Long Term Advice from Long Time B-Nuts

I am starting this post to help inform my next several years of bonsai development.

I would like to highlight that there are many of us here who are looking back on years if not lifetimes of bonsai, while many others are looking to their own future in the art. The great strength of this forum is that it brings both sides of the spectrum together (though it may seem to some that this is a fault)

With that said, I would like to ask the more advanced members to share with us, things they would do if they could rewind the clock.

What long term projects would you like to start it if you still had fifty years to refine and perfect them?

What species or cultivars did you wish you had bought years ago and stuck in the corner of the lawn?

How would your collections/acquisitions/propagations reflect this hypothetical situation?

I think many have already shared a great deal in this area, esp. smoke and BVF, but I know there are a lot of ideas we are not hearing. I am not looking for hard won knowledge, just ideas and visions for moving forward.

Also, any members with less time in the art should feel free to post their long term projects.

thank you, GREG

here are a couple of long term projects I am working on:

These seedlings will be mother trees for air-layering. I expect them to fatten up for many years, and establish good branches with taper before air-layering will begin.
Sargent Crab and Hackberry:

this elm( http://bonsainut.com/forums/showthread.php?10437-Ditch-Water-El ) may become an airlayer patient for a few years also.

.

Not that I'm so long term here, but what I'd do is skip all the poor material and start with the good s**t. That is after I'd learned how not to kill things. (although I never really did kill that much...)
But your eye changes so much, you can never know what the good s**t is till you know.

I'm not that long term nor do I currently have any trees that I would enter into a contest, I would start with a few trees to learn the skills necessary. I would definitely stop thinking that everything I saw would make a good bonsai.

I know have many projects and no true good trees. But, I have been learning along the way.

By the way, GREAT POST.

Joe DeS

Good soil creates good roots creates good trees. It was hard to make the leap to such porous soil. But it actually solved a lot of my problems. KNOW YOURSELF: I am a classic overwaterer, my soil choice reflects that.

At first I gathered anything I could find. It was good for practice. Now as has already been stated, I'll say it again. You can't take bad stock and make good trees with it. I am always on the hunt for GREAT raw material. It's in the woods, it's in the landscaping, you can buy it... do what you can to find trees with good potential. You can't take a bad photo and use photoshop to make it great. You take a great photo and use photoshop to make it a little better.

As trees mature they take more of your time. It's why people begin to sell off some of their stuff. That Maple that begins to ramify now has two days worth of plucking to do instead of just 30 minutes.

Know your limits of time. How many trees can you really take care of? Decide and be okay with it!!

I think this could be a really good thread. I am looking forward to reading it as it develops. This format could lead to some real insight for beginners like myself and a place for meaningfully reflection for those really experienced practitioners.

I've been learning bonsai for over thirty years and have made almost ever mistake you can make.
I'll give you my list but as this forum demonstrates there are a few people here who don't choose to learn from others' experience:

1. Join a club and take every workshop you can make it to and afford
2. Learn how to choose good material and don't waste time on junk with "potential". One good tree is worth a thousand Home Depot "finds".
3. Start growing trees in the ground. Not every one will turn out good but its the cheapest way to get good material.
4. Work with a teacher or mentor as often as you can.
5. Buy good tools and they'll last as long as you do.
6. Concentrate on learning the skills and the artistry just might come later.
7. Study and understand horticulture and plant physiology.
8. Show your trees as often as possible. Put your ego in your pocket and listen to peoples comments about your trees.
9. Learn how to wire correctly.
10. Accumulate a photo album of trees / tree features you want to emulate.
11. Soil matters
12. Learn how to water correctly.
13. Take the worst few of your trees to a club sale or auction at least once a year. Use the money toward a tree better than any you have.
14. Visit every bonsai show you can and if possible walk the show with your teacher / mentor to critique the trees.
15. Feed your trees. Most people don't fertilize enough.
16. Grow trees that like your climate. Don't waste time and effort on species that don't thrive where you live, e.g. Larches and Hemlocks in the Sacramento Valley, California junipers in Seattle...

