How to care for Ginkgo - Maidenhair Tree- as bonsai
Ginkgo may be slow starting but is easy to establish, very durable and tolerant of harsh conditions and long lived. They withstand heat and sun. Apply adequate water and fertilizer including lime. Very few trees are as maintenance free as Ginkgo. Try to avoid summer pruning. The best shape for ginko is the natural form. Ramification is difficult to accomplish and just unnatural. While looking jagged and gawky with a spiky conical silhouette when young, they're open wide spreading and more regular spherical with stiff ascending thick branches when older. Overall habit becomes unique and more picturesque with age.
Fan-shaped leaves are bright green becoming, sometimes inconsistently, clear yellow in fall. Male trees may bear cones. Some ginkgo have gray stringy peeling bark, some are smooth, some furrowed bark. Prominent stubby blackish spurs are noticeable in the winter. Jade Butterfly is a dwarf vase shaped tree with more regular branching and smaller dark green leaves.
