Tree – A Beginners Guide)