by George Buehler

When I first decided to run this article on Shohin, I had found a series of articles on “Shohin Europe”, a web site devoted to Shohin. There were a number of brief articles on care, placement, etc. of shohin. I had no idea what credentials the owner of the site had. So I started researching his information. When I started digging into the information contained at that site, I found that there were several of the same articles – worded slightly differently – on different sites with different authors claiming ownership. In order to avoid potential legal problems, I decided to take all the information I could gather and put it into my own words or where quoted directly, with the appropriate citation – ED

DEFINITIONS

John Naka states in his Bonsai Techniques II ‘the very small bonsai commonly called “MAME bonsai” is known as Shohin or Komono bonsai. Literally translated it means “small articles”, and small bonsai is no longer called “mame bonsai” in Japan. The concept of shohin bonsai is the same except for its size. Materials for shohin bonsai must be selected with both logic and sense, because it must be well balanced as well as miniature in size.’

Depending on the reference source, bonsai are classified into either three or five size classes. There seems to be a number of overlaps of classifications when actual inches are listed. In general, any bonsai smaller than 10 to 11 inches is classified as a miniature bonsai. The Japanese currently list shohin bonsai as between 7 and 10 inches although this is somewhat fuzzy. Trees that are less than approximately 7 inches are called Shito (3 to 7 inches) or Keishi (1 to 3 inches) bonsai.

SHOHIN – ART OR CRAFT

As with regular bonsai, the purpose of developing a shohin bonsai is to create the picture of a fully grown and mature tree when one sees it. However, there may be a limited amount of branches and foliage in a shohin and even the bonsai artist has to use some imagination when he visualizes the tree. Spectators at shows often look at shohin and are somewhat amazed that they don’t have as much branching or foliage as larger bonsai. They quite often pass by the little shohin, going instead to the larger bonsai, not understanding what they should be looking for in the little shohin. Hopefully, those of us who are interested in shohin, can ‘educate’ the viewing public (and in some cases the knowledgeable bonsai artists) as to what to look for when viewing the shohin.

For years, the ‘fashion’ in bonsai was to make the trees bigger and more dramatic (i.e. using multiple gins or dramatic carvings). This, of course, is not possible with the shohin since there is not the quantity of branches; and, of course, the trunk would not be able to withstand the strain of carving. It is interesting that in Japan a large number of bonsai enthusiasts are increasingly turning to growing shohin. Is it because of the challenge of growing the shohin or is it because one can have four or five shohin on a bench where only one of the larger bonsai would occupy? Difficult to say which is the case, but according to Masumi Tomohiro of Kyoto Japan (discussion held at the BCI convention in St. Louis) more and more Japanese are now growing shohin than did 10 years ago. This is easy to prove when one looks at the number of shohin exhibited each year (Gafu-ten: 200 exhibits; Taikanten: 300; Kokufu-ten 250 – these are only shohin, not larger or mini bonsai). Tomohiro-san says that the number of exhibits will have to be limited due to space at the various exhibit halls. Just think, if Gafu-ten can only hold about 200 shohin, how many ‘regular’ bonsai could it hold – 75 - 100?

THE LURE OF SHOHIN

What is the fascination of shohin in Japan? You can hold them in one hand, bring them to the dining room table to work on, you can twist and turn them easily to view the structure, roots, or trunk. Those of you who have been to Japan know that their houses and gardens are relatively small when compared to the US houses. Since they have such limited space, they can have a large number of Shohin whereas they would be limited with the number of regular bonsai. Perhaps this is why shohin is growing so rapidly in Japan.

Shohin is also a great opportunity for apartment dwellers. These folks can keep quite a large number of these small trees and if they have a balcony or deck, they can enjoy the thrill of bonsai on a small scale.

As mentioned above, the bonsai artist can bring one of his shohin in to the kitchen to study it before deciding what trimming needs to be done. You don’t need a turn table, Just pick it up and turn it one way or another. Think about trying that with a regular 19 tree trident maple forest. I know it takes quite a bit of effort to move mine; and, even with a turn table, studying it is difficult. I believe the ease of handling the small Shohin is one of the lures that bring people into this class of bonsai.

