Carmona Bonsai is an Asian plant (the second name is “Tea Tree”), an evergreen shrub with small shiny leaves that are covered with light hairs. It is an excellent bonsai option for office or home, from which you can form a tree in a beautiful Japanese style.
Bonsai is a philosophy
Japanese bonsai art in recent years has become increasingly popular in the world. Miniature copies of trees are a way to reproduce a small corner of nature in the apartment, which attracts lovers of home decorative plants. Such "Japanese dwarfs" add Asian flavor and decorate any interior.
Growing bonsai promotes mental balance and melancholy meditation. This plant implements the philosophy of seeing beauty in the small, reflecting the beauty of nature in mini-space. Eastern philosophy considers the bonsai tree a symbol of life, helping to maintain faith in the living essence of plants as the basis of the universe.
But to grow such a tree requires patience and time. Therefore, for those who want to try their first bonsai, we can recommend starting with the most simple and unpretentious plant care - bonsai carmon.
Description of pockets
Carmona is considered a tree from which beginners of this art begin their acquaintance. How to grow a bonsai, how to water and fertilize it, how to form a crown - they learn these basics of caring for a bonsai on a pocket.
Its bark is rough, over time it becomes like the bark of an old tree. Carmona blooms with delicate snow-white flowers of five petals. The fruits look like small red or orange berries (inedible).
Carmona bonsai usually blooms 2-3 times a year, and with good care and additional lighting - all year round. Moreover, on the tree can be both flowers and fruits. When watering, you should ensure that water does not fall on the flowers, from which they can blacken and abyss. Rotten flowers should be immediately thrown away so that the defeat of the fungus does not begin.
Varieties of pockets
Among amateur gardeners, 2 types of pockets are most common: small-leaved and large-leaved.
Small-leaved Carmona - Carmona microphylla bonsai. The correct botanical name is Eretia boxwood (Ehretia buxifolia), but “carmona” is used more often. The plant got its name thanks to the German botanist G. D. Eret, and the similarity of leaves to boxwood leaves was added to it by the Latin word buxifolia. Small-leaved pocket can reach a height of 40 cm. The leaves grow in length to 1-2 cm and are located on short petioles.
Large-leafed carmona has a thicker trunk and larger leaves. Care and breeding in these species of bonsai are almost the same.
Carmona (bonsai): home care
Most of the plants are brought to Russia from China along with soil containing a lot of clay. With frequent watering, this soil is very compacted, as a result of which the roots begin to experience a lack of oxygen. Therefore, when buying such a tree, it is better to transplant it immediately into suitable soil.
Soil for bonsai carmon is usually made on purpose, it consists of clay granulate, sand, peat, mixed in the same proportions. Young plants should be replanted every 2 years, usually in the spring (in April). Older bonsai can do without a longer soil replacement.
When transplanting, it should be borne in mind that Carmona does not like root pruning, so substitution of the substrate must be done in several stages. Shorten the roots a little at the next soil change, so as not to introduce the plant into stress.
This tree loves warmth, because in summer it feels better in the open air, in a slightly shaded place, because it does not like direct sunlight. The winter pockets in the house or apartment winter, like high humidity.
Watering and fertilizer
Watering is necessary very often, because the plant does not tolerate drying out and can die. It is better to water with settled rain water. To increase the humidity in the room, a bonsai pot is placed in a container with water filled with balloons or expanded clay, which do not allow contact of water and earth.
Also, Carmona loves spraying, but do it carefully. If drafts are walking in the room or it is cold, then the plant may become sick.
To fertilize the trees, special organic products intended for bonsai are used. From early spring to autumn they fertilize once a week, in the winter - monthly.
Carmona loves the light very much, so in the summer you need to put it in partial shade in the open air. And in winter, illuminate with a fluorescent lamp in the room.
Crown Tree Formation
Many lovers who want to engage in the cultivation of a bonsai tree at home are interested in how to grow a bonsai and give it the desired shape in Japanese styles, because there are a great many: direct, cascading, inclined, multi-stemmed, etc. Each of them has several varieties and features that symbolize a philosophical attitude to life.
Carmona can be used to get any bonsai style. With the help of a wire, 1- and 2-year-old branches easily take a given shape. For branches of the older and woody, special tensioners are used to prevent damage to the bark.
Often beginner lovers buy a tree with the already outlined bonsai style, later it can be improved. It takes at least a year to form it.
When removing old branches, the circumcision is treated with garden var. Already strong shoots that have grown to 10-20 cm should be shortened to 1-3 leaves. It depends on the stage of development and the state of health of the tree.
Breeding
Carmona bonsai is propagated using seeds or cuttings. During pruning of the annual tree, cuttings up to 10 cm in size are obtained. They can be planted in a small made greenhouse, in which a mixture of peat and sand is poured. It is very important to maintain high humidity and temperature around + 18º, moderate watering. Often, special stimulants are used to quickly grow roots, which increases the chance of getting cuttings with a developed root system. When grafting plants fully repeat the maternal symptoms.
Reproduction by seeds is a longer and laborious process, in which the qualities of the tree from which they are obtained are not always transmitted.
Pests bonsai pockets
As with any bonsai Carmona plant, home care requires proper watering, top dressing, etc., moreover, the tree is very susceptible to various diseases and pests. It can be powdery worms, scale insects, in the summer the plant often suffers from the attack of aphids, chlorosis and spider mites.
The most common pests:
- Plant aphids that feed on leaf and stem juice usually appear on the underside of leaves. The easiest way to fight: soak a piece of cotton wool with household soap dissolved in water, which removes all the aphids from the leaves. After which the tree is treated with an insecticide to control aphids.
- Scale shield - you can guess about damage to the plant by this pest when the shoots stop developing, the leaves dry out, become brown and fall off. Most often, these brown-brown insects create colonies at the base of the trunk. To combat the scale, growths on the trunk should be removed, rubbed with alcohol and sprayed with an insecticide.
- The spider mite is very small, so it is difficult to detect. Ticks have a round shape and yellow-green color, live on leaves from the bottom, braiding them in a web. Leaves dry out, turn pale and crumble. The tick is a very dangerous pest. To prevent its occurrence, it is necessary to maintain high humidity, spray the leaves, moisten the cobwebs, too, because the tick does not like water very much. These insects are caught with tweezers, and the leaves are treated with alcohol. You can use acaricides (use the attached instructions).
The most typical manifestations of diseases or pests attacked by Carmona Bonsai are falling leaves, turning pale or turning brown, and losing their color. All these signs indicate that it is necessary to search for the cause and the tree urgently needs to be saved.
Bonsai Disease
Diseases that Affect Bonsai Carmona:
- Powdery mildew and powdery mildew are the most common problem among these plants, in which spots with gray down appear on the leaves, over time the leaves darken and deteriorate. The tree can be cured by cutting the diseased leaves (which are then burned), after which they should be treated with a fungicide. The plant itself is still quarantined so as not to infect the rest.
- Chlorosis is a disease in which a plant loses color due to a lack of sun and loss of nutrients. For treatment, the tree is placed in a sunnier place and fed with fertilizers.
- White root rot is a parasitic fungus that infects the roots of a tree. The condition of the plant with this disease is greatly deteriorating, the leaves fall off, and the roots begin to soften and darken. To save the plant, it is urgently necessary to transplant it, replacing the pot and soil. It is imperative to remove all affected parts of the roots, and treat the remaining parts with a chemical agent.
With proper care, the Carmona Bonsai will grow into a magnificent beautiful tree that will become an evergreen mini-masterpiece, standing on a tray.