Chinese privet bonsai

Placement

Chinese privet loves light: choose a bright spot with direct sun for at least part of the day. Outdoors it tolerates both full summer sun and fairly deep shade, but it stays more compact with good light.

Like most privets, it can live outdoors year-round. It is cold hardy and only needs extra protection when temperatures drop below 14 °F: shelter the root ball then. Cold makes some of the leaves drop, more so the harder the frost, but without lasting harm: new foliage grows back in spring. A tree that is going to spend the winter outdoors must stay outside throughout the fall so it can harden off.

It is also very often sold as an indoor bonsai. In that case, set it by a bright window and keep the humidity fairly high, for example by standing the pot on a tray of damp gravel. A tree kept indoors over the winter should stay inside until spring; after that it can go outdoors for the warm months.

Pests and diseases: watch for aphids, scale, whiteflies, thrips, leaf miners and weevils, as well as leaf spot, wilt and powdery mildew. A suitable insecticide or fungicide will deal with them if needed. The Chinese privet plant profile covers its other problems and how it grows in the ground.

Soil mix

Privet is not fussy: a standard bonsai mix that holds some water while draining well is all it needs. In the ground it even copes with poor or alkaline soils, but in a pot, soil that stays waterlogged encourages root rot.

Watering

Water by observation, never on a fixed schedule. As soon as the soil starts to dry, water thoroughly until water runs out of the drainage holes. In hot weather this can be often, so check the pot every day. In winter, water much less, but never let the root ball dry out completely. Very hard water can cause chlorosis, meaning pale leaves that turn yellow.

Fertilizer: during the growing season, apply a solid organic fertilizer every four weeks, or a liquid fertilizer every one to two weeks, always onto moist soil. An indoor tree that keeps growing in winter gets a liquid feed once a month.

Pruning

Privet takes pruning remarkably well and buds back easily, so you can build dense branching quickly.

• Structural pruning: in late winter or early spring, before new growth starts, for heavy cuts.
• Maintenance trimming: throughout the growing season, shorten shoots to keep the silhouette and remove those with overlong internodes.
• Leaves: remove oversized leaves; a vigorous tree also tolerates defoliation.
• Flowering: small, scented white flowers appear in summer at the shoot tips. To get them, do not shorten young shoots before summer.

Styles: privet accepts every styling technique. It is mostly grown in the informal upright style, with a single trunk or several, in all sizes, and it also features in penjing landscapes.

Wiring

You can wire at any time of year, but it works best from spring into summer. The bark on twigs and branches is soft, so apply wire carefully to avoid injuring it. Anodized aluminum wire, which is easier to handle, works well; choose wire about one third the thickness of the branch and wrap it at roughly 45°.

During active growth, branches thicken fast and wire can bite in within one to four months: check it often and remove it by cutting it at each turn, without unwinding. Wrap thick branches in damp raffia before bending them. Do not wire a weak or freshly repotted tree.

Repotting

Repot in spring, as the buds extend: every year for a young tree in training and every two or three years for an older one. Privet tolerates root pruning well; shorten roots that are too long, but remove no more than about a third of the root mass. Use the standard mix described above.

After repotting, water thoroughly, then keep the tree out of strong sun, wind and cold while new roots form. Wait a few weeks before feeding again and avoid heavy pruning during that time.

Propagation:

• Cuttings: very easy, with semi-ripe cuttings in summer or hardwood cuttings in winter.
• Air layering: in late spring.
• Seed: in fall or spring, but germination is slow.

Toxicity: the small black fruit are moderately poisonous, and the rest of the plant is toxic to pets too. Keep the tree out of reach of children and pets.