TREES SUITED TO SHOHIN

What trees are suited to Shohin? As best I can determine, almost any type of tree used for regular bonsai is suited to Shohin. I say almost any type, for some are more difficult than others – but maybe that goes for regular-size bonsai as well. I find examples of various conifers, deciduous and tropicals in the literature. Most certainly the Shimpaku, Ficus and Cotoneaster seem to be the most prevalent. I haven’t seen any examples of oaks or Dawn redwoods, but that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t be used for Shohin – it would be just more difficult.

An abbreviated list of potentials include (and this is by no means a complete list):

Conifers – Junipers (Shimpaku, Green Mound), Spruce (Alberta, Norway, White or Blue), Pine (Red, Limber, White, Mugo), Cypress (Hinoki, Dwarf blue)

Deciduous – Maples (almost any type), Various Fruit (Apple, Plum, Cherry), Quince, Azaleas, Elms, Hackberry.

Tropical/semi Tropical – Ficus, Portulacaria, Pomegranate, Australian Brush Cherry

BEGINNING IN SHOHIN

If you have never had a Shohin, where do you start? Probably the easiest way is to buy one. This can accomplish several things quickly. It gives you a tree that is almost perfectly styled (depending on the amount of money you spend), it gives you a tree that you can study and practice on, and it saves a lot of time compared to trying to grow a tree from seed or collecting one in the ‘wild’.

You have to realize that Shohin is a long term commitment in bonsai (what’s different about that from regular bonsai?). With regular-size bonsai, you have the opportunity to disguise faults with the large amount of branches and leaves the tree has. In Shohin, you usually have fewer limbs to bend to hide some of those faults. However, depending on the type of tree, you may have enough branches to help conceal the less than perfect trunk. Zelkova, Chinese Elms or Shimpaku would be excellent trees to purchase to start your adventure into Shohin. They are relatively fast growers, have lots of limbs and back bud easily (to start a new limb). The Zelkova and Elm both seem to be pretty tolerant of conditions and abuse. The Shimpaku I don’t know about since I got my first this year.

So if you want to get going easily in Shohin, contact one of the bonsai stores and purchase one of the small guys. You can expect to pay somewhere around $50+ for a fairly decent tree. I definitely wouldn’t recommend paying more than $100 for your first adventure in Shohin, although I saw one beauty for close to $500 – what appeared to be a perfectly formed informal Chinese Elm.

Growing from seed or cutting

You can, of course, start your own tree from a seed. This will work, but I must caution that you are on a very long term path this way. If you are young, this could be a good path. However, if you are over 50, I wouldn’t recommend the seed method. Trying to grow any tree from seed is a risky adventure. Does the seed need cold temperatures for 3 months or 5 months? Do you have to striate the seed to get it to germinate? A lot of uncertainty as far as I am concerned!

Starting a Shohin from a cutting can be a cheap start and s o m e w h a t shorter time frame than seeds. You have the options of shaping the tree when the limbs are young and supple. If something happens and you lose it, you just have lost some time. Check with some of the members of the club, they may be happy to give you some cuttings.

Collecting

If you go out to collect trees suitable for shohin, you will have to find some special areas. In general you should go to mountainous areas or other areas with harsh conditions. This could also be areas where animals continually “nibble” the tops out of trees. As a rule, there is limited proper shohin material growing in the wild. I have noticed some areas along several of the interstates that I intend to investigate. I may find some shohin potentials or maybe some regular bonsai potentials.

Several words of caution when you go out on a collecting trip. You will need to take shovels, picks, lots of water (for you to drink), something to wrap your collection in and string or rope to secure the soil until you get home. Also please note that if you go onto private land (this includes state or federal parks), you will need to get permission to dig. Not getting permission can cause you some real legal problems. If you are looking for shohin growing in the wild, don’t be disappointed if you don’t find anything suitable. It is good fun to go out looking but going to a bonsai store or nursery would probably be more prudent.

