Bonsai Tonight

An educational website about bonsai development

Developing branches on Chinese wisteria

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For years, I’ve been curious about what it takes to create dense branching on wisteria bonsai. I’ve seen many beautiful specimens that bloom every year, but I don’t see as many that have fine, twiggy branching.

One of the first steps in ramifying deciduous bonsai is cutting back to create a compact silhouette. This can require cutting past existing buds, which isn’t always a sure thing with older trees.

Having pruned wisteria in the landscape for years, I know that I can cut into old wood and still get new shoots to develop. I wasn’t sure about what to expect with wisteria bonsai, so I decided to give it a try.

Here’s the tree I wanted to experiment with. It still had most of its leaves in December, so I removed them to get a better look at the silhouette.

Fall color on wisteria

Fall color on Chinese wisteria

After removing leaves

After removing the leaves

This was my first chance to see the branches clearly. I liked the primary branches, but some of the smaller branches were too long to support a compact silhouette.

I cut back to one or two visible buds on most of the branches, and in a few places, I cut past the buds to see what would happen. Here’s the tree after cutback.

After pruning

After cutback – December, 2019

Although it took several weeks for the tree to leaf out in spring, I was happy to see new shoots emerge from every branch. The tree has since filled in and is now producing long tendrils.

Wisteria in spring

Wisteria with spring growth – 35″ tall

I’ll let the tree continue to grow until the leaves have hardened off before thinning the foliage in May or June.

For those who noticed the new pot, here’s a close-up.

Sara Rayner bonsai pot

Glazed pot by Sara Rayner

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Comments

  2. Hi and hope everyone healthy on this time.
    I have a pretty old wisteria the stop flowering years ago . Any recommendations

  3. Hi!! Jonas ,
    Great post and in time. I’m letting my wisteria grow this season and doing some heavy fertilizing to make it flower 🙂
    Should I perhaps avoid cutting back this summer to encourage flowers ?

    • Thanks Paul! Cutting back may not encourage flowers but it can improve the branch structure which may yield more flowers over time. Cutting back can also lead to summer flowers, but they’re harder to see among the leaves.

      If you get long runners I’d cut them back as the runners produce mostly vegetative growth.

  4. Did the tree bloom? If not or if it there were only a few blooms, I am guessing that the flowering wood was pruned off during the process. When you want to maximize the number of blooms, how many buds do you leave when cutting back?

    • Hi Charlie! There were no flowers this year as I cut past the flower buds. I don’t know if there’s a good rule to follow to preserve the flower buds but I’d want to keep at least 2-3 buds on every branch if I wanted the tree to flower.

  5. I am also working on developing a more compact structure on one of my Wisterias. So I greatly appreciate the article.
    Any chance you intend to show how you thin the foliage? Or would be willing to share it here?
    I have been wondering if reducing the length of (some or all) of the compound foliage will encourage additional branching.

  6. Thank you for this blog post. I have been feeling a bit stumped with regard my wisteria bonsai. So after lunch – guess what I’m doing. (It’s mid autumn where I am located ie in the Southern Hemispheres . Cheers again.