New from Salt Lake

[Arbol]

Hello all,

I've been lurking around this forum and decided to introduce myself. I am a beginner with just a few pre bonsai and was wondering if any of you knew any good nurseries around Salt Lake to look for material. I know Utah has a bonsai club but I haven't been able to get in touch with anyone and was wondering on what their meetup schedule was like.

Thank you!

 

[19Mateo83]

Hi and welcome to the nut house!

 

[luvinthemountains]

Hello! I suggest looking for nurseries near you and checking them out. You would do yourself a favor by reading up first on how to select good nursery stock. Early on, I wasted a lot of time and money on truly terrible material. Some ideas for nurseries to look at would be Glover Nursery and Schmidt's (So Jordan), Millcreek Gardens (Millcreek), Noles Nursery (Holladay), and J&J Nursery (Layton). I have heard good things about Linden Nursery in Lindon and some others in Utah County, but I have never made it down there.

The Bonsai Club of Utah is membership based and meets at the Sugarhouse Garden Center (1602 E 2100 S in SLC) at 7pm every fourth Wednesday of the month, and has 2-3 shows each year at Red Butte Garden. I do recommend you check it out.

 

[TrevorLarsen]

Hello all,

I've been lurking around this forum and decided to introduce myself. I am a beginner with just a few pre bonsai and was wondering if any of you knew any good nurseries around Salt Lake to look for material. I know Utah has a bonsai club but I haven't been able to get in touch with anyone and was wondering on what their meetup schedule was like.

Thank you!

Hello nice to see a fellow Utahn. I have never been to any meetings I have always wanted to and need to but weeknights are hard to do. The only local places that actually sell bonsai stuff is Cactus And Tropicals. They have two locations but I’ve only been to the Draper one since it’s closer to my house. I have gotten a lot of good trees from there you just have to go often since the good stuff is gone very fast. You can look through my past posts and a lot of it came from there. I’ve also had really good luck with Smiths Market place garden area. There is usually at least one or two gems out of 60 trees. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Welcome to BNut.

Attending local shows is a key way to understand what you read on Internet and in YouTube vids. Nothing beats seeing "in real life". Do attend shows even if you can't attend club meetings.

Clubs can be great, well run clubs are wonderful. Some clubs are mediocre, but to find out you have to try out.

 

[Arbol]

Hello nice to see a fellow Utahn. I have never been to any meetings I have always wanted to and need to but weeknights are hard to do. The only local places that actually sell bonsai stuff is Cactus And Tropicals. They have two locations but I’ve only been to the Draper one since it’s closer to my house. I have gotten a lot of good trees from there you just have to go often since the good stuff is gone very fast. You can look through my past posts and a lot of it came from there. I’ve also had really good luck with Smiths Market place garden area. There is usually at least one or two gems out of 60 trees. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thanks Trevor, I have checked out Cactus & Tropicals at the Millcreek location and found some pretty good looking options for material. I was curious as to why they keep their conifers indoors and deciduous trees indoors and was wondering if I would shock the tree if I purchased it and tried to keep it outdoors with the weather we've been having.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Welcome Aboard Bonsai Nut!

This forum is a great place to get advice on bonsai topics and meet folks from all over the globe!

cheers
DSD sends

 

[HorseloverFat]

Hello all,

I've been lurking around this forum and decided to introduce myself. I am a beginner with just a few pre bonsai and was wondering if any of you knew any good nurseries around Salt Lake to look for material. I know Utah has a bonsai club but I haven't been able to get in touch with anyone and was wondering on what their meetup schedule was like.

Thank you!

¡A mi me encanta tu nombre!

¡Bienvinidos, Qué onda!

Greetings traveller! We are so pleased that you have followed the intoxicating rhythms of the barrel-drums and found your way to our clearing. The woody dwarves (Pa-Is) are at work gathering brush (Satāēkuhn) for tonight's ceremony. The fire will be grand, the music loud.. the faces... Smiling.

This place is like a wonderfully freaky communal bazaar of knowledge and experience. Take what you need... Eventually, give what you can.

Pleasure to make your acquaintance.

 

[Colorado]

¡A mi me encanta tu nombre!

¡Bienvinidos, Qué onda!

Greetings traveller! We are so pleased that you have followed the intoxicating rhythms of the barrel-drums and found your way to our clearing. The woody dwarves (Pa-Is) are at work gathering brush (Satāēkuhn) for tonight's ceremony. The fire will be grand, the music loud.. the faces... Smiling.

This place is like a wonderfully freaky communal bazaar of knowledge and experience. Take what you need... Eventually, give what you can.

Pleasure to make your acquaintance.

