Breaking the secrets on how to care for bonsai flower trees!

Imagine enjoying your evening tea on your terrace garden beside your colorful bonsai trees. Isn’t it a complete stressbuster? Who wouldn’t enjoy the sight of the luscious green leaves and the vibrant cloud of colorful flowers?

But sometimes there can be problems in your paradise. Unfortunately, these bonsai flower trees don’t grow or bloom that often under unfavorable conditions. Are you one among those who constantly question what went wrong with your artistic plants? Still surfing ways to get them flowering again?

Shh! We got a few secrets for your plant friend!

Read on as we share the tips and tricks to care for your bonsai flower trees.

How to Care for bonsai flower tree

Caring for bonsai flower trees is similar to that of any regular plant. They require sunlight, watering, and fertilization regularly to promote growth. However, they need extra care to train and maintain the bonsai tree’s stunted growth.

Flowering bonsai trees need extra care as the flowers are delicate and bad pruning can damage the plant in the long run. Here are a few aspects of caring while growing a bonsai flower tree.

Sunlight

You give them sunlight, and they give you flowers!

Sunlight is extremely important for the growth of any plant. With the help of sunlight, using photosynthesis, they prepare food and generate energy. Only with the help of these energies do plants grow and support lifecycles. Flowering is one such important phenomenon in any plant’s growth cycle.

The flower can bloom only under sunlight. That’s why most indoor plants survive better when placed outdoors. Bonsai plants need full sunlight of about 6 – 8 hours daily to promote growth. Perennial flowering bonsai trees depend on sunlight energy to produce flowers.

Depending on the species’ needs, you can alter the intensity and duration of sunlight. Yet avoid placing them in direct sunlight when they are pruned, repotted or sprouting.

Soil

You might be tempted to use the regular potting soil to grow your bonsai tree if you are a beginner. Kindly refrain from doing so. If you’re serious about growing these miniature beauties, you must treat them with special care. Proper bonsai soil is the best choice.

Bonsai soil is a mixture of akadama, lava rock, pumice, organic compost and sand. They are well-draining and retain just the right amount of moisture. If the soil holds back too much moisture, it would be susceptible to disease and infections. Prefer neutral soil that isn’t too acidic or alkaline. An ideal pH value for a regular bonsai tree would be around 6.5 – 7.5.

Fertilization

To accelerate the growth rate of plants, you need to feed them regularly. Fertilizing the plant once or twice a month with organic solid or liquid fertilizers can help them boost the growth rate. Avoid fertilizing for a month or two after repotting them.

Fertilizers have three main components: nitrogen, phosphorus, and Potassium (NPK). Usually, we use all three of them in the same ratio (6:6:6 NPK) to feed any regular bonsai plant. But if you need fruits or flowers from your bonsai, it would be best to tweak the ratio a bit. Lower the nitrogen levels and add more phosphorus to the fertilizer mix.

The suggested ratio for bonsai flower trees is 6:10:6 (NPK). However, as the plant ages, the nitrogen levels.

Pruning

If you wonder how bonsai growing differs from growing any regular plant, then pruning is your answer. We do pruning and wiring to control the plant’s growth and structure.

You can’t have your plant grown to your door height and call it a bonsai. Now it’s not a crime to have a tall tree, but stunt growth is what differentiates these mini beauties from regular plants. You need to train them to archive a small structure with thick foliage yet bear flowers and fruits like a real tree.

The duration to prune can vary for each plant variety. It would be best to prune young plants every 2 – 3 years and the older ones every 4 – 5 years.

Right Watering Techniques

Hydration is a key factor in the growth of any living being. But for the bonsai trees, it can be tricky. The soil gets soggy and affects the root growth if you overwater them. If you let them dry out completely, then be ready to pick up the dead plants.

The aim here would be to hydrate the plants with water just enough to retain the moisture. Also, re-water them every time the soil starts to dry out. It would be best to water them once thoroughly until the excess water seeps through drain holes, provided you have planted your bonsai in well-draining soil.

Factors Affecting the Right Watering Technique

Are wondering if your watering method is correct, then here are three factors to help you out.