Another area you should look for shohin trainers is at your local nursery. Sometimes if you are patient and observant, you can find some good potentials at your nursery. Look in the back part of the nursery where the nurseryman has put back some ‘unsellables’. These might be just what you are looking for and may be real cheap. These can be good training material with little to lose except time. A good time to start looking is in the fall when the nursery is willing to discount to get rid of plant material. It may take several trips to several different nurseries. If you frequent one nursery regularly, you may want to talk to the manager and tell him what you are looking for and he may be willing to set some plants aside.

What you are looking for is a plant that has ‘potential’ for shohin. It must be well balanced as well as miniature in size or capable of being made miniature.

GROWING SHOHIN

Placement

A Shohin is a bit more demanding concerning its daily care. Because of its tiny size, it dries out easier than a normal-size bonsai. Therefore care must be taken to find a proper position in the garden, which protects the small tree from harmful sun and winds. In addition a shohin can easily be blown off a stand by a sudden wind or storm. Therefore it needs to be placed where this will not happen or at least is minimized. If your garden is susceptible to sudden wind gusts because the stands are out in the open, you can wire or tie down the pot which will offer some protection from being blown off. You can also intersperse the shohin with your larger bonsai pots which will also offer some protection.

To protect the tree from drying out too quickly, it should be placed where it is protected from the late afternoon direct sun. This is for everything except pines which like to be more on the dry side. Therefore a pine can be placed where it will be in full sunshine without any shading.

Take care, and find a good place where the tree benefits from the sun but is able to keep moist until the next watering session. Don’t forget that a single day without watering can be disastrous for the shohin and waste years of training and commitment, when a tree dies. If you are unsure if the tree will be able to keep moist for the whole day, it is better to be safe and keep it in the shade. It is always better to be safe than sorry.

You can also help your trees from drying out by having some vegetation planted under the stands you use. Because the under study vegetation expire moisture, this can help keep a humid condition wafting up around your plants. This will work for both shohin and regular bonsai. If you look at pictures of Japanese bonsai gardens, they generally always have under-study plantings just for this reason. Under- study plants can be anything like small shrubs, accent grasses, or hostas. The under-study plants shouldn’t detract from your trees on the stands; therefore they should be judicially placed.

Wind/rain protection

As stated above, care must be taken in placing the shohin to protect it from wind. This is also the case for heavy rains. There is of course nothing we can do about a sudden thunderstorm that we get in the Ohio valley. I placed a table with some regular bonsai on it on my deck thinking this would be a good spot for me to admire them. It never occurred to me that one of the trees was close to a gutter and when we had a heavy rain the leaf guard was slightly plugged and the water from the roof rushed over the gutter onto one of my trees. I guess I was lucky it was a regular bonsai and only a small amount of soil was washed away. If it had been a shohin, it could have easily been destroyed. I now regularly check this gutter and have moved the table further away from where it was originally placed. This is just a word of caution.

Transplanting

When it comes time to transplant a shohin (which comes more regularly than regular bonsai – see under soil for some guidelines), you should let the soil dry out more than normal. It should not be totally dry but drier than normal. This is important so that you are able to remove the soil from the roots without damaging them unnecessarily. Wet soil will take the finest roots with it when it is removed, which you want to prevent in all bonsai. After the tree is removed from the pot, you can use a chopstick to carefully remove the old soil and to straighten the root mass. You need to try to remove as much of the old soil as possible without being drastic. There is some literature that says to leave a small amount of old soil around the roots to keep the beneficial fungi that has developed since the last planting. I have found that if this soil is left, by the next transplanting it gets harder and harder to remove. I always try to get out as much soil as possible. For my conifers, I always add some mycorrhizae fungus to the soil to reconstitute the fungi that I removed during the soil clean-out. I don’t know whether it is beneficial or not (I can’t find anything in the literature) but I have also started adding the mycorrhizae to all my trees when I transplant. I assume that it can’t do any harm and if it is beneficial so much the better. Mycorrhizae is very cheap and a little goes a long way.

