Growing bonsai is an ancient art for the Japanese, passed down from generation to generation. It has been known that by doing any form of gardening it gives you time to unwind and gather your thoughts. The true art is in deluding the tree to stay that small.

Everything that you use with growing and tending to the bonsai tree will be miniature. You will be using a miniature secateurs and miniature rake and spade to tend to your bonsai. This is the basic range that the bonsai pruning tool spans to, besides the pot or base that it is planted in. As with every tool, including the bonsai pruning tool, which is the secateurs, it is important to know what you want the miniature tree to do.

Training Your Bonsai

If you wish the miniature tree to grow taller, you would use the bonsai pruning tool and trim the branches closer to the base of the tree. As these would be where branches grow again you would need to put some growth stopper over the area you cut, otherwise if there is a node just above it, you will soon have another branch in that same place.

How It Is Done!

Since you may wish some branches to grow up or down to make an umbrella effect, it is important too to know which direction to trim the branches with your bonsai pruning tool. It has been proven if you wish for the branches to grow upward you would be trimming the branch at an angle where the cut side shows downward, and if you wanted the branch to grow downward, the cut would show upward. You should also remember to cut the branch just past the node then. It would be that node that actually stems into the new branch.

There is no harm in using a cheap bonsai tool, but you will soon find that using the more expensive tools they last a lot longer. They will not just buckle or rust away within a short while. But your biggest and main investment when growing bonsai would be your bonsai pruning tool.

Since you use your bonsai pruning tool continuously, if not on daily basis, depending on which tree you planted, it would have to be kept in tip top shape, and its razor sharp surgical steel blades kept clean. It does not matter if you have cheap or expensive tools they still have to be kept in good condition for optimal usage.