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Starting a Bonsai tree from seeds is the longest route to having your own Bonsai tree. It usually takes 12-15 years to have a plant that looks like a Bonsai tree. Why does it take so long?
There are trees (like elm trees), that reach an optimum shape only if you start shaping them right from the seeds. You have to cut the roots of these trees, and you have to trimmer the young branches starting with the first year. Approx. 20 years later you will notice that those plants are already shaped from early times. You can see it clearly at the roots. The upper roots stretch star-like from the stem and the stem(s) is/are well shaped and formed.
When talking about the cornice of the tree, you should see that there is a more symmetrical shape. The proportion between the height of the tree and the height of the cornice is a better one. All these advantages come from growing a Bonsai tree from the seeds. Conifer stems, until the age of 1 or 2, may be very well bent and wired in order to be shaped.
All the conifers with a stronger bark may be wired until the wire embeds in the bark. The stem becomes arched, with wounds and scars that will heal very quickly at younger trees. 2 years old Black Pines, as an example, can be bent more in the winter, a thing that can only be achieved with Bonsai started from seeds.
The wire is to be let to embed in the bark and should be removed 2-3 years later, without damaging the plant in any way. Eventually, you should rewire the trees again, with the same scars and wounds. After 4-5 years, when the plant has reached maturity and it looks like a Bonsai tree, the wire should not embed, no matter what.
Because the older plants grow in thickness a lot harder, healing of the wounds and scars creating by the embedding of the wire would take a lot longer, even dozens of years.