Soil

There are several differences in the requirements of soil for shohin compared to bigger trees in bigger pots. The two main differences are:

Shohin are in a very limited amount of soil and space and therefore dry out quicker than bigger bonsai.

The soil fills with roots from the plant faster than big bonsai and therefore they will need transplanting more often than larger bonsai.

As with larger bonsai, the soil choice depends somewhat on the species. However, one very important point that has to be considered is the particle size of the soil. For shohin, the particle size has to be smaller than for its larger cousins. In general, the particle size of the soil should be between 1/8 inch and 3/16 inch. Attention should also be given to removing the fine dust to keep the soil from compacting. Remember that when the plant grows, it sends out fine roots that need to occupy the void space in the soil. If dust is left in the soil mix, it will deter the growth of these fine roots. Also the soil needs to hold water and air for the plant which is the purpose of the voids. There are many commercial soils available from bonsai suppliers. Generally, these are recommended first before you try to mix your own soil. Several suppliers offer soil specifically for various species, although a number of suppliers offer a general purpose soil suited for all types of trees. Also, there is at least one supplier who offers soil specifically for shohin.

If you want to make your own soil, I am listing several types of soil commonly found in the Shohin community and the general category of trees that are used (all have to be carefully screened).

Common deciduous trees and some tropicals – Maples, Bamboo, Bougainvillea, Boxwood, Ficus, Forsythia, Gardenia, Serissa, Elms, Zelkova. (Plan on transplanting every year or two. You can tell when the drain holes fill up with roots):

60% peat or Sphagnum/40% pumice, mica or such

Flowering trees – Apple, Citrus, Cotoneaster, Ginkgo, Plum, Cherry. (This mix should be slightly courser than normal-heavier on the 3/16 inch material since these type trees don’t like to have their roots disturbed too often. Transplant perhaps once every three years):

50% pumice, sand, kitty litter/50% organic source

Conifers – Junipers, Pines, Cedars (Transplant less frequently, every 3 to 5 years):

30% organic/70% pumice, mica etc.

Dry Tropicals – Portulacaria (transplant only when roots begin to show in drain holes):

20-40% organic/60-80% pumice, mica, etc.

What about Akadama? Akadama is a general-purpose, proprietarybrand soil comprising clay granules of differing sizes and qualities. It comes in low and high fired varieties. The Akadama absorbs water and releases it slowly. The Akadama on the surface dries out quickly, however below the surface it stays wet longer. This may cause problems in your watering since the plant surface looks dry but could be wet by the roots, causing rotting of the roots. I have also found that the soft Akadama breaks down over time (within a year) to a mud like material that causes all kind of problems with drainage. If you want to use Akadama (and this should only be the high fired type), use it with caution. I have given up using it altogether. Some literature suggests that placing the Akadama in the bottom of a pot helps the drainage. If this is your purpose for using it, you might want to consider using a slightly courser stone which would serve the same purpose.

Water

As mentioned above, it is most important that you water your shohin on a daily routine. Shohin have a distinct disadvantage over regular bonsai in that they not only have a limited amount of pot space, they also have a limited amount of roots to consume the necessary water and nutrients. Each species has a distinct demand for water. Pines are tolerant to dry periods, while Maples and some others like to be in a moist soil at all times. I have found that even pines dry out quickly when the temperature reaches the 90 OF range regardless of their pot size. You might want to refer back to the watering article published in the July newsletter for theories and techniques.

For shohin, the easiest and safest way to water is the dunk method. You simply submerge the tree up to the top of the pot in a tub of water and hold it there until there are no more bubbles coming from the pot. This ensures that the whole soil mass is wet and there are no dry spots in the soil. If you leave dry spots in the soil of a shohin, the roots in that area will die quickly and the whole tree will suffer.