I'm sure I'll think of more later.

Paul

Paul, great list. I agree with all of it and would only add:

17. Go collecting.
18. Figure out the soil early on.
19. Work on roots without fear...but do it at the right time.

You have to have a natural love for trees and shrubs, so much so, that you want to take care of them.
I wouldn't do anything differently. With time I learned that seedlings will develop thicker trunks and I enjoy growing trees / shrubs so much, that the design is what dictates who is in the growing trough.

Read, observe, draw, keep drawn designs for the trees / shrubs.
I am content.
Good Evening.
Anthony

Brian Van Fleet said:

Paul, great list. I agree with all of it and would only add:

17. Go collecting.
18. Figure out the soil early on.
19. Work on roots without fear...but do it at the right time.

Click to expand...

I hesitated over the collecting, I killed a lot of yamadori trees needlessly before I learned how to keep them alive. I think my suggestion here is to find someone with great success at collecting trees and have him teach you.

Here's another one it took me some time to get the courage for... If it makes the tree worse, CUT IT OFF!

And another... Be bold. An early teacher of mine said, " either kill it at the beginning or make it a bonsai. Don't drag out the inevitable.

And here's another thing I've learned. Very few people can make realistic deadwood with power carving tools. It almost always looks obvious and horrible. Even the work of some of our revered bonsai artists who pioneered the use of power tool carving. If you want to see good power carving, study Kevin Willson, Graham Potter, and Masahiko Kimura's work. Don't get me wrong, power tool carving is great fun, just very, very hard to to well.

Junipers without deadwood are boring...

Great advice thus far...

I would add..
1. Don't rush trees into bonsai pots...the fun for me is getting them to the point that they are ready for serious training...the journey!
2. Leave choices for the future with branch selection. Leaving extra branches also helps the plant maintain vigor and ultimately develop faster....
3. Realize there are stages to development...roots and trunks first...primary branches...ramification
4. Trunks develop much faster in the ground...branches develop much better in a container
5. Be wary of workshops with less than quality material... It's ok when you are new but once you understand the basics it's far better to work long term with a teacher or mentor. I think I have always learned more in workshops as an observer.
6. Don't rush trees into bonsai pots!
7. Fertilize developing trees frequently!
8. Develop your own material from seeds, cuttings, air layers, and seedlings...it doesn't take as long as you think...
9. Judy is exactly right....your tastes will change dramatically thru the years.
10. Large trees can be developed much faster than small or med sizes...
11. You will learn and get better much faster if you expose yourself as often as possible to others in the hobby...clubs, study groups, shows, etc...as Paul mentioned
12. Keep the size of your collection directly proportional to the amount of time you have...too many trees and not enough time will cause all of your trees to suffer.
13. Don't rush your tree into bonsai pots!
14...last one...don't ignore the law of averages...if you really like a particular species, grow/develop at least 5-10, with the intentions of only keeping the best one or two.


maybe this goes without saying but, be a lover and careful observer of trees in nature.


after rereading this, I think it is also essential to not be in a hurry...take your time and enjoy the ride!

thanks,
john

some great advice here. keep it coming

I would add:

1. Get lots of trees. The dedicated bonsai artist must "do" things to their trees, and any tree will only stand so much love before keeling over. With more trees you have less time to bother each one.
2. Study photos of bonsai, and I mean thousands and thousands. This is the best way to get design principles into your subconscious, from which they will ultimately return after you've learned the basic physical techniques. Bonsai is a visual art (of course).

Zach

On workshops: Take workshops by all means, but be selective. Avoid bring-your-own tree workshops; someone else (with a better, or much worse tree) is bound to take most of the instructor's time.

Don't take a workshop just because the instructor is the current fad; choose your species and an instructor that knows that species. He or she does NOT need to have studied in Japan. In fact, studying in Japan doesn't make one a good instructor.

