Are you interested in something more adventurous in the art of bonsai gardening?  If so, you need not be stuck with with the more traditional coniferous, deciduous or occasional fruit trees as the only items in your collection.  Your options can range to the more exotic bonsai varieties which will help enhance your skills.

Wisteria makes one excellent alternative to the classical bonsai. A native of China, Japan, and Korea, they can reach 30 feet in the wild. Shaping them into a bonsai can be an interesting challenge, because they don’t conform to any of the usual styles.

The Wisteria flowers are both aromatic and beautiful and come in a variety of colors, including blue, pink, white, and purple.  Blossoming in the Spring, they need lots of water with adequate drainage and they do well in partial shade to full sun.  Just before they flower in the spring, you should provide them with a good amount of fertilizer, and once again in late summer before they drop their leaves.

Another option is Orange Jasmine which will provide a delight to the nose and beauty to the eye.  Orange Jasmine bears a bright red fruit and fragrant, white blossoms.

Orange Jasmine should be fed every three to four weeks beginning in early spring and continuing through mid-autumn. Light watering is sufficient for most of the year, with slightly more in the hotter season.

Because they do better in filtered sun and moderate shade, they are one of the few bonsai that can, and probably should, be raised indoors.

The Mimosa tree, also occasionally known as silk trees due to their long silky filaments, offer another good alternative.  They are as fragrant as both of the two choices mentioned above and their puffy flowers and lacy foliage are also just as lovely.

Moderate water should be provided to the Mimosa during the blooming season which is from late April to early July.  However, care should be taken to avoid getting water on the flowers themselves, since the flowers will rapidly deteriorate when wet, similar to a number of other flowering plants.

The Mimosa will be one of the larger bonsai in your collection. They grow rapidly, have large leaves and are very difficult to sustain at a very small size. So give them lots of room on the display bench.

Another non-traditional bonsai is the Desert Rose.  The Desert Rose can turn what would be an ordinary bonsai collection into one full of color and excitement.  It is a native of East Africa and in the wild can grow up to 10 feet tall, producing large, pink, trumpet-bowl flowers.

Very bushy, it makes an excellent design complement to the many trees in a standard bonsai set. They need lots of fresh air and ample sunshine, so keep them outside most of the year.

They’re sensitive to cold, though, so in cold climates they should be brought indoors. They don’t thrive below 50F (10C), though they will lie dormant and healthy from 50-60F (10C-15C). During this period they will need very little water.

You should try your hand at some of these exotic fragrant and beautiful flowering plants to extend your horizon and further develop your bonsai gardening skills. They provide a nice contrast when placed among some of the more standard evergreens, such as, pines, firs, and junipers.  Additionally, as they lose their leaves in the fall and blossom in the spring, you’ll have an interesting ever-changing display.

George Dodge enjoys landscaping and gardening as a hobby.  Bonsai gardening offers hours of enjoyment producing exquisit miniture trees and shrubs as an art form. His Bonsai Tree Gardening site presents tips for the beginning bonsai gardener.  Experiment with exotic bonsai choices to roundout your collection.

The practice of bonsai gardening is the ancient art form of growing miniaturized trees.  The practice itself is over 2000 years old, and was developed during China’s Han dynasty.  The Chinese word for bonsai gardening, pen’jing, means “tray scenery” or “tree or shrub planted in a shallow tray”.  It was named bonsai by the Japanese, who adopted the style in the ninth century. 

Bonsai gardening is definitely one of the most unique and beautiful forms of art in the area of gardening. Since it began in ancient China through to the present day, it has developed into many diverse individual styles.  Once miniaturized, however, maintaining the look and well-being of the bonsai requires some care and attention from the gardener.

There are several styles to be found in the art form of bonsai gardening.  These styles include:
– formal upright
– cascade
– forest
– slant
– literati
– root-over-rock

Bonsai done in the formal upright style are grown to have upright trunks that are straight and tapering.   Cascade style bonsai are intentionally groomed to resemble trees that can be found on the sides of mountains. Forest style bonsai are reasonably self explanatory.  They are comprised of several trees planted together in odd numbers.  This type of bonsai gardening is intended to duplicate the diversity of age and height that you would find in nature. 

Slant style bonsai are aptly named.  Their trunks are straight, like those of the formal upright style, but lean at a slant from the surface of the soil.  Literati bonsai were inspired by ancient brush paintings of trees that grew in inhospitable climates.  Therefore they don’t have many branches.  What branches they do have are usually grouped at the top of the trunk, which is usually contorted.  In the root-over-rock style, the roots of the bonsai are wrapped around a rock at the base of the tree. 

An important element of bonsai gardening is learning how to care for your bonsai.  Bonsai require a warm location with plenty of light in order to thrive.  Avoid placing them near window sills, due to the variable temperatures that can occur from drafts.

Watering is not done as you would typically water a normal houseplant.  Bonsai trees require immersion of the whole pot or tray in water for several minutes.  Once removed from the water, allow the bonsai to drain.  During the summer, bonsai should be watered daily, and every other day during the cooler months. 
 
Bonsai also require a lot of fertilizer.  Fertilizer should be given to the bonsai only after it has been watered.  A typical feeding schedule would be once every two weeks during the summer months, cutting that back to once a month for the rest of year. 

Bonsai are living trees, and so grow and sprout new branches and limbs as time passes.  When it’s time to prune this new growth, copy the original theme of your bonsai.  Remember, you only need to maintain the look of your bonsai, so don’t prune too much – only enough to remove the new sprouts and shoots. 

When you’re just beginning, there’s a lot to learn.  So it’s worthwhile to have some bonsai information on hand, such as Bonsai Gardening Secrets.  If you want to create and own beautiful Bonsai Trees, then this quick and easy step by step guide to creating your very own Bonsai Trees is invaluable.

 To find out more about bonsai gardening, check out http://www.gardeningzoneonline.com