What Are The Different Types Of Pruning You Can Do On A Bonsai?

When it comes to pruning your bonsai, there are actually a number of different techniques you can use, and I will go through them all here.

Some are more important than others, and will be used a lot more often, but either way it is good to know all the options that are available.

You will also find that as your tree develops you may need to use slightly different techniques, which is again why it’s important to be aware of all the different options.

The 7 Core Pruning Techniques For Bonsai

When it comes to pruning your bonsai, most of what you need to know can be summed up by the 7 following pruning principles.

These will help you with the general development of you tree as well as pruning it to shape when you are refining the tree. They can also be used during your winter pruning and even pruning throughout the year.

If you really just did these 7 things you would build a pretty good tree.

I have put them in this table here for quick reference

1	“Cleaning Out” A Bonsai
2	Only Have One Branch Coming Out Of The Trunk At One Place
3	Branches Only Allowed To Split Into Two
4	Clean Out Branch Crotches
5	Trim Back To 2 or 3 Leaf Nodes
6	Remove Bar Branches
7	Remove Crossing Branches

If you want to read about each technique in more detail you can read – How To Prune A Bonsai Tree – A Beginners Guide.

As you can see, I’ve referred to this a “beginners guide” but really this is …learn this as a beginner and you will be set up for life, as this really is the bulk of all the pruning you will ever do.

Hard Pruning A Bonsai

Hard pruning is when you cut the tree back very aggressively. This is usually for structural reasons and normally happens when you are developing the tree. 

When you are developing a tree you allow it to become overgrown, this is so that certain areas can thicken up and once you are happy with the size you can prune it back hard. You might grow a branch to be 3 meters long and then only cut it back to a few centimetres. Removing 90% of the growth is pretty drastic, but really you only wanted that small section the whole time. The extra growth was just to thicken it to the size you wanted.

I think that it is important to note that pretty much every hard prune you make will still be dictated by the 7 principles above.

Let’s say you are going to remove a bar branch …this may involve you removing a fully developed, large branch. Removing a whole branch like this, would be considered aggressive and would be form of hard pruning and of course the main reason you would be doing this for structural reasons, so you can see how everything can be interlinked.  

(You can read more about – Will Bonsai Trees Grow Back After Heavy Pruning?)

Trunk Chops

Doing a trunk chop on a bonsai is pretty much the ultimate hard pruning. This is when you grow the whole tree extremely large, for the sole purpose of developing a thicker trunk.

Once the trunk is the thickness you want, you chop everything else off. You literally cut everything back to just the trunk. Occasionally there may be a few branches left, but usually you just end up with a bare stump.

This can seem crazy, but the whole point of the procedure is to give you great trunk, once you have that, you can start to develop everything else. The new branches you grow can be more in size with a bonsai and you can very quickly develop an ugly stump into an actual bonsai.    

(You can read more about – How To Trunk Chop A Bonsai)

Pruning Bonsai To Create Deadwood

Pruning for deadwood isn’t the most commonly used pruning technique, but it is technically one that is available to you.

This is when instead of removing a branch you don’t want, you kill it and keep it attached to the tree. This sounds kind of strange, but it actually works really well with certain species.

You can have the dead wood twisted among the living parts and it can really tell a story about how the tree has struggled to survive and had to battle through hardships.

Deadwood can look very aesthetically pleasing and it is easy to create. Instead of fully removing the whole branch, you just cut off the foliage and let the branch die back. Once it has died and has dried out you can come back and remove the bark and manipulate it in a way that makes it look like it has snapped off in a storm or something similar.   

If you are growing junipers or conifers then you should take note of this pruning technique as it can really take your trees to the next level

(You can read more about – Creating Bonsai Deadwood)

Defoliation Of Bonsai

Defoliation is a technique that can be used on a small number of trees. You will need to check if the species you own can be defoliated, as if you do this on a tree that is not able to handle it, you will kill your tree.

This technique is pretty simple, you just cut off all of the leaves. This may seem very counterproductive but it does two things. It firstly allows the light to reach into the centre of the tree, so any buds in there are able to get light and remain healthy.

However, the main reason we do this is to encourage the new, smaller growth. The leaves we remove will grow back, but they will be smaller. This means that we can make our bonsai look even more in scale and even more miniature from doing this technique.

It can really level up a tree when you do this, which is why it is pretty common to see it happen a few weeks before a show, so that the tree can be seen with tiny leaves and just look awesome. 

(You can read more about – What Is Defoliation In Bonsai?)

Partial Defoliation

Partial defoliation is exactly what it sounds like; we just remove some of the leaves.

We do this so that more light can get into the centre of the tree and keep buds in that region healthy. Removing only a part of the foliage also means we are weakening the tree, but not too much. This can stop a tree from getting too vigorous and exploding with growth, which can be a good way to keep you tree under control during the growing season.  

Root Pruning

Root pruning is very different to everything I have discussed above, but it is still technically a form of pruning and it is also a large part of creating a bonsai.

You always need to balance the top of your tree with the bottom, which means you need to work the roots as well.

A lot of the same principles you apply to pruning the top of the tree will apply to the roots. You want the roots to stay small and compact, while also remaining healthy and pruning them is a way to achieve both of these goals.

(You can read more about – When Do You Need To Repot A Bonsai?)

Conclusion

As you can now see there are a number of different techniques you can use to prune your bonsai. Really if you focus on the 7 core pruning principles, you will be set up for success.

All the other techniques certainly have their place and you may use them in occasionally if the circumstance calls for it, but it is really these 7 main techniques that you will use repeatedly and these are what will really build your tree through pruning and help your tree develop.      

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