Indoor Bonsai Tree

Easy Guide to Bonsai Wiring

Indoor bonsai tree wiring is the practice of wrapping aluminum or copper wire around the bonsai trunk or branches to shape the tree. Proper preparation and execution can make the difficult task of training the bonsai much easier.

Here are some guidelines for the proper wiring of bonsai.

Pruning a bonsai helps determine the number and position of branches and leaves. However, wiring is needed to affect overall shape.  This practice is critical to achieving the balance and form needed to make the bonsai into a completed work of bonsai art.

Basic Bonsai Style

Wrapping the trunk and branches with wire of the right length and thickness in the correct way creates the basic bonsai style. The formal upright (chokkan) style requires no wrapping at all, but extensive wrapping is needed over the course of several months to create the cascade (kengai) style.

Wiring puts stress along a trunk or branch. Thus,  it's essential to exercise extreme caution and patience during the process. Failure to do so can easily result in a cracked branch, or worse, a cracked trunk and a dead tree.

Wrapping too tightly or at the wrong season can cause scarring. Scarring  could kill the tree or cause damage that takes months or years to heal.

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Make a sketch or computer drawing showing your visualization of the final result. You can make changes later, but you should have an image to use as a goal.

Unless your goal is to only produce a small effect on one or two branches, start at the trunk, then move to larger branches, doing the smallest branches last.

Practice wrapping with a wooden pole or a small ordinary tree branch before you move on to wrapping your bonsai.  This allows you to get the feel of the wire and develop the dexterity to hold the branch and wrap at the same time.

Once you're comfortable holding the branch with one hand and wrapping with the other, without bending or tugging anything but the wrapped part, you can move to the bonsai tree.

Choose Wiring Month Carefully

Selecting the proper month to begin can be complex. Different species begin and end their growing and dormant phases at slightly different dates. The amount of growth during a given month also varies by type of tree.

The growing season of some deciduous trees begins in spring. Their sap begins to flow and they are more delicate at this time. Wait until summer when the sap flow is lower to wire these trees.

A tree's growing activity helps shape the result. Growing activity is slower in the autumn and winter than it is in the spring and summer. Thus, waiting too long to wire a tree may result in lost growing activity. 

 Pine wired in autumn, by comparison, can easily experience scarring if the wire isn't checked every couple of weeks.

Low Growth Winter

Wiring in winter requires more time and patience than wiring in the other seasons, because trees experience low growth or no growth at all.

When wire is wrapped too tightly and/or left on too long, bark begins too grow around the wire. This causes scarring that can take years to heal or may not heal at all.

As you can see, it is very important that you take measures to prevent the trees from scarring.

Try to wire when the tree has been slightly dried to minimize the sap flow. This is a delicate balance, though. If the tree is too dry, a branch might crack. If it is too wet, cracks can be caused by pressure created by sap flow.

Wiring, like all other indoor bonsai techniques,  requires learning, patience and practice.

 
If I can do it, you can do it!
Tina Timms, Bonsai Babe

Indoor Bonsai Tree