The method of making jade blue cypress bonsai

(1) Botanical knowledge

Belongs to the cypress family, juniper genus. Erect shrubs, much branched; leaves are all spiny, the upper and lower sides are powdered, shiny, emerald blue, mostly upright clusters. Dioecious, flowers and fruit single axillary, fruit oval, cone only one seed. Its original species is the alpine cypress (Sabina Squamata [Buch.-Ham.] Ant.) with green leaves and only white powder bands on it.

Cuibai is produced in the central and western provinces of China. Garden nurseries from the Yellow River Basin to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin are cultivated as garden trees or bonsai for viewing.

Like light, slightly shade-resistant, more cold-resistant, neutral soil, slightly acidic soil, calcareous soil can grow, requiring deep loose, well-drained sandy loam. Not resistant to moisture, resistant to pruning.

(2) material selection and cultivation measures

Artificial propagation: Sabina vulgaris is usually propagated by cutting, crimping or grafting. The best cuttings are from April to May in spring. The cuttings are 1 ~ 2 years old and semi-lignified. The cuttings are 12cm long and 18cm long. The branches and leaves below the middle are cut off. The branches and leaves at the upper end can be thinned properly and the cutting depth is 1B3. The nursery bed should choose sandy soil with high dry terrain, fertile and loose, and good drainage, and the soil should be loosened and raked flat before insertion. After planting, pour water thoroughly, and set up a shed for shade, it can take root in about 8 months. During this period, as long as the leaves are not yellow and withered, they should be carefully managed. More water was sprayed in summer, and after survival, separate planting and transplanting was carried out in the spring of the second year to cultivate large seedlings.

Striping propagation can be carried out all the year round, and it is better from March to April in spring. Striping can choose branches with a diameter of 1 cm to 1.5 cm for ring peeling and cutting, reaching up to xylem, burying the branches into the soil for soil compaction, careful management and maintenance, and generally rooting within 3 to 4 months after pressing.

Grafting propagation is often carried out by grafting method. Juniper or Platycladus orientalis seedlings are selected as rootstocks, the dry diameter of rootstocks is 1.5 cm, and 2-year-old branches with full growth and green scions should be selected. The grafting time should be carried out in May, the scion should be cut off from below the interface after about 2 months, and the rootstock seedlings above the interface should be cut off when replanted in the spring of the second year.

(3) the process of potting.

Select basin: Cuibai should use purple sand pottery basin, basin shape to shallow or medium-deep rectangle, square, oval, round, etc.; large bonsai can use deep manger basin or deep round basin. Pot color to ochre red, purple sand and other dark color is better, in order to make the cypress bonsai more simple and natural, green and vigorous appearance.

Use soil: Cuibai is not strict with the soil and can withstand mild acid and alkali. Mature pastoral soil or rotten leaf soil is commonly used in pots, mixed with 20% rice chaff ash or sandy soil.

Planting: it should be carried out from March to April in spring, or in autumn. Before planting, you should pay attention to cover the air with broken tiles at the bottom of the pot, and spread a layer of vermiculite or peat soil to facilitate water penetration. After planting in the pot, water once and then wait until the soil is dry before watering.

(4) Positioning techniques

Processing: Cuibai's posture processing is dominated by climbing and pruning as a supplement. Climbing can be done with brown wire or wire. Cuibai branches are soft, full of toughness, easy to process and can be shaped at will. Focus on climbing the main branches, the twigs are clambered with brown silk, and most of the side branches are in the shape of round clusters after forming, so we should pay attention to the gap distance between the upper and lower branches, left and right branches and leaves, so as not to be too crowded, resulting in a sense of blockage. Cuibai proper maintenance and management, rapid growth, must be untied and re-styled every 1-2 years.

Cuibai can also use its local branches to dry up, in order to imitate the natural trees due to long-term wind, rain and lightning attacks, and the formation of some branches split, bark peeling phenomenon, resulting in a clumsy and strange effect. For example, Wenzhou Bonsai Garden has a pot of cypress bonsai "love of life and death", with a withered branch stretching out from the verdant canopy, Qiu qu upward, giving people a feeling of tenacious struggle after thousands of years.

Tree shape: the cypress has strong plasticity and is suitable for processing into all kinds of trees. The common ones are straight dry type, oblique dry type, curved dry type, water-facing type, three-table type, etc., tree-shaped avoid affectation, stiff and dull, with natural vitality, simple and luxuriant is better. The trunk must bend naturally, and we should pay attention to the changes in the direction of twists and turns and the degree of bending, so that there are both connections and changes between the upper branch and the lower branch, the left branch and the right branch, and leave a blank that cannot be overlapped up and down and connected in parallel. The shape of the tree reflects the beauty of elegance, chic and rich.