A few days ago, my bonsai teacher asked me to pick off all the leaves from a bonsai tree. This is called defoliating, a way to stimulate the tree to grow new branches and smaller leaves.
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This is the bonsai tree which I have defoliated. Instead of shears, I used tweezers since this is the fastest way to pinch off all the leaves on the Elm (and still, it took me around 3 hours to strip off this little bonsai of ~20 cm tall).
Teacher Wong gave the tree a major branch pruning after defoliation. This Elm is actually an award-winning mini bonsai. By defoliation and branch pruning, Teacher Wong is attempting to bring youth back to this old tree.
A truly A+ bonsai should look just as exquisite when it is naked of leaves, as the times when it is blooming vigorously with leaves and flowers.
4 replies on “Defoliating – Picking Leaves off a Bonsai Tree”
Nice man.
What is the maximum number of times a year we can defoliate a Chinese Elm?
So far – I have done it three times in two years and each time I have had lovely new growth. Now I want the brunches to grow nice and fat so I will let my bonsai grow wildly over the next one year or so.
Hi Kenny,
I know my bonsai teacher may defoliate his Fukien Tea as much as 3 times a year. I would guess that’s more or less the max, and this probably applies to Chinese Elm as well… just make sure we defoliate the tree only during its growing season.
hi sandy,
your posts are nice, simple yet informative more power