Pleasures of Miniature Rose Bonsai

		Akira Atomi, President The Miniature Rose Bonsai Lovers�f Club
		9th International Roses & Gardening Show 2007 held between May 16(Wed.) ~20th (Sun.), 2007, Tokorozawa, in the vicinity of Tokyo, Japan Mr. Atomi in front of a 53 year old miniature rose bonsai �eCinderella�f whose trunk is substantially wider than Mr.Atomi�fs arm.

From ancient times, roses have been closely linked to mankind, making gardens more colorful, adorning women, representing old important houses as their emblems and frequently appearing on paintings. Today you can get another pleasure from choosing your favorite roses among a thousand varieties of miniature roses, raising them according to your preference in bonsai style and appreciating beautiful bonsai and delightful bonkei (landscape bonsai) together with your family at home.

What is Special about Miniature Rose Bonsai?

When we raise miniature roses for bonsai, we have to adopt some methods different from those used for other trees. In the case of most other trees, which would soon get out of hand if left untamed, we try to train their stems and branches into shapes we like by pruning them or pulling them with wires, and enjoy the appearance of the trees which come to develop interesting shapes over the years. In the case of miniature roses, however, we have to replace older stems with new ones constantly, since the older ones do not give so many flowers. We have to avoid artificially suppressing the growth of the trees as we do with other kinds of trees. Fortunately, miniature roses are small trees by nature, so we can give them a sufficient amount of fertilizers and let them grow as they like, and enjoy the naturally formed tree shapes. Here lies the pleasure of raising bonsai miniature roses.

The basics of raising beautiful bonsai rose trees are summarized in how to grow basal shoots and how to prune them. Rose trees produce many basal shoots when they are healthy. If you cut their basal shoots short in an attempt to keep the traditional shapes of most bonsai trees, they will quickly age and lose energy, and thus fail to give a sufficient number of flowers. You should always try to remove older stems whose bark has lost its fresh colour. This is the way to encourage the tree to give more new basal shoots, make the base thicker, and obtain many good flowers. After you have got good basal shoots, depending on how you prune them, you can shape the tree into a scalene triangle, a globe, or any other form, and can enjoy different shapes every year�\ another pleasure of growing bonsai miniature roses.

Different Ways of Enjoying Miniature Rose Bonsai

You can find miniature rose varieties with many different characteristics and can raise them in many different ways. For example, you can shape a climbing miniature rose into an animal, a bird, etc., or train it into a cascade-like shape, or obtain a standard giving flowers of three or more different colours, or make a landscape bonsai, using low growing varieties such as 'Maid Marion', 'Yametsu-hime', 'Snow Infant', 'Little Tiny', You can represent streams in your home town, the world of a popular ballad The Solitary Cedar Tree of Farewell,scenes from Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai,Snow White and other fairy tales, or landscape you have seen in famous paintings, just by adding small dolls and other accessories on a scale of 1/80 or so. The bonsai you raise this way will tell you fascinating stories and give you a lot of pleasure.

When you raise an ordinary bonsai, you have to wait at least five years until you can see a satisfactory shape of the base of the tree, but in the case of a landscape bonsai, you can plant a flowering tree in a basin, and enjoy its charm from the day you plant it.

You should always consider the matching of the tree and the basin in which it is planted. For example, when you plant a rose giving white flowers, or use a piece of old wood or driftwood as an accessory, you should use a white basin, or for some unique effects, one with totally different colors such as red or something close to it. You can find your own unique ways of enjoying rose bonsai?Japanese style, western style or Chinese style; using bamboo, bricks, stones, or even bowls for serving boiled rice. You can plant a traditional bonsai or landscape bonsai celebrating someone's birthday, your children's achievements, or your friends�Ewedding. This will add a lot of pleasure to your bonsai raising, and make you feel like treasuring that particular bonsai for years to follow.