On fertilizer: Don't make more of it than it deserves. Trees need NPK and trace elements. They don't care how it is delivered. (And ALL fertilizer is "chemical.")

Make trees; not bonsai.

Make the bonsai journey fun.

fourteener said:

Good soil creates good roots creates good trees. It was hard to make the leap to such porous soil. But it actually solved a lot of my problems. KNOW YOURSELF

At first I gathered anything I could find. It was good for practice. Now as has already been stated, I'll say it again. You can't take bad stock and make good trees with it.

Click to expand...

PaulH said:

I've been learning bonsai for over thirty years and have made almost ever mistake you can make.
I'll give you my list but as this forum demonstrates there are a few people here who don't choose to learn from others' experience:

1. Join a club and take every workshop you can make it to and afford
2. Learn how to choose good material and don't waste time on junk with "potential". One good tree is worth a thousand Home Depot "finds".
............
15. Feed your trees. Most people don't fertilize enough.
16. Grow trees that like your climate. Don't waste time and effort on species that don't thrive where you live, e.g. Larches and Hemlocks in the Sacramento Valley, California junipers in Seattle...

Paul

Click to expand...

Great replies! I know there is a lot to know and trees living is foremost. Hopefully I will get to join ABA Sac soon. I know there are a few good shows many of you are prepping for that will happen in the next months.

It seems like most bonsai folk go through stages of development, much like our trees. At first you keep stuff alive. then you experiment with anything and everything trying to refine technique and build a collection. then you decide there is a bunch of stuff you have that you don't like and a bunch of stuff you don't have but really want so you start buying only trees "with potential" and refining them.

I am not going to deny myself the experimental stage. I should have decades worth of bonsai time ahead (knocking on wood here)

With that said, I would like to ask the more advanced members to share with us, things they would do if they could rewind the clock.

What long term projects would you like to start it if you still had fifty years to refine and perfect them?

What species or cultivars did you wish you had bought years ago and stuck in the corner of the lawn?

How would your collections/acquisitions/propagations reflect this hypothetical situation?



I was thinking of stuff like: I've been doing bonsai for 20 years and I wish I would have squash wired a bunch of cedrus a. whips and grew them under the rhododendrons till now.

OR

I've been at it 15 years and I wish I had a bunch of Carpinus from seed then.

JudyB said:

Not that I'm so long term here, but what I'd do is skip all the poor material and start with the good s**t. That is after I'd learned how not to kill things. (although I never really did kill that much...)
But your eye changes so much, you can never know what the good s**t is till you know.

Click to expand...

That is, as bonsai advice goes, some good s**t.

I would have started some large scale long term root-over projects.

As for yard plants, somehow I think there is this impression if we all had planted material in our yards they would all turn out to be good bonsai material later--with little intervention. What I usually see is large unrefined trees with gawky roots. Field growing plant to be bonsai most often requires excellent conditions and quite a bit of technique to result in superior bonsai stock.

Field growing plant to be bonsai most often requires excellent conditions and quite a bit of technique to result in superior bonsai stock.

Click to expand...

Amen! Like lifting them every year, pruning them quickly for general shape, then trimming and rearranging the roots (on tile or otherwise) and replanting. Do this at least for 5 years for a shohin.

Thank goodness I do small trees!

Have a go at grafting -- thread, approach and then onto bud -- sod's law is that it will never shoot where you want it to - grafting is bonsai's way of flagging off mother nature. Experiment with a soil mix that works for YOU, the conditions you live in and the way you water. Once you get a mix that fills the pot each year with nice fibrous roots then stick with it whatever the latest fad is. Take your trees for regular critiques - fresh eyes see fresh things. Even expert eyes sometimes ignore the familiar and accept it. Accept that your trees will look pristine only 5% of their lives. Hairy is good for health -- don't trim you trees to death! Start a growing bed in your garden where you can cultivate cheap material. Learn how to grow it too - know about sacrifice and final branches to grow quality material. Guy wires and turnbuckle spreaders save you money and time - use them rather than wire thick enough to carry mains electricity.