Size of the planter pot

As discussed above, the soil you choose for your bonsai must be well-draining, but the size of the container you place these bonsai soil in also matters. The bigger the pot, the more the soil can retain the water. If you’re growing your bonsai flower trees in a small pot, then the chances are that they might dry out soon. It would be best to water them 2-3 times a day in such cases.

Seasonal Growing Phase of the Bonsai Flower Trees

Flowering bonsai trees tend to go dormant in the winter to bloom back with full strength in the spring.

Do you think you should keep feeding and hydrating a resting plant?

A big NO.

You can reduce watering in the dormant season and increase the watering frequency in the growing season. If you do the logic, the sunlight evaporates some of the water during summer, so they need more water to stay hydrated. But during winter, due to the lack of sunlight, it’s rather we avoid watering. Could you make sure they are moist all day long? That’s enough.

Location or Placement of Bonsai

Where you locate your plant matters, in other ways, you can’t expect the water you poured in the morning to dry out completely by the evening if you are growing it in your window sill. But if you place the same plant in your terrace then you better be ready to water them in the evening also.

In general outdoor plants need more water than indoor plants.

Best Watering Techniques for Bonsai

Never spray or sprinkle water on the leaves or water at night. The evaporation of excess water is not possible hence your bonsai flower trees will be attacked by moisture-prone diseases and infections. Leaves become soggy and wrinkly when exposed to prolonged moisture.

Here are the two best ways to water any bonsai plant

Top-watering

This is the most commonly used watering technique. Here the water is poured over the planter pot using a water hose or uniformly poured in a gentle stream-like manner as if it’s raining over them. Continue watering for 30 – 60 seconds or until the excess water drains out through the bottom holes in the pot.

Bottom-watering

This method is best suited for small plant pots and dry humid zones. The bottom watering method assures that the roots are safe and prevents water from clogging the pot.

Here we take a tray filled with water and place the plant pot on top of it. make sure the water is only until the rim of the plant and doesn’t go inside the plant’s hollow side. Let it stay in the same manner for 30 minutes. By now the roots will gradually absorb the moisture as much as it needs. After 30 minutes place the point its normal location.

Re-potting and Growing Medium

It would be best to do repotting every 2 or 3 years to help the soil maintain its fertility and control the root growth. As we aim here to control the plant growth, once we remove the plant from the potter, we gently wash and trim the unwanted and infected roots from them.

While repotting, make sure you use a fertile and nutrient rich bonsai soil. You can also change the planter pot if you want to give more space for the roots to grow. If not, replant them in the old pot and water them thoroughly.

After repotting, refrain from fertilizing the plant for the next month or two. This avoids unnecessary stress in the roots. The best time to do repotting is in the spring. Removing all the unwanted branches and leaves from the plant can also reduce the stress in the plants.

Pests and Diseases

The bonsai flower trees are also susceptible to pests and diseases like any other plant. However, with proper care and maintenance, you can reduce the risk of infection and diseases in the plants.

Some of the common issues are aphids, spider mites, mealy bugs, scale insects, caterpillars, and red ants. Leaves turn yellow and die when there is lack of water. Roots develop root rots when you overwater them.

Tips on growing a flower bonsai tree

Let them enjoy lots of sunlight. The more they absorb the sun’s rays, the better they grow.
Add phosphorus-rich fertilizer to your soil mixture. These are flower blooming catalysts for your plants. (Remember 6:10:6 NPK ratio)
Keep the soil always moist. Dry soil deteriorates the growth.
Never sprinkle water over the foliage or flowers. Moisture can make the flowers wilt away. Protect them from rain, for the same reason.
Prune the plants according to their growth pattern. Flowering plants have seasonal growth, so be mindful of them.
Trim the flowers earlier if you want them to bloom at the same time next season.
These plants don’t produce fruits and have seeds at the bottom of the flower. Be careful to remove them along with wilted flowers to avoid pollination or extra growth within the pot.

Conclusion

We know you had a hard time worrying about your pants. But sometimes you need to just place them in a sunny spot. With proper watering and feeding you will definitely cherish them. You try to follow the special cares we have mentioned above to get the best for your flowering bonsai trees.

Growing flower plants is always exciting but nurturing a bonsai version of them is truly a bliss! If you aren’t growing a flower tree yet, gift yourself a flower bonsai tree right away!