Creating A Pepper Bonsai

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Creating a Pepper Bonsai

marylou link
16-20 minutes
Cutting down the large plant to turn it into a small bonsai plant! Cutted plant. Doesn't look too good... just yet.
Photo: http://fatalii.net
If possible, cut above the leaf-level to make sure your bonsai will continue growing, on the example here, there wasn't any
leaves below the cutting point so it's a lot more risky process. Or, you can trim the plant a little less, and continue the trimming
when the plant is forming enough foliage later in the new pot.
Then cut off plenty of extra roots around the plant...

...and dig up the root ball...
Cut it small enough to fit in a preferred bonsai-pot. Trim the plant and the roots even more for the re-potting, if needed. Then,
add soil to the bottom of your bonsai pot.
At this point, it's a good idea to clean up the upper parts of the roots from soil. Removing some soil to make the roots more
visible.
The idea is to leave the largest roots visible above the soil level to make your bonsai chile to look more "dramatic". You can
enhance this process by encouraging the woody root growth by exposing the largest roots for the light after in the middle of
the growing season, preferably many months before cutting them down.
A few stem examples shown here from few of my full-sized plants: (Keep in mind these will still grow for months before I will
cut them down).
One great way to produce very massive stems quickly is to "fuse" the stems together...
This works with some varieties, for example, most wild chile pepper varities, some rocotos (C. pubescens) and many C.
baccatums are great for this! So how to do it?
Just germinate several seedlings for one germinating tray and tie them together as they grow.
Alternative way to achieve this is simply tieing separate seedlings together when they have grown tougher (Not immediately
after germinating), check the pic on the left.
Here's an example of fusing stems, with results: Two C. rhomboideum seedlings grown together, start to fuse at this point.
Here's the same plant cut down, wired, showing some signs of life!
And the same plant year later, fused together nicely. Still waiting for some fusing to occur.
Roots on a stone
One great methods with Bonchi`s is to place a stone under the roots and months later when the stem(s) are thicker and roots
have wrapped around the stone, it`s possible to repot the Bonchi stem with the stone into bonsai pot!
Here`s one simplified project as an example:
Placed on a stone, next step would be to repot the plant with a stone.
You can choose to use either soil or hydroponics, I used soil in this example.
After several months of growing, the plant will be pruned down and planted into a bonsai pot!
Okay, here's another "roots-on-a-stone" Bonchi example:
Fusing several stems on a stone: Many stems growing on a stem.

At the end of the season, this plant will be cut down and repotted into a bonsai pot. Here's the same plant.
Trimming the roots and repotting your bonchi into a bonsai pot
Cut off most of the smallest roots from the upper part of the chile roots... you can trim it even more after the chile bonsai has
been planted to it's new home.
This operation makes your bonsai chile look more like a small tree than a small chile plant.
A nice bonsai pot is highly recommended for the best looks!
Trimming roots. Just leave the larger ones to show above the soil level to make it look better.
And then, plant your chile bonsai into it's new bonsai-pot. Add some soil on the sides and around the stem and roots the way
you want it. Designing the base for the bonsai.
Place the bonsai-stem (with not-too-much-foliage appearance at this point) on a sunny windowsill,
or for example under a fluorescent tube or bulb. Light is the key for a new vigorous growth!
Keep in mind that as the enviroment and circumstances changed suddenly a LOT.
It might take a little while for your chile bonsai to grow some new roots and after that, hopefully some new foliage too!
The picture below shows several Bonchi's growing their first leaves, right after cutting them down, yes they look ugly at this
point, for a short while...
Later... A group of bonchi's on the table.

Bonchi's on windowsill at winter.
Pruning your bonchi plants

Keep pruning the new growth (both stems and leaves) whenever needed to keep your bonsai growth very dense, this will
make sure the new growth will look good. The most important tip about pruning comes here: Always cut off spindly branches
without leaves.
Also remember that most often it's a good thing (especially at the beginning), to keep pruning the plant a lot more that what
you would think at first.
It takes some practice to master a technique for getting some pretty tree-looking bonsai chiles, but a decent amount of light,
good care, patience and experience will do that automatically.
It's much, much easier than you might think at this point. Actually I'm personally the guy who managed to kill all room plants...
perhaps they didn't motivate me enough.. :)
After a few weeks of growing some roots, add some growing fertilizer (more about this in the next section) to boost the growth
and still, keep pruning the plant all the time, again, more than you think is enough. This will keep the future growth compact.
When it's a bonsai chile we're speaking, the foliage should be very dense altough it can be minimal, just avoid spindly
growth.
In other words, cut the growth when it's getting too spindly and it'll start branching. Repeat several times. Later, pruning isn't
needed that ofter, just cut off the longer stems as they form.
TIP: you can turn clipped branches into plants by rooting them! Here's a link to a guide how to do that.
Bonchi pruning examples

