Mame Bonsai

Mame bonsai are small enough to be held comfortably in the palm of the hand. They should not exceed 8-15cm in height and, with few exceptions, their care and shaping is the same as for their larger counterparts. You can obtain mame bonsai by collecting plants from the wild, by cultivating them from cuttings and seeds, by growing them from off-shoots or by buying them from bonsai nurseries.

Mame need to be grown for between three and five years to shape the tree sufficiently to warrant the name. It is possible to start with seedlings 3-5cm tall, easily found in woods and parks at the foot of large trees. Many of these tiny off-shoots are an interesting shape even at this stage. Of course, mame should be miniature versions of the original tree, not some grotesquely deformed plant. You could shape a zelkova like a broom, cryptomerias as pillars; and pines make good mame with all the characteristics of the original species.

Spring is the best time of year to go looking for suitable plant material. Dig the plant out carefully without damaging the root fibres, but remove the taproot. Leave some earth on the roots and wrap the plant in damp moss or moistened newspaper so that it doesn't dry out. The choice of dish is very much a matter of taste, the only important feature being a sufficiently large drainage hole in the bottom. The correct soil mixture is also vital for the survival of your plant. You can use the tried and tested bonsai soil mixtures, although the mix should be very fine. Mame bonsai, and those that are being trained as such, should be watered at least three times daily, more often in summer, depending on heat and wind, because the two or three tablespoons of earth they need dry out very quickly. One easy way of watering is to immerse your tree in water until no more air bubbles rise to the top.

Pruning is the most important technique to master in the shaping of a mame bonsai, since the plants are too small to allow much wiring. Start by pruning back the young trees you have collected to one or two buds. Repeat until the plants begin to look more interesting. Then encourage some of the tiny branches to grow, and nip off the more dominant ones with your fingers.

If you want to achieve a mame bonsai with descending branches you can either bind branches with copper wire or tie string round the container and pull the branches down as far as possible with some twine and tie it to the string.

Apply fertilizer sparingly. Diluted liquid fertilizer is best for mame bonsai, and it should be applied as with normal bonsai once a week, after watering from late spring to autumn. Sometimes, because mame bonsai can be so very small, it is best to inject your fertilizer through the drainage hole at the bottom of the dish.

After a while all plants exhaust their soil, and mame bonsai are particularly prone to this since they grow in only two or three tablespoonfuls of it. They therefore have to be repotted more frequently than larger bonsai, and at the repotting the roots should be pruned by a third. With large leaved species you should remove about half the leaves so that they do not demand too much of the newly trimmed root system.

All foliage must be sprayed daily, and at first the small plant must be placed somewhere that is sheltered from sun and wind, until about a week later when it can be introduced to the sun. The location you choose for your mame bonsai is the same as for normal bonsai and instructions regarding its care and cultivation are no different from those for normal bonsai.

Mame bonsai may not live to be hundreds of years old but they can survive three generations if well looked after. Sometimes, despite all care and attention, your mame bonsai will grow too big, in which case you can shape it into a normal sized bonsai. In Japan the creation of mame bonsai is very popular, and astonishingly high prices are offered for them.