Try this technique to bend your bonsai tree, Using raffia.

So this is the bending and movement that I was able to create using the following technique. Stay tuned. Before we start the video I want to let you know that I'm doing a giveaway for this winged elm at 7,000 subscribers. All you need to do is be a subscriber, comment down below or any of my videos your favorite tree species to work with, like, share and that's it. This tree is going through a transformation and by the time of the giveaway it's going to look so much better. So don't forget the more you comment more chances you have. Hello and welcome back to the channel Life of Bonsai. So as you can see I have this pretty boring water jasmine. So I wanted to create some movement on this and just make it a little more dramatic I would say. So creating a little bit more bend. So what I'll be using for this is raffia. So this you can get it from Amazon or any craft store. This is going to allow for two main things. One is of course creating those bends. It's going to be underneath it's going to wrap around the trunk and then the wire is going to go on top. And once you start twisting it's going to help to not break the trunk and also not allow for the tree to get wire bites which when the tree develops it start biting into the wire. We want to use water and soak it into water before using it. So let's go. Okay so what I did first I tied down the raffia at the base of the trunk and you just want to go around the tree around the trunk of the tree or the branches where you want to create the bend and just start wrapping around. You do want to go somewhat tight and also once the raffia dries out it is going to tighten a little bit more. So don't go too crazy on it but you do want to apply some pressure. Honestly it's not something that I enjoy doing too much the process of wrapping the whole trunk with raffia. I think I might need a better technique of doing it because it takes forever. It takes forever especially in this tree that has a lot of little branches that are really fragile. I don't really want to break them so I was just being extra careful on wrapping this. So it did take me a while but again the results are going to be worth it once you start twisting the trunk. Again it's going to help not break the trunk so easily or the branches that are you you're to create those bends at. So this is a nice technique I've seen Nigel Sanders and other bonsai youtubers out there using this technique and it really helps. I've used it in other trees as well and it really helps go more extreme with those bends and not really breaking that trunk. Of course if you go too crazy where you're just bending non-stop then you know it is going to damage the tree but it is going to allow you to get slightly better results when using raffia combined with the wire. So let me get this completed and I'll be back. So here we are I was able to complete and as you can see it's completely wrapped in raffia. So the next thing to do is for me to apply some wire and this is going to allow me to get those bends. So here I am using a four millimeter I believe size of wire. Now I gotta be completely honest with you when it comes to using thicker wire like this four millimeter especially five millimeter and up I think that I'm not the best. I struggle a little bit on controlling the wire and keeping those nice looking wirings. So you can see right here it's not the best looking and I've been trying to practice in other material and I think I might be getting a little better but I still need a lot. So if you have any tips please comment down below any tips that you would suggest for me to use when using thicker wire. I feel when I do thinner wire I feel like I can do so much better but for this one I'll be doing double wire and this is going to help a lot more with creating those more drastic bends. So double wire plus a raffia is going to be the key for me to get more bends out of this and make it look not too boring. Okay so we have here the completed double wiring. I just need to trim off the excess and this is the fun part. So after wiring and wrapping raffia then it's time to try to create as much movement as I can. So you want to go towards the direction where the tree is kind of facing. It's harder to go the opposite way. If I was to twist to the other way it's going to be harder and I won't be able to create as much movement as I would like to. So here I'm just trying to get as much movement as I can and I'm definitely just feeling and trying to listen for any cracking sounds. You might get those so as you're bending sometimes you'll hear a little bit of cracking that's when it's telling you okay stop that's that's enough. So this is what you want to do and also another technique that I learned from the bonsai society that I go to they mentioned to me that you can do some bending and then just let it rest for a few days I would say and then just try to create a little bit more movement so as the tree gets used to that movement you'll be able to bend a little bit more little by little. So don't go too crazy on this whenever you try to bend your tree and just do the whole movement at once. Go easy on it you know just one day bend a little bit and try again and eventually you'll get the bendings that you like. So this is what I'm doing with this and see what we can come up at the end. Alrighty so this is as much movement that I was able to get at the moment and I think it looks way better. I also did a little bit of pruning on some of the extra branches at the bottom so I think I'm going to keep the top and this is my leader here so I'll keep the top and the branches closest to the base those are going to be my sacrifice branches. I might just leave one just to thicken up the trunk a little bit but as you can see I did some wiring and this is going to be removed and I might just keep this at the top and it's going to be filling up a lot more. So thank you so much for watching please subscribe share and you have a great day!