Marijuana cultivators nowadays have found a way to channel their artistic side in producing marijuana in their homes. Their newfound interest is marijuana bonsai. With that in mind, let’s talk about the Tips on How to Grow Marijuana Bonsai.
Let us discuss the proper steps to successfully start your marijuana bonsai, however, before anything else, you have to importantly know about the artistic culture behind bonsai. The art of bonsai is practiced for thousands of years already; it is a subtle form of art that forcefully grooming plants to prevent it from growing and achieve miniature-sized plants that have a more detailed and distinct look. This art, as we all know originated in Japan and has been practiced since ancient times by people worshipping Zen Buddhism.
The ultimate goal of practicing bonsai is to make a small plant that looks like a shrunk version of the ones we naturally found elsewhere. Instead of the normal-sized tree, bonsai shrinks it and makes it fit in its chosen container.
Bonsai uses the regular types of plants and there is no tampering with its genetics to make the plants smaller in size that is why it is considered an art that requires patience, effort, and care.
However, can this be done using marijuana? Of course, it can be done! Since marijuana can grow big up to 6-feet tall and can grow thick, it’s an ideal plant for bonsai.
Marijuana Bonsai Growing Tips and Guide
Step 1: Choose the pot for your marijuana bonsai
The first thing you need to do is to prepare the pot for the marijuana plant that you’ll be using for the bonsai. You must choose a small pot so that it can easily facilitate in training the plant while there are growers out there that choose to punch holes around the pot’s perimeter to put twine and string. To do this, make sure when you’re making the holes, it must be large enough for the twine to fit in. If you fail to do this, it can result in very bad training for your plant.
Step 2: Start planting your cutting
Now that you prepared the pot, you must start to properly transplant the cutting on the pot. If you’re choosing the cutting plant, you must make sure that you choose the healthiest and the sturdiest one in your garden. You can take the clippings from different plants each year, so it is completely important to make sure that the mother of these cuttings is capable of growing healthy and quality buds.
Once the mother plant or the cutting plant is on the pot, make sure that it is supported with a wooden stake to help train the plant’s stem. You can also apply the stake on the trunk of the plant depending on what position you want. It is paramount to avoid damaging the roots when you’re stacking the wooden stake on the soil. You must carefully press the stake on the soil beside the stem of the cutting plant without damaging the roots beneath. After you’ve successfully stuck the stake, you can tie it to the stem and on the holes that you’ve made on the pot.
Step 3: Start training the plant
You should start training your chosen marijuana plant’s branches. This is very similar to how you trained the plant’s stem so you can train the plant’s branches just by tying it down using the twine. If you are planning for the branches to grow horizontally, you must tie them forcefully to that position. If you want to grow them vertically, you have to loosen the ties. When you’re tying it, make sure you must give enough space for the branches to have lesser constriction.
Step 4: Start pruning the plant
After training the plant to your desired position of growth, you must proceed to prune its branches. As you can see, the plant grows but the branches must not grow bigger so that you can achieve the stature and the shape of a bonsai tree. This will also help in maintaining a good airflow of the plant’s central stem. This is very important knowing that pruning the off-shooting branches, is that you can cut the main ones, but this can seriously damage the plant and can affect the growth and health of it.
What type of marijuana plant is best for bonsai?
Since marijuana plants are usually held off without a particular set of times during its vegetative state, you can practically keep it as long as it is alive even exceeding its life cycle. This is because the marijuana plant you’ve used for the bonsai doesn’t know how long should be kept around.
There are a lot of growers out there that found out that only pure Indica varieties of marijuana can wither easily while pure Sativa varieties can live longer. In general, you must restart your bonsai every four years when you’re using the Indica variety while hybrids can last up to five years. Sativa variety meanwhile can last 6 years before being replaced.
However, there is no valid timeframe that is very certain of the lifecycle of different strains and it all depends on how the grower takes care of the plant during its entire life cycle.
Are there particular strains perfect for bonsai?
Since the genetics of each strain differ from each other, there are certain strains out there that are best suited for practicing bonsai. To give you an idea, there are two particular strains, the Critical Kush and the White Widow which are Indica and Sativa respectively.
Final Thoughts
Practicing bonsai using marijuana plants is not that easy as you might be expecting it would be. However, it is very fun and satisfying especially when you’re starting to notice the results. With that in mind, we are very optimistic that our post billed “Tips on How to Grow Marijuana Bonsai” provided you the most useful information to start your bonsai!
