@rockm and I have debated this topic too.
@Lou T you are on track.
Bonsai consists of several phases, and different techniques are used in each of the phases. The growing from seed to and through the pre-bonsai phase have a fairly limited number of techniques that are also used in the later phases of developing bonsai.
@rockm is right, raising a seedling will not teach you much at all about training a near mature bonsai or maintaining an exhibit ready bonsai. So little in common that RockM prefers to think of this phase as not really being bonsai at all. It is the nurseryman's phase of raising bonsai, absolutely necessary for someone to do if RockM or anyone else are to have any trees to practice the later phases of bonsai techniques upon, but really, very few of the techniques have much in common with the techniques of styling and maintaining exhibit quality bonsai. Yes, one or two applications of wire, some root pruning, some branch pruning,, but overall if a seedling gets 15 minutes per year of ''bonsai technique'' it gets a lot. So RockM is right, raising seedlings won't teach you about handling other phases of bonsai. I do however consider the ''nurseryman's phase'' of raising seedlings as truly part of bonsai. And I enjoy it.
The process of developing pre-bonsai, through the middle stages, through several cycles of style, shape, wire, prune, train, then allow to grow out, then repeat the style, prune and train, then grow out - this middle phase is very important, most consider it ''real bonsai work'', but it is not the totality of bonsai technique either. Here you are doing wiring, pruning, grafting if needed, root pruning, and otherwise shaping your trees, but learning everything you need to know in this phase will not inform you how to handle a mature, exhibition ready tree.
Maintaining an exhibition worthy tree is a whole separate body of knowledge, you stop with the grafting that belongs to earlier phases, major pruning and other styling activities, as style is set. Your wiring and pruning is for fine detail, rarely are you using the larger gauges of wire, your focus is creating or maintaining the foliage pads. This is the phase where pinching is an approved activity at certain times, just before show time. The cycle of moving the tree to the exhibition pot, then back to the ''everyday pot'' is something that few get the chance to practice. This is bonsai at its highest level.
And then there is the art of display, the right pot, the right stand, the right kusamono the correct little sculptures or stones. This is a whole field of study that you can spend years learning and never touch a tree. Kusamono is a whole horticultural adventure in and of itself. The art of display, matching all the elements, is a whole body of knowledge of enormous depth.
So if you are new to bonsai, where do you put your efforts? If money were no object? I would put a lot of more my effort into the last 2 phases of bonsai. A really thoughtful student of bonsai would put some effort into all phases. Put some effort, maybe 10% of your time into seedlings, put some effort, maybe 20% into developing landscape nursery stock & collected stock. Put maybe 30 % of your time into stock that has matured enough to have gone through several cycles of styling and grow out. And finally put the rest of your time, here would be 40% into exhibition ready and near exhibition ready trees.
How would this look, seedlings don't take much effort, so with 10% of my time I could have maybe 50 seedlings. Pre-bonsai take a bit more work, but not that much, I could probably keep 10 or 20 going and still put only 20% of my time into them. Trees in regular cycles of styling and then growing out, these are MUCH more work. One could easily spend a full 6 or 8 hour day working on a Hinoki, or Juniper or Stewartia in this phase. To keep to 30% of your time, you might be able to handle at most around 10 trees in this phase.
The final, mature phase - here these trees can be very demanding of detailed care to keep them exhibition ready. As Adair has documented, it can take 2 days just removing old needles from a mature, full size JBP. Then the detail wiring can take another 2 days, yes 16 hours or so. So to keep 40% of your time on exhibit ready trees, it is possible that your will only be able to keep 2 or 3 trees in this phase of development.
So if someone where new to bonsai, and had the good fortune to be pretty much horticulturally competent in as far as the basics goes. That is how I would split it up. A number of sticks in pots, a smaller number of further along pre-bonsai. A handful of fully developed trees, past their first styling, and a couple exhibition ready trees. This is the only way you can learn all phases of bonsai, by having trees in all phases of the hobby.
Some like RockM, prefer to work only in the last couple phases, a perfectly valid approach. As most if not all of the bonsai techniques needed for the first phases of bonsai are at least occasionally used in the final, fully developed phases. You only learn the "totality of bonsai" if you are maintaining a few trees in the exhibition phase and a few more trees in the various cycles of style, grow out, then style again, then grow out. If you never exhibit a tree, you will miss out on the display aspect of bonsai.
Key to this is as your seedling begin to demand more time, and move to the next phase, thin them out, reduce their numbers, or they will distract you from providing time for the more mature trees.
A well rounded bonsai education includes all phases of bonsai. To learn the totality of bonsai is an education that requires a lifetime. But we can have fun, learning what we can, and learn the most if our collection includes trees at different stages of development. Save up, go out and get a more mature tree than the ones you have. You will be glad you did.