Cutting off spindly stems.
Here's the same plant just before pruning: And immediately after pruning:
Fertilizing bonsai chiles

In larger pots, chiles won't need too much fertilizing, but with bonsai chiles, the plant will consume the nutrients very quickly,
so make sure to add some fertilizer (like NPK 1-1-1) every once in a while.
I prefer using Biobizz products for both, fruit production & bonsais.
I've had a great results with a combination of next biobizz products:
BioGro, BioBloom, Alg-a-mic and BioHeaven, if more flowers pods wanted, add TopMax also.
Decorating your bonchi plants

When you're sure your bonsai is making some new growth, you can start decorating the surroundings of your bonsai chile,
just to make sure you won't decorate a dead plant.
Just use you imagination! I like to make the chile plants look like a miniatyre trees.
Use stones, moss, lichens, pieces of wood, sand... just about anything you can think of to make your chile bonsai look as cool
as possible!
Assembling some stones under the roots.
Adding some moss and few more stones. Still need to patch up some spots and add some details like small shrubs and
weeds. Also that hole in the stem needs some blackening, drilling it a little deeper would do the trick, but for now, I'll just use a
black pen. :) It's all about the details!
It's even possible to make a moss grow on the soil of your bonsai plants. You can grow some moss in a container for around-
the-year-use. One technique is to mix minced moss, sour milk and coffee and then use a paintbrush to spread it wherever
you want the moss to grow, on soil, stones and even roots.
A decorated bonsai plant. Some new growth can be seen on the branches!
Some decorating examples here:
Photo: http://fatalii.net Photo: http://fatalii.net
Wiring
I got plenty of emails asking about wiring so I decided to show how simple it actually is.
The basic idea of wiring is to bend the stems and branches just the way you want them.
To make the Bonchi`s look "real trees", you should try to bend the branches down, as older trees tend to do.
This picture illustrates how the wiring is done.
Choose different kinds of bonsai wires to wire both stiff and loose branches.
Remember that some varieties break very easily so be careful!
A good idea is to test how fragile the plant actually is by bending some extra brances first.
Then, you need to carefully bend the branch with the wire.
Apply more wire to place where you need most bending.
You can also twist the branch carefully after wiring it.
Just bend it like you want it.
There might be some "bald" spots on the branch, don`t worry, new growth will emerge there quite soon.
Bonchi`s tend to be very vigorous!
Okay, here`s the bent branch on this rocoto I used as an example. Notice there is an extra branch on top which I'd like to
remove for better looks in a long run.
Then, it's time to pinch off the largest leaves from the rocoto Bonchi.
This might make it look a bit ugly at first, but after few weeks with added fertilizer and plenty of light,
It will definitely look much better than before.
In order to get a beautiful Bonchi plant, you need to make it ugly at first.
Removing large leaves.
After removing most of the large leaves, let the plant grow a little,
progressively pinching off the new large leaves that will emerge.
A little later, this Bonchi looks much better.
Apply more wiring when needed.
You can remove the wires when the branches have settled and in some cases,
after they`ve became woody.
Few more examples about wiring and trimming here:
C. lanceolatum in a bad shape after a while left on it`s own Same plant immediately after wiring.
Still need to continue pinching off the large leaves .
Needs also a little trimming, but eventually, it did look better once again: C. lanceolatum.
Less than one year old on this picture.
Another pruning example, Dutch-Habanero.

It looks kinda good at first too, but I need to prune and wire it to get better looks for it to produce some yield.
And here it`s wired and most big leaves removed.

