How to be a successful bonsai beginner

[_space_bard_]

I suppose you know what you're talking about, but I would have bet those were Cedar Elms, common down there. There's two kinds of Sage (actually more than two), Pinion Pine, Mesquite, Huisache (Acacia farnesiana), Desert Cassia, and Featherbush. And that's just what I know about and I ain't never been there.

It's definitely Siberian Elm. Since I've been researching what grows here, I started reading about Siberian Elm. And what I've seen blowing around the streets and in my raised beds turned out to be Siberian Elm seeds. The little things in the photo below. I thought they were foliage dropping from some nearby neighbors shrub or something, but yeah, 100% Siberian Elm.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

@_space_bard_ & @HorseloverFat

Yes, Siberian elm is common in northern Arizona. Reason is, Siberian elm, Ulmus pumila, is very drought tolerant. Large parts of its native range in Siberia, Asia and eastern Russia is steppe region. Arid grasslands. Siberian elm can tolerate low humidity and low soil moisture better than many elms. This is why it was used during the dust bowl to stabilize soils.

Space Bard - you should contact @Hartinez - Danny is in New Mexico and would have a better grasp of what would do well in northern, higher elevation AZ than the folks in Phoenix. Start a PM or tag him in a post.

 

[sorce]

I believe this is very useful information for beginners.

Own up to the Facts Philosophy.

I realized this morning that most of my method is based in this philosophy and that there are a few certain begginer stages that are inevitable, that when owned up to, will advance beginners collections quite fast. 3 beginner facts a beginner must own up to. 1. You will never stop looking for...

www.bonsainut.com

Sorce

 

[flor1]

1 Go to at least 1 or 2 shows talk to people walk through vendor area ( leave cash in car)
2 Visit a couple of nursery‘s ( leave cash in car) ask questions if possible observe a class.
Join a local club or at least find someone close to you to get local information from.

 

[colley614]

I thought this was a great thread. I feel like it echos what I have been thinking over the last few months. I would like some more refined material, I have subscribed to Mirai because I feel it offers a bit more than say peter chan or Nigel Saunders; not that I'm knocking these people but I learned more from my first Mirai video than I have in a year watching other stuff on YouTube. I'm a member of a bonsai society (though it hasn't met lately due to lockdown) I've been considering asking one of the guys who runs it if he'd be willing to offer me a little more of an apprenticeship as I'd really like to up my game in Bonsai.

 

[Jerry]

Happy New Year. I have been caring for bonsai for about two months. They are doing well, but they are small. I would like to stick with it but being 70 I kind of wonder if I'll be around to see a great bonsai LOL. Just expressing a thought. I would like to purchase Bonsai's a little more developed. Can anyone recommend a fairly reasonable online nursery?

 

[BrianBay9]

Happy New Year. I have been caring for bonsai for about two months. They are doing well, but they are small. I would like to stick with it but being 70 I kind of wonder if I'll be around to see a great bonsai LOL. Just expressing a thought. I would like to purchase Bonsai's a little more developed. Can anyone recommend a fairly reasonable online nursery?

In Florida you should check out Wigert's ( https://www.wigertsbonsai.com/ ) and Schley's ( https://schleysbonsai.com/ )

 

[DanaWhicker]

Happy New Year. I have been caring for bonsai for about two months. They are doing well, but they are small. I would like to stick with it but being 70 I kind of wonder if I'll be around to see a great bonsai LOL. Just expressing a thought. I would like to purchase Bonsai's a little more developed. Can anyone recommend a fairly reasonable online nursery?

Since you are in central FL, if you have not done so you should visit D and L Nursery. I have no affiliation with them other than being a customer and going to one all day workshop that was amazing.

 

[bonhe]

To be successful bonsai beginner:
1- learn plant anatomy, physiology
2- learn technique: watering, pruning, wiring,
3- pay attention to local weather daily and a week ahead
4- constantly paying attention to plants every time one is watering
5- grow the tree from seed . This one is very important because it gives me a material to practice my skills technically and esthetically.
6- use local trees if one can
7- learn from someone who lives in your climate
8- lastly, practice, practice and practice and fix as you go.

