Day 06 of #lockdown2020 : Finished work on eight bonsai trees today including a tree that I have been growing a sacrifice branch on.

Today was one of the better days for me personally. I worked on eight bonsai trees today. Most of it was small trees but one in particular that I want to spend time on during this blog is my Ficus bonsai with a sacrifice branch.This technique is very useful for correcting and developing your bonsai. After I explained the technique I will be posting the photos of some of the other trees I worked on.

Sacrifice Branch
What is a sacrifice branch? A sacrifice branch is a branch that you grow on a bonsai tree that will allow you to speed up the development process of your bonsai tree. This branch will then be removed. A sacrifice branch can be used to thicken up the trunk or to help cover up huge scare, where big branches were removed. Sacrifice branches stay on trees for different length of time depending on what the desired out come needs to be and the rate at which the tree grows.

How to get the most out of using a sacrifice branch.
Always ensure that the sacrifice branch is growing straight up and that the top of the tree is lower than the tip of the sacrifice branch. You can use wire to bend the sacrifice branch up. Remove any side growth on the sacrifice branch.

In the image above you can see I removed all the side growth on the sacrifice branch and only left a few leaves on the end of the branch.

In this close up you can see that I wired up a few of the other lower branches to get them to thicken up as well. When growing in a long sacrifice branch like this one it is important that you keep an eye on the branches below as you will need to keep them healthy. You will need them later on in your design.

Here are the rest of the trees I worked on:

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. Hope you enjoyed it. Please feel free to leave your questions and comments in the section provided below.

#teambonsai
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