I like to go nurseries and look for interesting trees and shrubs that might make a good Bonsai tree. One of the shrubs that caught my eye was the Beauty Bush. There two varieties, a plain green one and one has golden yellow and amber leaves. I purchased a “Dream Catcher” which is the golden/amber variety. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it would develop pink nodding Lily of the Valley type flowers, which smell really good. The leaves are compound leaves and they have an unusual characteristic of curling up like a cigar when they get to much sun. They will uncurl when moved into shade. I looked at bunch of large bushes and they trunks were very stiff and would be very hard to bend and they appear to be very brittle. I then looked at several in 1 gallon pots and found one that would make a good semi-cascade. I brought it home and the adventure began.
I gave it an initial styling for a semi-cascade and trimmed of some unneeded branches. An apex was developed out of the branch closest to the soil line. The apex looked pretty good for such a small tree. Aluminum wire was used to wire the branches and generally did a good job of holding the branches in place. The was potted in a Blue Chuck Iker Bonsai pot and left alone for a while. The tree responded well to being potted and starting growing some after that. The tree was displayed for the first time in local Bonsai Show in 2013. It was a very popular tree at the show and most comments were positive about it being such an unusual tree.
I have not been able to find any other examples of a Beauty Bush being used for Bonsai. Please contact me if you have any example of one.
Here is a photo of the tree when it was displayed in 2013.
Mother nature has continued to redesign the tree for me. The tree was growing on a bench under a large pine tree. The bench was attached to the privacy fence, and on the other side of the privacy fence were the trash cans for the neighbor. Well, Raccoons were climbing up the fence where the tree was located. They then would climb over the tree smashing the apex down as well as the other branches trying climb over the fence to get neighbors trash. I now had a tree that was pancaked by Raccoons on more then one occasion. I do not how many times I had to re-position the branches, the Raccoons finally killed of the apex branch and it is now a jin.
I moved the tree to the back yard and it is now hanging off another bench located under another pine tree! Success no more Raccoon problems, at least with this tree.
This spring (2017) the tree has responded really to over wintering the garage and produces new buds/branches all over the place. No new apex branch, but maybe some day it will happen. The tree is just starting to develop flower buds after leafing out. So it blooms on new wood and the flower buds are very tine and somewhat frilly looking.
Photo Gallery 10-21-2020:
Disaster struck the tree latter in 2018 and most of the tree died back due to watering issues. I had to start all over growing the tree out again. The tree has responded with new branches that were allowed to grow where ever they wanted. The tree was styled again in the spring of 2020 and has continued to grow all summer long. The tree was fertilized with Plant Tone numerous times during the summer. Currently the tree is turning into its fall colors for the first time ever! Its beautiful when seen in person. Unfortunately my camera and my camera skills are not very good so my photos do not really capture the total beauty of the tree right now, but there better then nothing. For the 2nd time I am trying to establish an apex on the tree and so far so good. The first apex was destroyed by Raccoons flatting the entire tree by repeatedly climbing on it. They killed the apex! The little rascals have not found its new hiding spot yet. Future development is refine the apex a lot more and also the main branches.
As of 05/15/2018 the tree was rewired because the the neighborhood Raccoon found the tree during the summer of 2017 and knocked it off the bench and then flattened the tree once again. I was very surprised that the Chuck Iker pot did not break or even crack! The tree was allowed to grow unchecked in 2017 and you can see the difference between the 2017 and 2018 photos. I should have taken a photo of the tree before I rewired it.
Photo Gallery 05/15/2018:
Photo Gallery 04/17/2017:
