Newbie Looking To Learn About Some Basics.

[ChiefArchiver]

First Off i love details, so do not be shy about Long responses. anyway i live in Pittsburg California and i wanted to know if growing Japanese Red Maple, Chinese Elm, or Cypress would be fine growing outdoors in my area. I'm very new to growing, i have not grown anything really on my own ever but i would like to grow some nice bonsai i'm not afraid to fail but since i am new i don't really want to fork out a lot of cash on a plant i might lose do to not knowing what i'm doing, so i looked around on the net and found "cuttings" and seeds obviously, not knowing much id say these 2 are the cheapest. i don't think ill ever find Chinese elm or Red Maple tress to cut from here but cypress maybe. anyway here a some real questions.

For a beginner
1: Should i grow from seeds or Cuttings?
2: Which method is easier?

I prefer Larger Bonsai trees (Thick trunks) and that look nice in the Formal Upright Style.
3: Are their any or Bonsai Species i should try out that may also be easy?

 

[Sarsonator]

There are tons of more experienced people here who can talk about good species for your area, but as far as seeds vs cuttings - I personally think that you should get the more developed material, so in this case, cuttings. Others may disagree, but I am not known for my patience, so the thought of growing and developing a bonsai from seed makes me twitch.

 

[ChiefArchiver]

There are tons of more experienced people here who can talk about good species for your area, but as far as seeds vs cuttings - I personally think that you should get the more developed material, so in this case, cuttings. Others may disagree, but I am not known for my patience, so the thought of growing and developing a bonsai from seed makes me twitch.

Thank you for your response Sarsonator, i wish that cuttings are the majority answer

 

[sorce]

What's up Chief!

Forget cuttings!

Find a fat Elm and dig it!

If I could make this reply any longer I would tell a story of a boy and a dragon......

They both dug elms too! Lol

Welcome to Crazy!

Sorce

 

[ChiefArchiver]

What's up Chief!

Forget cuttings!

Find a fat Elm and dig it!

If I could make this reply any longer I would tell a story of a boy and a dragon......

They both dug elms too! Lol

Welcome to Crazy!

Sorce

i couldn't do much besides read your reply twice and smile. lol. sounds like a story i must hear some day, thanks for the reply.

 

[Bunjeh]

Sorce is right. Go find some collectibles for immediate gratification or buy a couple of Hardmadori (Plants from the Hardware Store) so that you can scratch the itch. At the same time hit some good seed sites (I like www.treehelp.com) and order all the stuff you want starting with chinese elm because they are the easiest.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Or you can just stick a Chinese elm in the ground and let it grow wild like Si does... He's got a Chinese elm that's about 15' tall that he takes airlayers off of.

 

[sorce]

I could have made that a little longer but I was windswept tired last night.

As a beginner you really should take your own cuttings to root. This adds a dimension to the practice that will help you NOT PRUNE everything all the time. And successfully rooting them is a great confidence booster.

Speaking of boosters, if you got the "dead" culture of the Measles vaccination between 1963-67 you need to get booster, that one didn't work.

Plant as many seeds as you can find too! "Find", and your own cuttings, because anything you would have spent on them can go right into some decent elm stock.

There is really no reason to hesitate buying a good elm because, unless you keep two watering cans, one with poison, and one with water, and you regularly confuse them, you won't kill an elm!

Cypress is an excellent species too, however, unless you Californians start trading weed for water, cypress may be banned before it becomes anything. Then you and and Smoke will have to build a real bunker for hiding your trees! Lol

I just looked at the map. You are close to a lot of Bonsai action!

Be sure to post some pics when you get things going!

Sorce

 

[Adair M]

In general, most bonsai are created by taking larger trees and cutting them back, rather than starting by seed or cuttings.

Especially for beginners.

 

[JudyB]

As you are somewhere that there is a lot of bonsai action, you should consider joining a club. Most have some sort of beginner classes and some have a pot up day of smaller material to give away to newer members or sell to beginners for a small price. You can learn to pot and get a tree. I would not start with either cuttings or dug material, I would go with an inexpensive already potted tree. Learning curve is stiff for just keeping a tree in a pot alive, but learning on cuttings and freshly dug material may lead you down a path of early disappointment. Just my take on it. Learn to keep something easy (elm, juniper, ficus) alive for a year... Course box store nursery material is cheap sometimes, you will likely kill it, but you may learn something along the way.