Thụ Thoại

 

[Mikecheck123]

Happy New Year. I have been caring for bonsai for about two months. They are doing well, but they are small. I would like to stick with it but being 70 I kind of wonder if I'll be around to see a great bonsai LOL. Just expressing a thought. I would like to purchase Bonsai's a little more developed. Can anyone recommend a fairly reasonable online nursery?

Get a Chinese elm from Brussel's or Wigert's.

 

[MaciekA]

I've been considering asking one of the guys who runs it if he'd be willing to offer me a little more of an apprenticeship as I'd really like to up my game in Bonsai.

Late winter is a perfect time to get into this, since you'll likely start with repotting. Once you've got good and confident repotting skills, many of your trees will be in significantly better health and able to reach growth goals more effectively. Go for it!

 

[colley614]

Late winter is a perfect time to get into this, since you'll likely start with repotting. Once you've got good and confident repotting skills, many of your trees will be in significantly better health and able to reach growth goals more effectively. Go for it!

Yeah, I really want to up my game with my trees. I can sit at watch YouTube videos until the cows come home but that won't give me the actual hands experience

 

[chicago1980]

My experience - only 6 years
Read everything possible
Join clubs, I joined 3 at the same time
Participate in workshops with high level pros (be selective)
Join small private groups workshop for multiple days with a pro
Joined Mirai live since inception
Ask a lot of questions and tell pros you know nothing and want to learn
Join more workshops
Now join more workshops
Buy material you will take care of, ask about what will survive in your area. What will take a beating and survive
Killing trees is not part of learning bonsai - yes it will happen - it is not a goal
Join Bjorn on line school
Join more workshops
Book private one on one with pros and practice
Read more
Look at pro level trees in person
Look at the technical work up close


Practice
Practice
Practice

This has been my journey

 

[colley614]

My experience - only 6 years
Read everything possible
Join clubs, I joined 3 at the same time
Participate in workshops with high level pros (be selective)
Join small private groups workshop for multiple days with a pro
Joined Mirai live since inception
Ask a lot of questions and tell pros you know nothing and want to learn
Join more workshops
Now join more workshops
Buy material you will take care of, ask about what will survive in your area. What will take a beating and survive
Killing trees is not part of learning bonsai - yes it will happen - it is not a goal
Join Bjorn on line school
Join more workshops
Book private one on one with pros and practice
Read more
Look at pro level trees in person
Look at the technical work up close


Practice
Practice
Practice

This has been my journey

This is basically what I've been doing.

I've found a small group of guys who pay the likes of Peter warren, Bjorn etc to do weekend workshops. They cover the costs between them and it's something I will be getting involved with. Some of the styling pictures I've seen are amazing.

I've contacted a couple of land owners who have trees on their land. Hawthorn, yew, field maples, English Oak. I make made a list of 12 trees I'd like. I have a few. I'm going to collect or buy the rest as raw material. The rest of my 'projects' stuff that aren't in my plans I'm getting rid of. I have about 50 from seedlings to raw material, I'm keeping 10 to continue work on. I am planting a few and the rest I'll give away or plant. Instead of impulsive nursery purchases. I will keep the money and buy proper raw material. I want a trident I've priced at about £400 and a satsuki I've priced at about 1k. I'm also planning on keeping shohin versions of the larger trees I have so I will have 24 trees in total.

 

[Joe Dupre']

You seem to be going about it the right way. Just remember, there are no ( well, not many) magic bullets. Proper soil, proper watering and proper techniques ( not "perfect") are where it's at.

 

[pjciii]

After reading a lot of beginner threads on this site over the years, I am going to create a thread of advice about how to get the best start on your bonsai journey.

Simply put - take advantage of all of the people who have gone before you!

At some level there is a bit of skeptic in all of us, and we need to fight the urge to dive in and just start doing stuff because we are excited and we want to start growing trees NOW! And plus we are pretty smart, and self-confident and think "how hard can it be?" And so we fail. A lot. Meanwhile we are surrounded by people with a lot of experience who can look at what we just did and say "well I could have told you that wasn't going to work, because I made the same mistake 30 years ago!"