Will look much, much better with more leaves, flowers and pods hanging there!
And here's the same plant with pods later: Dutch-Habanero F1 -bonchi.
Growing bonchi's without growing large plants at first

This example isn`t a Bonchi with a woody stem,
but it shows what you can achieve very quickly with a cutting and a tiny pot:
Many people have asked about growing Bonchi plants directly in a bonsai pots.
You can do that, but keep in mind that the whole idea is to grow as large plants (or just thick stems) as possible.
And that doesn't happen quickly in a small pot.
That`s why I highly recommend growing chile plants normally at first.
Even when your plants are not in time to produce any yield, you can cut them down into Bonchi-shape.
Then grow them as ornamental Bonchi`s all winter long.
And after the winter, repot them into large pots and you`ll be very early for that season!
Bonchi's indoors
As indoor plants, bonchi's are ideal for many reasons:
The amount of light:
The light is usually problem with large plants as even the most effective
lamps won't cover the whole foliage of the plants.
The yields in most cases are quite poor when grown big chile pepper plants
indoor because of the insufficient light.
With bonchi plants, even smaller energy saving fluorescent bulbs are
enough to cover several bonchi plants! Just place the lamp close to bonchi
plants, preferably middle of them. For example, one 30w fluorescent bulb
can cover four bonchi plants so that they will produce good yields. For one
large plant, that one lamp is not nearly enough.
In other words, you can get much better yield from small bonchi plants than with
big plants indoors!
Pests:
Growing large plants can be painful indoors if you get pests like aphids on
your plants. There are no natural enemies for them indoors so the problem
can grow severe very quickly. And large plants indoors infested with aphids
or other pests can be a real pain in the ass. Trust me. I have been washing
off the aphids from hundreds of plants indoorsand that is not certainly fun. In
most cases you have to repeat that very often.
With bonchi's, it's a whole different story as all you need to do is to dip them
into a bucket filled with pinetree soap to suffocate the pests. After a waiting
for a 5-15 minutes, rinse of the soap water and you're done, very quick and
easy!
Preferably you can add some neem oil to prevent the pest infestions again,
or even better, at all. Read this article from this link to learn more about pest
control: http://fatalii.net/pests
The visuals:
If you have grown large chile pepper

plants, you know that in most cases,
it isn't very compelling visually.
Large plants tend to drop leaves and
flowers. Some people can say they
are ugly for decorating.
But then, bonchi's are a whole
different story.
Just take a look at the picture on the
right.
Bonchi season is all year around!:
Last but perhaps the most fun fact

about bonchis is that you can grow
them any time of the year!
Normally chile plants are ideal to be
timed for mostly spring and summer.
Bonchi's can be grown in the middle
of the winter or any other time. And
believe me, they can make your
winter and rainy days much more fun!
Gardening in the winter is very good
for your mind while waiting for the
spring!
Examples
C. lanceolatum cutting 28th of march 2007 Same plant, 22th november, 2007, less than 8 months old!
CGN 19198 (C. sp) germinated 1 month before the pic. Same plant, 22th of november, 2007, 1 year 7 months old plant. Just
(pic was taken 14th april, 2006) think how it'll look after few more years.
Some more bonchi examples:
Bird's Eye Baby -bonchi. Cumari Pollux -bonchi.
Ulupica Large -Bonchi. Bolivian Rainbow -bonchi flowering.
Medusa (C. annuum) bonchi. Before and after turning C. baccatum plant into a bonchi.
Tepin, National Park of Tikal, Guatemala -bonchi. Bolivian Rainbow Bonchi and it's proud owner.

Creating A Pepper Bonsai

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www.projectpurityseeds.

Creating a Pepper Bonsai

Then cut off plenty of extra roots around the plant...

...and dig up the root ball...

Here`s one simplified project as an example:

Okay, here's another "roots-on-a-stone" Bonchi example:

Fusing several stems on a stone: Many stems growing on a stem.

Later... A group of bonchi's on the table.

Bonchi's on windowsill at winter.

Pruning your bonchi plants

Bonchi pruning examples

Fertilizing bonsai chiles

Decorating your bonchi plants

Assembling some stones under the roots.

Photo: http://fatalii.net Photo: http://fatalii.net

Few more examples about wiring and trimming here:

Another pruning example, Dutch-Habanero.

And here it`s wired and most big leaves removed.

Growing bonchi's without growing large plants at first

As indoor plants, bonchi's are ideal for many reasons:

The amount of light:

If you have grown large chile pepper

Bonchi season is all year around!:

Last but perhaps the most fun fact

Bird's Eye Baby -bonchi. Cumari Pollux -bonchi.

Photo: http://fatalii.net Photo: http://fatalii.net

Ulupica Large -Bonchi. Bolivian Rainbow -bonchi flowering.

Photo: http://fatalii.net Photo: http://fatalii.net

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