Step 1. Gather about 5 to 8 strands of raffia to make a bundle about like a heavy shoelace. Knot them together at one end, then coil around your hand & again around the coil to hold all together. Soak in warm water.

Step 2. Remove some of the small branches from the main trunk(s) $o that those that remain are about 3/4″ apart. Save the largest branches & don’t take off too many of the small ones- we just need room to apply the raffia.

Step 3. Squeegee the raffia with your fingers to remove excess water and stretch all the fibers equally. Wrap the raffia: Righthanders – wrap clockwise when viewing from the top of the tree. Lefthanders – wrap counterclockwise. Make it tight, really tight, from the soil level to near the top, where the trunk changes from brown to green. Overlap the knotted end on itself to start at the bottom and tie it off at the top.

Step 4. Anchor the heavier wire in the soil and wrap – in the same clockwise or counterclockwise sense as the raffia- with about 3/4″ between the coils. Most of us will have to concentrate on getting the wire tight. A very few people already wire super tight, so they shouldn’t overdo it. If the wire is perfectly tight all along the trunk, the tree will be damaged when we twist and bend the trunk.

Step 5. Anchor the thinner wire and wrap it between – not next to – the coils of the heavier wire. Again, make it tight. Always use two wires.

Step 6. Using your Right Brain, and without thinking about any bonsai design, simultaneously bend and twist the trunk to accentuate any curves it has and make lots of new ones. Don’t try to make it pretty. Don’t evaluate what you are doing. In fact, try not to think about what you are doing, just get lost in the process. The goal here is crooked and, probably, ugly. Keep going until it is as crooked {and maybe as ugly) as you can make it.

Step 7. Return to your Left Brain. Now, look at what you have made as if you have just dug this tree up from the wild. It surely isn’t a good bonsai design, but it probably has some interesting curves. These trees usually become Slant Style, Informal Upright, Cascade or Windswept bonsai. Does your tree suggest any of these? Make some changes, if you can, to make it be a better bonsai candidate.

Step 8. If you like what you have, great. Usually there is something wrong with the design that we can’t resolve in our Left Brain. If so, return lo step 6 and make a change or several changes without thinking about them. Then back to step 7. 1. I often spend an hour or more cycling one tree between steps 6 and 7 before I am satisfied with it.

Step 9. Now you like ft (or you are tired). Remove all the branches that are straight up, straight down or inside bends.

            Two choices: 1. Repot into a 1 to 5 gallon can to induce rapid growth, take the wire off in one year, rewire and refine the design, add shari, etc., for one to several years.

            2. Wire alt the little branches. Pinch and prune to final shape. Repot. Take the wire off & start adding shari after the wire has definitely scarred the branches – 2 years or more if it is in a small pot.

Step 10. Enjoy!