What are the best ways to create sustainable conditions in which bonsai trees will thrive?

[ShadyStump]

This is an ambitious project.

Not arguing.

I don't think the goal is necessarily a universal formula - that would be impossible - but a work drawing the connections between the various factors. Change one thing with a tree, there's a reaction elsewhere, though not always in a directly related system.

Some plants, you trim back the foliage, and the roots try to compensate with their own growth. On some, pruning the roots will incite top growth.
Yet, for most trees, this only interrupts the flow of different growth hormones, or the balance of water through the roots, so you get different responses.

So now we have lines drawn between foliage, roots, and water uptake, but where do they connect?

 

[Paradox]

So now we have lines drawn between foliage, roots, and water uptake, but where do they connect?

The foliage is connected to the twiiiigs
The twiiigs are connected to the braaanches
The branches are connected to the truuuunnnk
The trunk is connected to the rooohhhooots



I'll see myself out now

 

[Kadebe]

Experience is useful. One might consider there is also an ever growing body of research on this topic. A good thought provoking podcast in this vein might be Asymmetry 175

‎Bonsai Mirai: Asymmetry: James Agent Soil Science on Apple Podcasts

‎Show Bonsai Mirai: Asymmetry, Ep James Agent Soil Science - Oct 8, 2021

podcasts.apple.com

Cheers
DSD sends

Definitely very interesting. In my opinion this is the first as well as the most important factor for creating a sustainable environment for bonsai... but also the most difficult one.

 

[a1dusty]

Whe

Nitrogen summer growth is like spring but in all the wrong places, weak long internodes that have to be cut off anyway.

All plants bonsai etc need an amount of nitrogen to grow , if letting the leaves yellow before adding nitrogen you are starving the roots of the sugars they need to live , yellow leaves do not supply the needed sugars ( sugars might not be the proper word but you know what I mean) , if you are unsure use a balanced npk fertiliser , the long growth you mentioned is a good thing , cut them back to maybe ramify your bonsai , definitely do not wait till leaves have turned yellow before adding nitrogen as you are damaging the roots each time , just my opinion