Varieties Suited to Bonsai

It is said that a list of modern roses contains more than 25,000 varieties, and among them, as many as 1,000 varieties are classed as miniature roses. Even those called miniature roses are of various types; large-flowered (some 6cm in diameter), and small-flowered (1cm in diameter); climbing type and bush type. They give flowers of many different colors in different shapes�\single, pompom, and HT type. For bonsai, a small-flowered short stem type, or a climbing type is suitable. Let me give some examples. Underlined varieties are those raised in Japan, and the meaning of the name is given in the parentheses.		RED:
		'Starina', 'Reed Minimo', 'Black Jack', 'Red Marie'
		PINK:
		'Cinderella', 'Rosmarin', 'Hana-Dayori'(tidings of cherry blossoms), 'Little Tiny', 'Pink Starina', 'Yametsu-hime', '(Princess Yametsu), 'Sweet Rosamini'
		YELLOW:
		'Sun Mist', 'Golden Rosamini', 'Golden Thumb', 'Baby Masquerade',
		WHITE:
		'Snow Infant', 'Yuki-hime'(Snow Princess), 'White Minimo', 'Easter Morning'
		ORANGE:
		'Bonny', 'Avandel', 'Marble Rose'

How to Take Care of Bonsai Roses

(1) Soil, its basic type: It is usual to use coarse red soil (60%) mixed with compost on the market (40%), or with dried cow manure (30%), rice-bran and/or rape-seed husks fermented with EM (Effective Microorganisms) (5%), and silicate terra alba (5%). I also recommend Hyponex potting soil, which is easy to use and effectively promotes healthy growth of the tree with fewer fertilizers after planting. We must avoid mixing rape-seed husks and/or rice bran in the soil before they are fully fermented. Otherwise, the heat produced in the fermentation process will damage the roots of the tree. (2) Fertilizers: I have found that �gGreen King�h (a granular fertilizer made from fish meal) is ideal for bonsai roses since it does not damage the moss which covers the soil. I cut the moss open and use my fingers to push this fertilizer into the soil three times a year: in March, June, and September. (3) Spraying: For a small number of bonsai roses raised on the balcony, I consider the Benica X spray containing both fungicide and insecticide most handy. If you grow a large number of bonsai roses, the use of mixture of Bayleton, Saprole (Triforine) and Orthoran, with Top Dressing added, will be most effective. (4) Place for pots: For ample sunlight and fresh air, balconies of apartment buildings are the best place for your pots. (5) Propagation: The simplest method for bonsai is to take stem cuttings, plant in soil mix, and wait for them to self-root. A tree obtained this way will grow into a compact, well-shaped tree with a nice-looking root system. If you would like to obtain roses for bonsai quickly, you can dig up multiflora trees, plant them in pots, and when they have produced a basal shoot, plant on it a bud eye of the miniature rose you would like to grow. This spring I tried the same thing on some old HT or Fl trees I dug up from my garden, using them as rootstocks. You can enjoy trees with different shapes and flower colors depending on which rootstock, intermediate variety and scion you use.
		Rootstock : Rosa multiflora Intermediate variety : Floribunda Scion : 16 bud eyes from 'Little Artist' were budded onto the intermediate variety Date of budding : January 26, 2007 Date of photograph : May 26, 2007 The tiny bud eyes thrived vigorously and produced many flowers in only 4 months as shown in the picture (above).

Work Schedule throughout the Year

Spring:

In Japan, we prune rose trees in early spring, cutting off about 2/3 of most branches. We prune, imagining the total shape of the tree�\how it looks when in bloom.

When your roses start putting forth buds, you will naturally want to give them some liquid fertilizer, but please refrain from doing so. If you apply it on your bonsai roses, the moss you have planted on the surface of the soil will be burned and turn brown, severely spoiling the look of the bonsai work. I think it is better to choose some heliophilic type of mosses for covering the soil surface. It is also recommended that you place some small pieces of white gravel on part of the soil surface to improve the aesthetic effect of your miniature bonsai.

