I turned a cheap Christmas tree into a Bonsai (3 years later)

Three years ago I bought this cheap little Christmas tree for about 10 dollars. In this video I'll show you everything I did to turn it into a bonsai tree. So first things first, I'll take this out of its pot just to see where the first roots appear, the surface roots or the nebari. Once I figure that out I'll put it back in the pot and prune and wire the tree. The tree is very healthy so I think we'll also place it in a bonsai pot today, but a relatively large one because I don't want to interfere with the roots too much. The tree is super healthy so definitely ready for styling today. Alright, so I'm just scraping off the top layer of soil until the point where the first roots appear and that way I can see the trunk and know where to begin with styling. Alright, I think that's about all I want to take off for now from the top layer of soil. I can now study the tree and start making decisions. Now this process is very difficult especially on this kind of material that has never been styled before for bonsai purposes, but immediately there's a few things that for sure I can take away. So in order to reveal a trunk to make this look more like a tree I will have to prune some of the lower branches. So let's start with that. So all these small little branches at the very beginning of the tree. Alright, so a bit of a trunk now appears and then another decision I will have to make is how tall do I want the tree to be. So for sure I don't want it to be this tall. The trunk is quite thin so I will probably use this branch to be the new apex. So that means that I'll cut this section off. I'll leave a good stub there which I can use to create a gin later on. At least I want to keep that option open. So for now just prune right here and I'll do some more pruning along the way as well. But most likely this will be the new apex so most of these branches will also come off later on. Right, place it back in the pot for now so that I can continue the pruning and then the next step is also to wire some of the branches. Deciding on the design of a bonsai isn't always easy, especially when a tree is as full and overgrown as this plant. Try to apply the pruning guidelines we just mentioned to your own trees. And if you are interested to learn more about these techniques consider enrolling in one of our online bonsai courses. Here expert teachers explain the relevant techniques and you can ask them questions. For a free lesson go to bonsaiempire.com slash courses. With some of the main branches gone we can now look much better into the structure of the tree and since the trunk is so thin we decided to shorten it even more. Before we apply the wire we remove dangling growth and small branches that are growing downwards. This basic cleaning of the branches will make it much easier to wire the tree. Try to select pairs of branches that are more or less of the same thickness and wire these with one piece of wire. Start with wiring the main branches and slowly work your way up the tree. Smaller and thinner branches need a thinner wire as well. Next we prepare the pot by covering the drainage holes with a mesh. We also attach two long wires which will be used to anchor the tree to the pot firmly. Since the tree is still in early development we selected a large pot and also use a partly organic soil mixture. On the next repotting we'll switch to a completely inorganic substrate. Place the tree slightly off center in the pot and make sure to plant it at the right angle. Using the two long wires we firmly attach the tree to the pot. All right finished the styling and repotting of this tree. I'm actually quite pleased with the result though the tree is definitely not ready yet. So as you can see most of these branches we didn't cut back. That's mostly for the health of the tree. We pruned quite a bit off so I want to make sure that that these branches can really take up the energy and make sure that the roots also start growing right now in spring. Seven months ago we styled the tree, placed it in this pot and I'm very happy to see how it came along. Of course I mean it's cheap material it's not a beautiful bonsai right away but it reacted very well to all the pruning and repotting. Right here there's a strange swirl. We did that last time because we didn't want to prune any more of the tree but today we have these new shoots growing everywhere. So step one remove this ugly section right here. This will be the the new top of the of the tree. Now the next steps some of these branches are quite long so I'll shorten those. For sure this one perhaps a few others and then in the next early spring it will push out a new flush of growth which again is much finer so the tree will fill up more and more. So in only two or three years time we went from a tall christmas tree to a nice little little bonsai tree. Keep track of your bonsai collection with our Bonsai Care app. It offers smart reminders, detailed care calendars and you can track the progression of your trees over time. It is a free download in the app stores. It's ready for a second styling. Some of these branches can be shortened a little bit. There's a very thick branch here in the back that we never really liked but now we have some alternatives growing here so we can take that one out as well. The nice thing of the stage of development where the tree is now the last time when we reduced it in height there were only a few branches that we could work with but now that the tree is used to its new size it's completely full with buds everywhere, needles are very small so it's really becoming more and more of a small tree which of course was our goal. So like I said there's the very thick branch here which I'll take away and other branches can take over and then there's a few branches as well that are quite long. So these lower branches I need the length actually so I won't reduce those in length but for example the branch growing a little bit higher on the tree these can be reduced quite a bit and same here you can see that the lower branch is shorter than the branch higher up so also here. I'll prune a bit more and wire a few of these branches. Usually if you start wiring one or two branches you end up wiring the entire tree but I actually hope that by wiring a few of these main branches that should be enough for now. I think this is the moment where because the tree became smaller and smaller the more we pruned it it also is planted in a too large of a pot right now. So I'm going to repot it today but in a slightly smaller pot. I have two options one is an oval pot which I think would look nice very shallow and the other pot is a bit more classic rectangular pot which I think might be the best option but let's see. First let's take this tree out of its pot and then see which of these two pots will be best. Learn how to create your own bonsai trees by enrolling in one of our online bonsai courses. We explain techniques like pruning, wiring and repotting and you can ask questions to the teachers. For the curriculums and free lessons go to bonsaiempire.com