So focus on repeating other peoples' successes, instead of other peoples' failures.

Find someone with experience, and use their experience as your starting point. Try to learn everything they know - and master it, even if it takes you five or ten years. Don't be the person who spends 25 years learning what other people already know doesn't work - repeating all the mistakes they have already made. Once you become experienced, you can always try to improve upon processes, or techniques, or designs. But you are starting from a position of knowledge, instead of a position of ignorance.

This site can be an amazing resource. There are people here with decades of experience, including professionals who make a living in bonsai who come here to interact with people without asking for anything in return (except perhaps a little respect). Many members here have participated in national shows and won significant recognition for their work. Wouldn't it be better to start by trying to replicate their success, instead of striking out on your own?

Listen. Ask questions. Listen some more. And then try to do what they tell you... exactly. Only when you can replicate their success should you try to improve upon it. Don't try to run before you can walk. You waste years and years of time... and get frustrated along the way.

Thank you for your post to help point newcomers in the right direction

 

[colley614]

After reading a lot of beginner threads on this site over the years, I am going to create a thread of advice about how to get the best start on your bonsai journey.

Simply put - take advantage of all of the people who have gone before you!

At some level there is a bit of skeptic in all of us, and we need to fight the urge to dive in and just start doing stuff because we are excited and we want to start growing trees NOW! And plus we are pretty smart, and self-confident and think "how hard can it be?" And so we fail. A lot. Meanwhile we are surrounded by people with a lot of experience who can look at what we just did and say "well I could have told you that wasn't going to work, because I made the same mistake 30 years ago!"

So focus on repeating other peoples' successes, instead of other peoples' failures.

Find someone with experience, and use their experience as your starting point. Try to learn everything they know - and master it, even if it takes you five or ten years. Don't be the person who spends 25 years learning what other people already know doesn't work - repeating all the mistakes they have already made. Once you become experienced, you can always try to improve upon processes, or techniques, or designs. But you are starting from a position of knowledge, instead of a position of ignorance.

This site can be an amazing resource. There are people here with decades of experience, including professionals who make a living in bonsai who come here to interact with people without asking for anything in return (except perhaps a little respect). Many members here have participated in national shows and won significant recognition for their work. Wouldn't it be better to start by trying to replicate their success, instead of striking out on your own?

Listen. Ask questions. Listen some more. And then try to do what they tell you... exactly. Only when you can replicate their success should you try to improve upon it. Don't try to run before you can walk. You waste years and years of time... and get frustrated along the way.

I've been living this advice for the last few weeks. Literally eat, sleep, repeat Bonsai.

Here's my advice from one newbie to another, what I've learned if you want to get into Bonsai and I mean really get into it.

1 Get to a club and if you're lucky like me (I have 3 clubs) join the best club. Get to know the 'big wigs' in the club. Be yourself while you're at the club. Talk to everyone. People will take you under their wing.

2 Don't buy trees yet. Sounds stupid, I know, but you'll end up buying a load of material that everyone in your club is going to tell you to plant in the garden. Instead of wasting money on a load of material that will teach you nothing keep the money. Sooner or later a piece of material will come along that you have to have. That's the piece of material to buy.

3 Get online and start watching stuff on YouTube. Learn the names. Work out who's work inspires you and what types of trees you actually like. Subscribe to someone and watch their beginner series.

Since I got into the hobby we've dealt with lock down. I spent a lot of time at garden centres buying material that would never make it to be decent bonsai in my lifetime. I also spent hours and hours watching certain people on YouTube wiring nursery material. At some point I realised that I wasn't actually seeing any real bonsai work. No real root work, no secondary or tertiary work. Or watching people grow a stump out and then prune it back to a stump.

Since lockdowns been over I got myself back to my club. The top 2 guys at my club have taken me under their wing and I have slowly started working with them over the last few weeks. I've been looking at the stuff I have and narrowed it down from 50-100 bits and pieces to about 17. A few have gone in the ground to thicken out. A lot I've simply given away. I've narrowed it down because there's only so much time I have to work my trees. There's a cost to fertiliser and seaweed and soils and wire and I'd like to focus the time and resources getting the first iteration of my collection to a good standard.

