Originating from China, bonsai are small trees grown in a container. Actually you can create bonsai from almost any type of tree as long as you know how to properly grow them. Some species are usually more sought after for bonsai because of their characteristics which make them more appropriate for this type of art, because growing bonsai is truly an art form.

There are several methods used to grow bonsai. The first one, but not always the most common one is by using seeds. Although nobody is actually going to find any bonsai tree seeds, you will always find seeds from many types of trees you can grow into bonsai. Through pot confinement and some other little tricks any seed can grow into a beautiful, miniature tree you can decorate your house or garden with.

Cutting is another of the four most used methods of growing bonsai. Actually this method is used for many types of plants, not only for trees as long as they are plants that propagate asexually. This bonsai method is actually quite simple. You take a part of the plant you want to grow, put it in a proper environment and it will soon grow roots. This new pant is independent and then by using the method of pot- confinement and pruning of the roots and crown you have bonsai.

Air layering is the third method one can use to grow bonsai. This method is somehow similar to the last one because the main aspect of this method is growing roots from another plant. However this way is a little more complicated because you deliberately wound a plant and then trough a series of methods you make it grow root. All you have to do next is plant these roots and using that special method, grow a beautiful bonsai.

Last but not least, you can use grafting as a method to cultivate bonsai. This is a wide spread method in horticulture. The tissue of a plant is actually encouraged, through some methods, to fuse with the tissue of another plant. Usually one plant is used for its strong roots and another for its crown.

So as you can see, there are many ways to cultivate bonsai and all these methods are widely used. The most important aspect when talking about bonsai is not how you acquire the necessary material to grow bonsai, but how you use that material to your advantage to grow a nice, ornamental bonsai.