Reddit reviews The Bonsai Workshop (Our Garden Variety)

A bonsai post on /r/pics got me into it a few years ago.


First of all, it's a damn expensive hobby. Good tools cost money and if you go the route of buying trees from a real bonsai farm they are incredibly expensive. Like, $100 will get you something that looks okay but still needs about 5 years to be anything worth showing. It's obviously cheaper to buy stock yourself from a garden center, but you're still paying $20 for each bush you want to cut up.


The way I got into it was reading lots of stuff online. I was really taken in by the process of how you can start with something from Home Depot and get it to look interesting and then a few years later actually look like a small tree. It's pretty magical. The thing is it takes lots of practice and knowledge and that's where the classes and books and videos and blogs come in. Your best bet is to have someone help you either at a club or a class or something, but it isn't mandatory, I'm antisocial so I haven't yet been to one. I've been reading a lot of books and I've made a lot of mistakes but I've learned a ton.


Lastly, I'm going to suggest you don't buy what we call mallsai. These are the things they tell you are bonsai but are actually tiny-ass plants with rocks glued on. They tell you they can live indoors but that's a lie. They will die in a year or two and they are a complete rip-off. Go to Home Depot in the spring, buy a $10 juniper and cut it yourself. It will look better and you will have made your first bonsai.


TLDR; Read all of the books you can find. Read blog posts. Go to a club meeting if you have one nearby. Be warned its very expensive and don't get ripped off.

EDIJT: Here's a couple of great books: https://www.amazon.com/Bonsai-Workshop-Our-Garden-Variety/dp/0806905573/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1510269864&sr=8-11&keywords=bonsai+books

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Bonsai-Harry-Tomlinson/dp/0863184847/ref=sr_1_26?ie=UTF8&qid=1510269899&sr=8-26&keywords=bonsai+books

You'll notice there's never a simple, step-by-step and that's because there's different ways of making a bonsai and different things you have to do during the process. I've found that's it's one of those disciplines that is really learn-by-doing and figure-it-out-as-you-go. That's also why clubs are popular because hands-on instruction helps a lot.

I read the hell out of this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Bonsai-Workshop-Garden-Variety/dp/0806905573

Also you would be surprised at how many bonsai books libraries usually have. The information in them usually doesn't go out of date, except maybe concerning some equipment.

Gustafson covers everything you need to know at a beginner level in that book, from light to pests to repotting to tools to techniques to history to tree varieties based on climate. The guy is a cross between a genius and an encyclopedia when it comes to bonsai.

For the starter tree I would recommend getting a $20-40 ficus or box bonsai from home depot or similar. They're pretty common from asian companies, and they come in a crappy pot with some rocks super glued on top. I would repot it (with no root trimming) promptly into a larger pot, getting rid of the rocks and decorations.

You'll want to put it in your own soil mix based on Gustafson's recommendations. Imho there's nothing that quite gets you into the feel of a tree as making the dirt for it to grow in. I was a fan of mixing my own using peat, perlite and sand, sometimes using coarser materials for larger pots. You'll want to rinse the sand thoroughly as sometimes it's rather polluted from rivers. For a small ficus though, peat, perlite and sand will do you fine.

With mixing your own dirt you'll want to get some good quality fertilizer to use regularly as the dirt won't have fertilizer in it like miracle grow potting mix. Iirc gustafson has some recommendations about that also. Protip: I had a small aquarium that I never treated with chemical medicine with just some guppies, and the fish crap water I would suck up out of the gravel made the best fertilizer water I've ever used ever. That stuff was awesome, and because it wasn't strong and contained no salts, like miracle grow or similar products, I could use it daily if I wanted.

You'll want to get some tools based on the recommendations in gustafson's books, and there's tons of websites out there now that offer solid tools at affordable prices. I would just start with a solid pair of thinning shears, a pair of heavy duty shears for larger twigs and roots, and a pair of concave cutters. When you're accustomed to keeping the tree alive then you can move to wiring and all the fancy stuff, and you'll know where to go then. =)

Also if you're looking for decoration around your tree (if you have one inside) then I recommend these guys from the awesome california carnivores company: http://www.californiacarnivores.com/tillandsiaairplantcollection.aspx

edit

Interesting note that I remembered since I was recommending home depot, gustafson has several examples of pruning initially regular looking plants into shohin and mame bonsai in his miniature bonsai book. To be honest, chopping up a couple of boxwoods from home depot is probably the best way to get your feet wet the fastest in this art.

edit edit

I've run into a couple of shady places selling "kits" that include seeds. Don't bother. Your best bet is to start with a 3-5 year old shrub. The fastest way to fall out of love with bonsai is to start with a seed.

Shipping a tropical tree in winter is a terrible idea. If temps drop and shipping gets delayed (both likely around Christmas), you end up receiving a very dead tree.

The only way I'd get a tropical right now is if I could go to an actual garden center/greenhouse and buy one that I could see and immediately take home with me that day.

And as the guy who wrote that wiki page on gifting trees - my strongest possible recommendation is to buy her some really nice bonsai books instead, or a bonsai class in the spring if there's a place near you that offers them.

• This is a good book
  
  
• So is this.
  
  
• And this one too.
  
  You can even make it a couple's project to go and pick out some nursery stock in the spring (or a finished tree, if you prefer) and work on it together. Or you could buy two seats to that bonsai class instead of one.
  

Wow, what an incredible reply with so much good information! If its okay with you, I'd like to follow up in numeric bullets below:

1. I'm a little tight on money, so now getting a fabric pot would be something I couldn't immediately do. I will keep it in the plastic for the winter, and then do you think it would be okay to repot (possibly to a fabric pot) come spring? Should I look for a pot that's larger than its current pot so it has extra room to grow?
   
   
2. Come spring, would it be okay to do a little pruning to begin to reveal some of the trunk, etc and help promote some growth?
   
   
3. Regarding reading, I joined the Reddit subthread, and also picked up Bonsai Workshop and have been going throw that. Any other great books you recommend?
   
   
4. I picked up some tools already - these Shears, and this wire. I'm hoping to get some concave cutters next. Also, here's the pot I had picked up thinking that I would already be translating -- anything i can put in here for time being? haha.
   
   
5. Allshapes Bonsai is only an hour away, so that would be a nice Sunday trip with my wife. If I picked up an indoor Tropical guy, I assume it would be okay to put him in the new pot and prune, etc right? Any certain types you recommend for this?
   
   
6. I'm 15 minutes into that Bonsai Mirai video and I'm in love already. This is going to be really helpful, so thank you!
   
   

The Bonsai Workshop by Herb Gustafson is pretty good. It's currently $7.84 on Amazon, which is a steal. I paid $20 for my copy, and would again.

Also, Bonsai Techniques I by John Naka is an out-of-print classic that is pretty expensive for a physical copy, but it can be found online with a simple google search. It's more in-depth, but really covers all the bases.

Bonsai Life Histories is another one I like. It isn't so much a basic technique book, but it shows a bunch of trees that have progressed over many years, which I have always found inspiring. I pull that one out about once a year and glean something new from it each time. Also pretty cheap on Amazon right now.