Another good thing about using the dunk method for your shohin is that you have to handle each tree using this method, and you can scrutinize the tree for insect or fungal damage on a daily basis. Insect damage, if left unchecked, can quickly weaken or even kill your shohin.

Fertilizer

I find two trains of thought in the literature when it comes to fertilization of shohin. One says to use full strength, just as you do with regular size bonsai. The other says to use ½ strength but use it more often. I don’t know which is correct, but I can say that I use full strength chemical fertilizers and my trees seem to really like it. Some of the literature says to only use organic fertilizers on shohin. I will leave that up to you to make your decision. I think that as long as you are judicious in whatever method you use, your trees will appreciate it.

 

Training/wiring

Training and wiring for shohin use the same principles that are used in regular bonsai. The difference is that the limbs to be bent are much smaller than regular bonsai; therefore they need to be handled with more care. Size of wire used is much smaller and generally no larger than 1.5 mm, except for trunk bending. Wrapping a branch with raffia is a real test of one’s patience and skill. It should also be mentioned that the wiring will have to be checked more often to prevent cutting into the branch. If the branch of a shohin is marked by wire, it takes substantially longer to heal, or at least conceal, than it would with a large bonsai.

If you are trying to bend a limb into a downward position, you might try using a string. Secure the string to the branch and the other end to the trunk. This sounds strange but it will work.

Winter protection

Winter protection is one of the most problematic areas for shohin. Once again due to the small pot size and the limited amount of soil, you will need to give extra attention to your shohin when the winter season arrives. Just like the full size trees in the landscapes, the shohin need to go through the seasonal changes. This will enable them to complete their natural yearly cycles. Of course if you have a tropical or semi tropical, it will have to be handled differently. For most deciduous trees, they should experience frost so the leaves will shut down and you will get the colors of autumn in your little trees. Once the temperatures start getting down to the freezing point, the trees should be put in a protected area (more on that later). For tropicals or semi tropicals, when the temperatures start getting in the mid 50’s they should be brought into the house or green house (if you are lucky enough to have one). Handle conifers the same as the deciduous trees.

When it is time to bring in your conifers or deciduous, where do you put them? They need to be protected from the cold wind of winter which will dry them out quickly. The pots and soil also need to be protected from rapid freeze thaw cycles. One of our members, Lee Squires, puts his trees in a corner of his back yard surrounded by a plywood fence. Once the trees are in the fenced in area, he covers the pots up to the first limbs with mulch, waters them well and lets them go until spring. Shohin can be handled the same way, but care should be taken that the shohin pots are put on top of a good layer of mulch then covered carefully with more mulch. They should be placed in the center of the plywood fenced area so they get the most protection. Surrounding them with large bonsai also is a good idea.

For apartment dwellers, placing a large wood or plastic box in one corner of a patio or deck will do just as well as the plywood fence Lee uses. This assumes that the box is protected from the winter wind. Don’t cover the box but use plenty of mulch to bury the small trees. If the box is in a covered area, you should periodically check that it is wet.

A third option is to put them in an unheated garage. This is the method I use and haven’t had any problems yet. I say yet since I have had several conversations with club members who say this is not a good method of storing bonsai in the winter. If we should get an early warming in the spring, this could cause some problems with early bud break. Of course if the weather does warm up, the trees outside in a mulch bed may start budding also. I found that during one warm spring episode, I did get some bud break on several of my trees. However, when the weather turned cold again, the tree seemed to shut down and wait for real warm weather. This is sort of what happens to trees in the landscape.

CONCLUSION

If you got this far in this article, you obviously have some interest in shohin. I don’t want to scare anybody into thinking that the shohin are extremely difficult to grow. They are no more trouble to grow than regular bonsai. They just need some different techniques. With caution and some careful handling, the shohin will give you just as much pleasure as the regular bonsai. I think it is an extension of the fun of regular bonsai and hopefully if you don’t have one, you will at least try one or two. I believe that the small size compliments the larger size of regular bonsai.