Now that is a warm welcome!

 

[TrevorLarsen]

Thanks Trevor, I have checked out Cactus & Tropicals at the Millcreek location and found some pretty good looking options for material. I was curious as to why they keep their conifers indoors and deciduous trees indoors and was wondering if I would shock the tree if I purchased it and tried to keep it outdoors with the weather we've been having.

Yeah that could be a problem. As far as I have seen over the last 3 years no one that works there knows anything about bonsai they just sell stuff for it. They are also overpriced but when you factor in shipping they are more competitive with online. I would highly recommend https://www.bonsaify.com/ for buying starter material online. I bought his online class about Japanese Black Pine and some of his starter trees and they are great.

 

[Arbol]

¡A mi me encanta tu nombre!

¡Bienvinidos, Qué onda!

Greetings traveller! We are so pleased that you have followed the intoxicating rhythms of the barrel-drums and found your way to our clearing. The woody dwarves (Pa-Is) are at work gathering brush (Satāēkuhn) for tonight's ceremony. The fire will be grand, the music loud.. the faces... Smiling.

This place is like a wonderfully freaky communal bazaar of knowledge and experience. Take what you need... Eventually, give what you can.

Pleasure to make your acquaintance.

That's gotta be the warmest welcome I've ever received. Muchas gracias horseloverfat!

 

[Arbol]

Yeah that could be a problem. As far as I have seen over the last 3 years no one that works there knows anything about bonsai they just sell stuff for it. They are also overpriced but when you factor in shipping they are more competitive with online. I would highly recommend https://www.bonsaify.com/ for buying starter material online. I bought his online class about Japanese Black Pine and some of his starter trees and they are great.

Good to know. Yesterday I received a Japanese Maple and a Chinese Elm from Evergreen Gardenworks that I am very happy with. I'll definitely check out bonsaify.

 

[Deleted member 47471]

Hello all,

I've been lurking around this forum and decided to introduce myself. I am a beginner with just a few pre bonsai and was wondering if any of you knew any good nurseries around Salt Lake to look for material. I know Utah has a bonsai club but I haven't been able to get in touch with anyone and was wondering on what their meetup schedule was like.

Thank you!

https://m.facebook.com/bonsaiclubofutah

Their social media site. Happy growing!

 

[gooeytek]

 

[luvinthemountains]

Yeah that could be a problem. As far as I have seen over the last 3 years no one that works there knows anything about bonsai they just sell stuff for it. They are also overpriced but when you factor in shipping they are more competitive with online.

C&T, years ago, used to have a relationship with the club due to a couple of past club presidents working there. Those individuals did a lot of work to establish the bonsai department, but after they left the quality went down and the prices went up. The relationship with the club also stalled. Still not a bad place to go when starting out if you know what you are looking for (pre-bonsai not finished tree$). Once the quality of my collection started going up, I no longer felt the need to shop there.

 

[Ruddigger]

Welcome.

 

[BonsaiPoppie]

Welcome and have some fun.

 

[TrevorLarsen]

Good to know. Yesterday I received a Japanese Maple and a Chinese Elm from Evergreen Gardenworks that I am very happy with. I'll definitely check out bonsaify.

Nice, I have been looking to ordering from them too so good to hear they are a good source. If you order from Bonsaify signup for notifications and they will text or email you when they get a new crop of the more rare trees.

 

[Arbol]

Nice, I have been looking to ordering from them too so good to hear they are a good source. If you order from Bonsaify signup for notifications and they will text or email you when they get a new crop of the more rare trees.

That's good to know. Thank you. Question for you, what are you using for your soil mixtures? I was considering using a mostly inorganic soil mixture but adding in some peat moss or potting soil since our summers are so hot and dry.

 

[TrevorLarsen]

I learned a lot from @Eric Schrader he owns bonsaify and post on this site also. Here are some of his YouTube videos about it.

I made the mistake of using peat my first year. Its biggest problem is if it dries out it won’t absorb water again so it’s really bad. Using coco coir is much better. They sell it at Home Depot ect. The perlite from box stores is mostly fine dust so only a fraction of each bag is usable so ordering larger sized (1/4” or so) online is my plan for next year. The perlite coco is a good option for growing out, but once you put trees into bonsai pots (that are much smaller than grow out containers) you will want to use a more efficient mix such as “boons mix” https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/boons-mix.30187/
Since we are in the desert adding more coco will keep trees from dying out when in development maybe like 30% and 70% perlite. This will be my second year using Eric’s mix so I’m still learning about the ratio too. Once trees are in their bonsai pots the akadama acts like the coco for the boon mix. Hopefully that made sense.