When Should You Wire A Bonsai Tree?

When it comes to wiring a bonsai I will get asked one question a lot …When should I wire my tree?

…this can actually be interpreted as two separate questions.

1. What age should my tree be before I wire it? 
2. What time of year should I wire my tree?

So will go through both of these, then no matter what, you should know exactly when you should be wiring your trees.

The vague answer is that you can actually wire a tree of any age, at any point in the year …but that doesn’t always mean it’s the best thing to do so I will go through things in a little more detail to help you work out when the optimum time is. 

(If you are not sure why we actually wire, then you can read more about – Why Do We Wire Bonsai?)

What Age Should The Tree Be?

It doesn’t really matter what age your tree is, it will always be able to be wired.

You will find that you may want to wire a tree at a number of different points throughout its life and really it all comes down to what you are trying to achieve.

This does mean that sometimes the age of the tree does matter. You have to remember that trees grow and thicken over time…and the thicker they get; the harder it is to bend them.

Usually the first part to thicken up will be the trunk, so you may find that after a few years of growth it becomes too rigid to bend. Really if you want to wire the trunk and add some movement, then the younger the tree is the better.

Although, as I said it comes down to what you are trying to achieve, if you want an extreme bend in a trunk, this will be much easier to achieve with a small seedling compared a tree that is a few years old and a little thicker.

I would not worry about the age and instead would focus more on what you want to achieve and then look at the tree and decide when it is going to be possible, which really means getting the tree in your hands and feeling the branches and learning if they are going to move or not.

Structural Wiring vs Aesthetical Wiring

If you are looking more at what you are trying to achieve, then your wiring can be broken down into either structural or aesthetical reasons.

Usually the structural wiring is going to happen when the tree is younger; this is doing things like wiring the trunk or setting the angles of the primary branches and some of these bends can be pretty aggressive. Usually the younger the tree is, the more control you will get as the tree should be more flexible. You really want to set the structure early as once a tree reaches a certain point it is going to be very hard to change things.

Then as the tree ages and matures your wiring will change to a more aesthetical type wiring, where you may only be focusing on making very small changes and slightly moving things to just make everything look slightly better. These changes may not be drastic, but when you do it across a whole tree it really can make a big difference.   

Branches Can Be Different Ages

You also have to take into consideration that a tree of any age can usually grow a new branch, so your tree may be 100 years old …but the branch may only be 6 weeks old.

This is sort of why the age doesn’t matter, and why you need to focus more on the section you want to wire and decide if it is to possible or not.

This is another reason why you may wire a tree at different points of its life. You could wire your tree today and be happy with it, but in 3 years time a new branch may have grown and you feel that this needs to be wired too.  

You also have the branch tips, which are always going to be growing and changing over time, so they may need wired a number of different times as they change over the years.

You really don’t need to do everything at once its fine to spread your wiring out over different years and focus different sections at different times. There really are no rules about how much or how little you should do.   

How To Know If A Tree Is Ready For Wire   

If age isn’t important, then there must be something that we can use to tell if a tree is ready? …all we have to do is look at the tree.

A lot of bonsai is about getting hands on and learning through touch and wiring is exactly like this. You need to study your tree and how it grows and literally get hands on with it to see how it responds.

The first thing you should do is look at your branch and see if it is going to be able to handle being bent. This means it can’t be too young. While younger is often better, too young is not good.

New shoots are very delicate and just touching them can often snap them, so trying to wire them is not going to end well. Ideally you want to see that your branch has hardened off. It will no longer be green and will have started to turn woody.

Even at this point it may be too small to even wire and you might be best to leave it a while to get longer a little thicker. Of course this is all a balancing act, as you don’t want to let it get too thick and make things hard for yourself.

You should gently touch the trees and move the branches to see if they will bend and you will quickly get a feel for how it responds. You will start to get a feel for what is going to bend and what might be either too delicate or too rigid to work with.

Test On  Removed Branches

Trying to gently bend the trees can be helpful, but it can also be dangerous as you can potentially damage the branch, so an easy way to test things out is to use branches you have removed.  

Any time you prune anything you should test what you have removed to see how much it bends. You can of course get quite aggressive with things since you have removed this branch and it doesn’t matter what happens to it.

You can bend the branch until it snaps, which will actually teach you a lot. You will quickly learn how much force a branch can take before it cracks or snaps and then you can take this back to the tree and you will know how far you can push things when you want to wire it.

