{"id":611970548038,"date":"2025-10-16T16:41:50","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T16:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ashridgetrees.co.uk\/blogs\/uncategorized\/making-bonsai-from-bareroot-trees\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T08:41:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T08:41:10","slug":"making-bonsai-from-bareroot-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ashridgetrees.co.uk\/blogs\/trees\/making-bonsai-from-bareroot-trees\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Bonsai from Your Bareroot Trees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Somerset Bonsai Society is our absolute favourite Bonsai Society in Somerset. We love them so much that whenever they visit us, we treat them to a bin bag of damaged reject plants covered in mud <\/h2>

And local bonsai enthusiasts ingeniously turn these trees, which had been destined for the compost heap, into beautiful bonsai.
Young beech<\/a>, native field maple<\/a>, Japanese maple<\/a>, elms<\/a>, and wild plum<\/a> are especially popular.<\/p>

How do you turn a deciduous bareroot tree into a beautiful little bonsai?<\/h3>

Bareroot trees are grown straight, and there isn\u2019t much taper in the trunk.
For bonsai, you want flowing movement (bends in the trunk, basically) and taper, so the first action is to chop the trunk down to 30-45cm or less, preferably to a side-shoot or bud, which will form the new leader.<\/p>

\"\"
A field maple about to be chopped<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Next, pot it up in a plain old plastic pot, large enough to take the roots: don\u2019t bother with a proper bonsai pot yet. <\/p>