I've been taking in all this 'newbie advice' from the experienced guys and it works. A couple of months ago I was messing about with twigs in plant pots and a few days ago I was sat in someone's workshop watching trees being worked for exhibitions. Then walking out with a tree in my hands and one of the top artists in the UK saying "Get it in the sun, keep it watered and fertilised and we'll have a look at it soon."

 

[badatusernames]

I thought there was a "things I wish I knew as a beginner" thread - can't seem to find it right now, but one thing would be "find the rocks before you get the seedlings for root over rock projects"!

you kinda can't just wing the rock part.

 

[dbonsaiw]

Don't buy trees yet. Sounds stupid, I know, but you'll end up buying a load of material that everyone in your club is going to tell you to plant in the garden. Instead of wasting money on a load of material that will teach you nothing keep the money. Sooner or later a piece of material will come along that you have to have. That's the piece of material to buy.

I was thinking about this for a bit and, while I agree that the newbie may just look back on his first trees one day and decide to plant them in the ground as they are not bonsai-worthy, I advocate for working on as many trees as early on as possible.

Personally, I have devoured whatever bonsai literature I could find and (almost) made a pest of myself here with all my questions, many of them hypothetical. Absolutely nothing, however, has clarified issues as well as actually working on a tree. Did I kill trees? Hell yes. Did I butcher others? Another resounding yes. And still other trees should never even have been considered for bonsai. But all this hands-on experience brings Merrigioli's book and the advice received here into sharper focus. The mistakes made will allow me to develop trees that are actually bonsai-worthy.

For this very reason, I have a few maples that I refer to as the "front line". These are maples that I purchased at big box stores for about $15 each (it cost me more to make the grow box) and are what I experiment on. If you've ever read Of Mice and Men, I give these trees the "Lenny" treatment - I love them so hard they die. When I trunk chopped, these guys got chopped first. When I root graft, these will be the first to get the treatment. I learn on them and make the inevitable mistakes. These are not great bonsai material, but I am learning a lot and, when not stressed by it, am having fun.

It's like learning to ride a bike. At some point, you just have to give it a go and scrape up your knees and elbows.

 

[colley614]

I was thinking about this for a bit and, while I agree that the newbie may just look back on his first trees one day and decide to plant them in the ground as they are not bonsai-worthy, I advocate for working on as many trees as early on as possible.

Personally, I have devoured whatever bonsai literature I could find and (almost) made a pest of myself here with all my questions, many of them hypothetical. Absolutely nothing, however, has clarified issues as well as actually working on a tree. Did I kill trees? Hell yes. Did I butcher others? Another resounding yes. And still other trees should never even have been considered for bonsai. But all this hands-on experience brings Merrigioli's book and the advice received here into sharper focus. The mistakes made will allow me to develop trees that are actually bonsai-worthy.

For this very reason, I have a few maples that I refer to as the "front line". These are maples that I purchased at big box stores for about $15 each (it cost me more to make the grow box) and are what I experiment on. If you've ever read Of Mice and Men, I give these trees the "Lenny" treatment - I love them so hard they die. When I trunk chopped, these guys got chopped first. When I root graft, these will be the first to get the treatment. I learn on them and make the inevitable mistakes. These are not great bonsai material, but I am learning a lot and, when not stressed by it, am having fun.

It's like learning to ride a bike. At some point, you just have to give it a go and scrape up your knees and elbows.

This is a great, well thought out response to what I was trying to convey. I have also spent a lot of time thinking about my statement and the more I think about it, the more I agree with you.

I also have a few trees field maple, chinese juniper and I couple of others that I class as my "working trees" same as your "frontline." I also have shohin satsuki azalea, Scots pine and katsura maple for the exact same reason.

Someone recently said to me (just after I wrote my post) your first eight years don't count. Which echoed an article I read by Tony Tickle who said he went home one day and got rid of most of his trees and started again. And I think we all need to spend a certain period of time uprooting saplings and buying nursery stock and just applying what we are learning.

I also own 12 trees I class as my collection that get the 'special' treatment.