The Species Can Affect Things

It is also important to remember that some species will just be more flexible than others. This is why you need to get hands on with the trees.

You need to learn how they feel when the bend and also how they don’t bend when they get to a certain size.

You may find a certain species gets really rigid rather quickly, while another will remain very bendy even when branch seems pretty thick.

You need to really learn how all your different species respond to bending so you can work out when it is going to be best to wire them.   

What Time Of Year Is The Best Time To Wire A Bonsai?

Once you have decided that you want to wire your tree, you need to decide when you are going to do this.

The truth is you can do it at any point in the year, but I will go through the four seasons and discuss the pros and cons of each to help you work out when you should be wiring your own trees.    

As a rough guide, I generally find that you should wire your trees when you are pruning them, which means there are a few points throughout the season that can be a good time to wire. 

Winter

Winter is when you trees will be dormant and its best to just leave them alone at this time.

Winters are hard enough for trees without you interfering with them and the fact that they are not growing means they will not heal if you manage to damage them.

Wiring often causes small cracks and tears in the branches which is usually not a problem, but it could potentially over winter, since the tree will not be healing itself and the weather can be harsh.

However, late winter is an ideal time to wire.

Doing the work just before spring is the perfect time as the tree will start growing very soon and any damage is going to be quickly healed.

More importantly, the tree will not have leaves, so you can see what you are doing and actually get in and add the wire with ease. The new buds will also not be swelling yet, so they are also not in your way. I also find the trees are pretty flexible at this time, which again makes things easier.

This is the time of year I do a lot of work to my trees, such as hard pruning and wiring.      

(You can read more about – What Work Can You Do To Your Bonsai In Winter?)

Spring

Spring is not a good time to try and wire a tree. There is too much other stuff going on and it’s best to just let that happen. 

The buds will be swelling and these can be easily knocked off, which you don’t want. Then if you wait until the leaves are out, these can be equally as delicate. New shoots can easily be damaged and even if you are extremely good at putting wire on, damage can happen very easily.

It’s best to just leave the tree to grow and then come back at the end of spring once everything has hardened off.

You will also find that the tree grows very fast at this time, so if you have wired now (or in late winter) you will have to watch the areas you have wired to make sure nothing has started to swell too fast and cut in.  It is very easy for the wire to bite in at this time of year.

Summer

Summer can be an okay time to wire, but again it’s not perfect too.

The main issue for me is the fact the tree will be in leaf, so it’s hard to see what you are doing. It just makes things a little bit more difficult, but it’s not impossible.

You do need to be careful if you want to make large bends at this time. The tree will be actively growing which means there will be a lot of sap flowing through it, which is just under the bark. This causes a gap between the tree and bark and means that the bark is more likely to separate and come off if you bend it too much. This is not ideal and is something to consider if you want to wire at this time.   

Autumn

Autumn can be okay too, but I think there is again too much going on for this to be a good time.

As the tree starts to go dormant it will suck all the energy from the leaves, which can really make the tree swell very quickly. You will find that wire will very quickly cut in at this time, so you will need to watch out for this.

You also still have the leaves at this time and in some trees the buds may be starting to set for next year, so you don’t want to be touching these.  Also if you leave things too late, then you are getting to close to winter, where your tree will not be growing and not healing from the work you have done. 

It is pretty popular to wire conifers at this time of year, but they are of course a lot different than deciduous and a lot of the issue I have just discussed are not really found in conifers.

Tropical Bonsai

When it comes to tropical bonsai, you can really wire them at any point. If you are caring for them correctly then they are not really experiencing the four seasons and their living conditions are generally the same all year round. 

This really means that these types of trees can be growing all year round. Really you just have to take the advice from above and decide when you want to do it.  I would normally do it at the same time I am pruning the tree.

Just be careful of any new buds that are forming and also watch out for the wire biting in as tropical’s can grow quickly.

(You can read more about – Frequently Asked Questions About – Bonsai Wire)

Conclusion

So as you can see, you can wire a tree at any age and at any time of the year, but really you probably want to do most of your work when the tree is ready for it, and during late winter.

This is when I do most of my wiring, but it is not the only time of the year. Just avoid it during the middle of winter and if you are doing it at any other time, just be careful as you can damage things a little easier.   

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