[ Transforming a plant into a Han Kengai ローズマリー Bonsai !!! ]

[ Transforming a plant into a Han Kengai ローズマリー !!! ] 

Its time to transform a plant into a Han Kengai Rose-mar-ie

Hello everyone, I am J. J. Bartel, Author, Botanist, Historian, and Gamer, and I want a bonsai. This is a rosemary plant, Salvia rosmarinus. It is around two years old, housed in a pop bottle. Soil substrate is the standard miracle grow. I repotted this baby a little while ago, and it’s been taking off. Many new buds have formed, and the branching tips are growing extremely well. It’s time to get shaped and transformed into a Han Kengai ros-mar-ie Bonsai. 

Let’s break it down. Bonsai is a Japanese word literally referring to a little tree. Over time, it became enriched with the meaning of stylizing a little tree. It’s an art form like painting or dancing. This could be described as plant dancing, where the human stylizes and poses the plant, and over time, the plant grows into its complete form. It is a dance that can take decades to complete. When the dance is finished, onlookers are greeted by a mini-majesty. The Japanese also wanted to imitate tree forms they saw in the real world. Over time, these tree forms would become more solidified; today, different structures have names. Common forms include the formal upright or the Chokkan,  Shakan or slanting, and the broom Hokidachi. I personally love more unusual shapes like Seki-juju, a root over the rock where the plant is grown on top of rocks, and Kengai, a cascade. A Han Kengai is a semi-cascade, where the trunk goes up a bit before the branches go low, almost crawling across the ground. 

The idea with this rose-mar-ie, the Japanese way of saying rosemary, is that it will be modeled to spread out. While most cascades flow in one direction, the idea is that the branches to the right will flow down and straight. The other twigs will descend but curve around the container eventually. This would allow the cascade to have a more stable feel while maintaining the whimsey characteristic of the cascade form. 

I am using flower wiring because I lack official bonsai wiring. Now you will need thicker wiring for older bonsais and thicker tree limbs. However, this rosemary was thin enough that the flower wire worked. I won’t say it worked well because I constantly fought with the branches. They were so firm and set that it was a struggle to get the branches to flow. The wire is meant to be twisted between buds so the tree has many buds to grow more foliage. This wire was so soft that the branches could move it just enough to rub it against the buds. I lost more buds than I care to admit, desperately trying to model the branches. I could try to shape the branches earlier before the budding, but rosemary has a narrow window. It’s also an evergreen, which means there is no dormancy. Dormancy or very early budding is an excellent time to manipulate trees. Evergreens are more challenging in that sense. 

I am using a standard wire clipper, and it’s been working very well. I might need stronger clippers in the future, but for now, it clips well. I also do as little clipping as possible to use and reuse the wire. Plus, longer pieces of wire are easier to manipulate and work with. Wrapping one end on the trunk and securing it at the base makes it much easier to let the metal snake up the branch, properly molding the branch direction. It’s easy to feel in your hands and difficult to speak of.  

In this stage of the plant’s life, it’s best to do minimal trimming. Therefore, you see the only two branches I thought needed to be trimmed off at the end. Nice. We leave off with the plant at least two weeks later looking quite lovely. It will only grow better and better from here. 

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