 

[bonsaibp]

There are many teachers, clubs and nurseries between the bay area and Sacramento which if Im correct is where you are. I'd look into getting involved that way -makes for a much shorter learning curve. i recommend to my new students that they start with at least 5 gal sized plants. This will usually give you something you can work with right away instead of waiting for a cutting or seed to get big enough to work on. If you go to a regular nursery and look at 5 gal junipers, boxwoods, maples, elms, cypress etc you can easily find something for less than $25 to start on. It is much easier and faster to make a bigger tree small then a cutting or seedling big enough to work on.

 

[evmibo]

There's been a lot of good advice here. Here are some links (a lot of reading material) that'll be helpful:

Bonsai Basics - Bonsai4Me
Beginners - EvergreenGardenWorks
^^^Both of these sites alone have several excellent articles^^^

There's several good blogs too. www.BonsaiTonight.com is one of my favorites.

 

[jk_lewis]

. I'm very new to growing, i have not grown anything really on my own ever but i would like to grow some nice bonsai

From this, I'd say you are a rank beginner. I advise you to start slow. Growing a "nice bonsai" from seeds or cuttings will take you many, many years to accomplish -- assuming you can even keep then alive.

Others have recommended you find a bonsai club and join -- and learn from them. They will know local conditions better than any of us.

Also, go to your local public library and check out everything they have on bonsai or penjing. Read, read, read. The web sites mentioned -- especially www.evergreengardenworks.com are very good, but there is more crap per square inch written about bonsai on the web than there is good info. It is NOT the way to go to learn the art.

 

[ChiefArchiver]

So i ran over to a garden in the city next door, they had lots of jap maples but only 3 elm plants ( chinese cork bark elm) or dark bark, its name was closest to Chinese elm so i grabbed it... its 7 inches or 9, ill upload pictures later. ill be going back for some maples and more elms if they have any in stock another question,

When it comes to potting, what happens if i just put a 7 or 9 inch plant in a large pot? my thoughts were to do that and just allow it to grow until i decide its nice enough to bonsai pot it.

And thank you guys for the links they are helpful.

 

[M. Frary]

Can't go wrong with the cork bark varieties of Chinese elm. Can't go wrong with any kind of elm for that matter.
To grow them out start out with a container that is about a quart. Next year pot up to a gallon and so on and so forth.
Elms are fast growers. If you put it in the ground it will grow even faster. But in a container you get good growth too. Just not as much. I can get 2 feet on a Chinese elm and up to 4 on Siberian elm. And that's here where growing doesn't start till sometime in late April and ends October.

 

[ChiefArchiver]

Can't go wrong with the cork bark varieties of Chinese elm. Can't go wrong with any kind of elm for that matter.
To grow them out start out with a container that is about a quart. Next year pot up to a gallon and so on and so forth.
Elms are fast growers. If you put it in the ground it will grow even faster. But in a container you get good growth too. Just not as much. I can get 2 feet on a Chinese elm and up to 4 on Siberian elm. And that's here where growing doesn't start till sometime in late April and ends October.

so i should wait a year to repot? or just repot it now if i want faster growth?

 

[Adair M]

Chief,

There's growing, and growing correctly so that you won't have faults that take years to fix.

All over the Internet, you'll see advice: "stick it in the ground and let it grow!" Well, you might not get the growth you want.

Bonsai is all about the small details. Even on rough stock. There's things you should do early on to ensure success in the long run.

The best advice I can give you is to find a club to join or an experienced teacher to mentor you.

If you live near the Bay Area, you cannot do better than Boon. There are others in the area who are really good, too.

 

[ChiefArchiver]

Chief,

There's growing, and growing correctly so that you won't have faults that take years to fix.

All over the Internet, you'll see advice: "stick it in the ground and let it grow!" Well, you might not get the growth you want.

Bonsai is all about the small details. Even on rough stock. There's things you should do early on to ensure success in the long run.

The best advice I can give you is to find a club to join or an experienced teacher to mentor you.

If you live near the Bay Area, you cannot do better than Boon. There are others in the area who are really good, too.

thank you for your advice Adair

 

[Adair M]

If you are really serious, sign up for one on Boon's Intensives. It doesn't matter if you are new. In fact, Boon would prefer you to have no experience than a lot of bad experience!

Last fall, I was in an Intensive, and one of the other students was TOTALLY new to bonsai. He owned no trees, and had never worked on one. He had seen some, wanted to get started, and someone gave him the advice to go to Boon.

 

[0soyoung]

If you live near the Bay Area,

Though somewhat off-topic, all you have to do is click on the poster's location (under their avitar) and Google Maps will open in a new tab showing, in this case, where Pittsburg, CA is. It even copes with NEGeorgia.