How did you get started in bonsai?

[0soyoung]

I am still very unclear about what is doing/making/.../ bonsai. I air layered an acer palmatum, then I air layered the air layer and air layered those. Some funny things happened, so I spent winters with Google Scholar trying to understand what happened and how trees 'work'. About the same time, I dug (and still do dig) volunteer seedlings from my yard and put them in little pots. I buy crap at a local garden center's 'lemon sales' and other strange stuff that was, with a few exceptions, very inexpensive. I dug plants that we didn't want in our landscape any longer and put them in pots. My backyard is full of this stuff and despite the fact that I kill many each year there's more. Now there's so much that I have trouble making the watering rounds without knocking something over.

I got very frustrated with trying to make something interesting and pretty (as opposed to cute). I tried and tried and tried again and it was only ugly - I did not understand why. Help from a book given me by my wife, another visit to the Pacific Bonsai Museum and the lights went on - I feel that I finally got a sense of what makes an pretty tree. Now, a couple of years later and there are a few trees in my back yard that are starting to look fairly good.

If I had any idea where, in this story, I 'got started in bonsai', I could say HOW I got started in bonsai.

Was it when I bought my second bag of Turface MVP?

 

[petegreg]

I'm going to start pretty soon.

Me too, just ordered my very first copper wires!

 

[Adair M]

Me too, just ordered my very first copper wires!

If you haven't already, watch Colin Lewis' tutorial on wiring at www.craftsy.com. It's free, once you register. Once in, search for "bonsai".

 

[petegreg]

I can promise already done, sir.

 

[barrosinc]

My starting isn't really that cool... As an engineer, I always have liked how stuff works.
Having a grown tree in a pot surely amused me and said one day I will like to have one, but didn't have expendable cash during my college years.
Three years ago my wife made her worst mistake ever!!! She gave me one small Chinese elm... then, this happened (replace flower smelling with bonsais):

Now I take pictures for a renown bonsai grower here in Chile and I traded pics for trees. Then I packed my apartments terrace with prebonsais, then I got the ultimatum of no more trees or they start flying out the window.
So I had to buy a house.
Now I just got the no more trees ultimatum once again...

 

[Alain]

I can promise already done, sir.

No problem, on this caftsy site Colin Lewis also gives classes about advance styling, and working on some trees, very well done, and free

 

[wireme]

My starting isn't really that cool... As an engineer, I always have liked how stuff works.
Having a grown tree in a pot surely amused me and said one day I will like to have one, but didn't have expendable cash during my college years.
Three years ago my wife made her worst mistake ever!!! She gave me one small Chinese elm... then, this happened (replace flower smelling with bonsais):

Now I take pictures for a renown bonsai grower here in Chile and I traded pics for trees. Then I packed my apartments terrace with prebonsais, then I got the ultimatum of no more trees or they start flying out the window.
So I had to buy a house.
Now I just got the no more trees ultimatum once again...

Now what? You have to buy a second house?

 

[defra]

i like your story's

mine isnt that spectaculair
a friend of mine had a ficus ginseng and a little bonsai book wich i read when in was bored at his place Just a few pages i tought it was awesome dont know wich book it was but i took no further actions that was about 3 years ago

in the meanwhile i got maried and have two Kids and third one comming bought a house with front and back yard not all to big not tot small either and besides as hobby benig a volentairly fireman i wanted something else to do around the house to relax
i aint that artistic but on bonsai i try

since februari 2016 i began to Google information on bonsai wich my brain absorbs like a sponge beause i find it facinating How nature works
i bought myself some trees to grow in the garden and also some other trees to practice on some wire and some bonsai tools and training pots
no expensive stuff yet beause of the chance i might kill it

because children and my 40 hours of work constructing technical installations no time to go to a club or take classes but surely i Will in the future for now i gather information from the Internet and try to Learn by practicing on inexpensive trees for experience so ill stick around at bonsainut for a While to Learn

 

[hemmy]

Cows. . .

Growing up I was fascinated with the smaller trees that the cattle would rub against breaking branches and grazing on the tender growth which gave them ramification and small leaves. They were mostly Ulmus pumila, the area I grew up in was lousy with them. We also are overrun with Juniperus virginiana, but they are mostly upright without much character.

Someone gifted me the stereotypical mallsai juniper which quickly met its end. Those were the dark days before the Internet and without a good library resource the fascination was put on hold until after college when I finally had the time, space, and money to pursue a hobby.

Then someone who sold pre-bonsai moved to our area, I saw an actual bonsai tree in person, took a weekend class from Boon (before I had any idea who he was), and moved to SoCal where the addiction firmly took hold.