Bonsais For the Railing Planter Box
July 24th, 2009. Published under Home. No Comments.
If you’re looking for a new hobby, try the ancient Japanese art of bonsai gardening. A railing planter box is the perfect way to display your beautiful bonsai trees on your patio. The actual term consists of two separate words. “Bon” means tray in Japanese, while “Sai” means growing. Hence, bonsais are meant to be grown in confined trays, so planter boxes are perfect for this.
Many people do not realize that a bonsai tree is not its own unique species of plant. Rather, it encompasses many different species of trees and plants, but ones that are miniaturized and fit neatly into a railing planter box. Any large plant can theoretically be trained into a bonsai, but it takes a considerable amount of work.
Some plants that are better suited to the practice include evergreens such as Pine, Azalea, Pomegranate, Cypress, Fig, Serissa, and Cedar. Other deciduous trees that also work well as bonsais include the following: Maple, Cherry, Zelkova and Beech.
To start out, you will need to buy seeds. Bonsai seeds and tree seeds are one in the same. If you plant a seed and care for it the way in the same way as a normal tree in your yard, it will grow in the exact same way. Rather, you need to use certain techniques to achieve the recognizable bonsai form. These cultivating techniques include the following: leaf trimming, pruning, wiring, clamping, grafting, defoliation and deadwood, all of which can be done right in the railing planter box.
When working with your bonsais, there are certain tools you’ll want to use, similar to normal gardening tools. Oftentimes, your regular gardening hand tools can be implemented for this purpose, but other times the delicate and miniature nature of the cultivation often requires specialized equipment. Some of the basic tools you will want to have are pliers, shears, root cutters, branch benders, soil sieves, trunk splitters, tweezers and more, each designed for use on small plants.
To position your railing planter box, you’re somewhat limited by where your deck railings are built. However, you can often also use these planters on deck floors and directly on the ground. As a rule of thumb, bonsai trees should be positioned away from direct sunlight. At the same time, they should be in an area that gets good circulation, has a moderate amount of humidity, and somewhere that’s easy for you to get to them for watering and pruning purposes.
The two main styles of bonsai sculpting are classic (koten) and informal (bunjin). In the classic style, the trunk of trees are bigger at the base and taper towards the top, whereas with informal style it’s just the opposite, though this is more difficult to get right. Either style will work equally well in a railing planter box. From there, the main styles are further divided into five designing subcategories. These include formal upright, informal upright, slanting/windswept, semi-cascade and cascade.
To further accessorize your railing planter box, you can also add moss to cover any visible soil. Or you can grow creeping ivy down the side of your railing. Just remember not to overcrowd too many things into your planter, as some species will naturally thrive while others will suffer trying to get to the same water.
Todd Arend is a freelance writing professional whose expertise covers a variety of areas, including patio and backyard furniture, landscaping and design. He regularly writes for such sites as http://www.outdoorfurnitureplus.com/