I use mainly Bayleton and Orthoran for regular spraying. When your roses start spreading leaves in April, you add to them Top Dressing, which is highly preventive against pests and diseases and also helps to give glossy leaves. Toward the end of April, you remove weeds if they appear on the soil surface, and also remove weak branches from crowded parts of the tree to let more wind through them.

Then we wait for May, when we can enjoy conversation with our friends, viewing the bonsai roses in full bloom.

Summer:

In Japan, the rainy season, when roses often suffer from diseases, comes in June, and when it comes to an end, dry and hot weather follows. The summer is the season your roses most hate. How you take care of them during this season can seriously affect their growth then and thereafter.

Deadheading: From the flowering season in May, you should carefully continue to remove spent flowers so the trees will not use extra energy for fruition. If you continue deadheading carefully, you will be able to enjoy flowers continuously until September. Deadheading is one of the most important treatments you should give your bonsai roses.

Your trees will have consumed all the nutrition they got in spring in order to give flowers in May. Say 'Thank you for the beautiful flowers' to them, and give them Green King or some other appropriate fertilizers in a manner mentioned in the spring schedule above.

Summer is the season when both roses and human beings suffer weariness from the heat. You can cool yourself by drinking cold beer, but roses will prefer a good amount of water given to them in the morning and evening, a token of your love for them.

Autumn:

Your roses, which have overcome typhoons and other harsh trials of nature, will produce flowers with vivid colours, which open slowly and appeal to you with their special charm.

In the Tokyo area, you prune your roses at the beginning of September. Ordinarily, roses give flowers in forty-five days or so after they are pruned. Most miniature roses, however, will not take so many days until they come to flower. You should remove weaker and/or older branches from crowded parts of the tree, and often branches with buds, too, considering the whole shape of the tree.

By pruning your rose tree this way, about one-third of the whole tree will be cut off; and the tree will get more fresh air inside. The above-mentioned work will prove to be very effective. The purpose of the autumn pruning is to help the tree produce many good flowers within a short period in the middle of October. Then you give your rose tree Green King and spray a mixture of Saprole and Top Dressing and also remove weeds in the pot.

Winter:

Changing soil: It is recommended that you change the soil in the basin at least once a year, considering the harmful effect on flowering from the decrease of nutrients. The best time for this work is the end of November, when rose trees enter their dormancy, and when our work is easier since the temperature is not so low to freeze the soil. At the same time, you remove all the leaves damaged by diseases or by pests, and apply preliminary pruning on the tree, so you can enjoy its shape in winter as you do with other kinds of bonsai trees.

Spraying: To prevent pests and diseases from surviving the winter, when you have changed the soil, you should spray your roses with a mixture of Bayleton, Saprole, and Orthoran three times during the winter, before March.

Due to exorbitant land price, my 400 bonsai pots of miniature rose trees dwell on the 50 square meter rooftop verandah of my house in Tokyo. Once a year I dig a big hole�C1.5 meters wide x 1.0 meter long x 1.2 meters deep, in a different location in my garden for the disposal of the waste soil from these pots , sweating in the chilly winter weather. The trim bonsai 'Starina' greets me with its dark green leaves, sparkling with morning dew. What more could I ask for?

'Pink Spray' and 'Azumino' in full bloom on Mr.Atomi's rooftop verandah

Translator's Note: The work schedule given in this article is based on the climate in Tokyo, where Mr. Atomi lives. Readers are advised to modify the schedule according to the particular climate of their own regions. Some fertilizers, fungicides and insecticides Mr. Atomi mentions are products of manufacturers in Japan, which ‚ham afraid may not be available outside of Japan. I hope you can find some appropriate products with the same effects on your market. I thank Mr.Akira Ogawa and Mr. Simon Reeves for their help in translating this article. (Translated by Tomoaki Nao)