A real bonsai is very, very hard to overwater unless you leave it sitting in water. Real bonsai have very small root masses with almost no soil. They're grown almost like epiphytes. The pro bonsai grower will often water their trees several times a day, often using automated watering systems. You're far more likely to be under-watering than overwatering a true bonsai.
Bonsai is both an art form and a form of torture to a plant. It's impressive that you can take a plant that would naturally grow twenty, thirty, forty feet or more tall and force it down to a size of a foot or so, but if the plant had any say in the matter, it would be screaming. To achieve the art of bonsai really requires torturing a plant. You hack off most of the roots, severely limit its growth, force the branches to grow in an unnatural manner by wiring/pinning them in place, limit the nutrition available, and never let it do what it would naturally do.
In human terms it would be like taking an infant, give it just enough nourishment to stay alive, but stunted. Break it's arms and legs and cast them in unnatural positions for artistic effect, perhaps cutting off parts that grow too long. Keep it confined in a very small space,and only give it food and water in small amounts and just enough to keep it alive. You'd end up with a small, contorted adult eventually, but it wouldn't be fun for the victim, just as bonsai isn't fun for the plant.
In recent years there have been studies done that find plant to plant communication is a real thing. Plants communicate using volatile organic compounds (VOC's) among other things that are emitted by a stressed plant to signal trouble to similar nearby plants. I've wondered if putting a bonsai version of a plant in with a normal group of the same plants would alter the growth pattern of the normal plants. My best guess would be that it would. Bonsai plants must be screaming bloody murder in their language over what's being done to them. We're just lucky we don't understand/hear their language. Plants that understood the language would likely be affected in some manner. Would their growth be stunted or accelerated though? I'm not sure of the answer to that, you could make an argument for both.
The good news is if you don't want the plant as a bonsai, you can simply pot it up in a real pot, remove any wiring holding the branches in place and let it grow naturally. It takes a lot of effort to force a plant into a bonsai and while it's an impressive art form for the viewer, I'm thinking it's no fun at all for the plant.
Fly!!! Eagles!!! Fly!!!
Blogs & Forums
