Allen wrote:

An
important, maybe crucial aspect of bonsai is "Scale" ... You should be
able to look at a well-done bonsai and "See" a big old tree. You never
see a 20 foot tree with leaves 4 feet across, or fruit the size of
beachballs, right? If your leaves, flowers, or fruit cannot be made to
grow small, you're going to lose the sense of scale and things are not
going to look appropriate, and in a purely practical non-aethetic
sense, the limb might not even support the apple ! So ... crabapple -
yes ! Granny Smith apple - no. I would think this would apply to
roses and you should try to find a rose variety with small blooms.

Obviously scale is important, but it doesn't always work out that you're going to get leaf reduction in scale to the
trunk size. Even Japanese or trident maples won't reduce to that point. Of course, after a certain point a small
tree with really big leaves isn't going to work for bonsai.

With fruit it's another story. I've heard some argue that working towards getting a bonsai to fruit may sap the
tree's energy. I don't ever expect my crabapples to bear fruit, and that isn't my goal. The tree itself is the
goal. If I can get them to flower that's a bonus.

Craig Cowing
NY
Zone 5b/6a Sunset 37

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