How to get past making mistakes?

On my journey making some bonsai, I've made a lot of mistakes along the way. Pruning off branches that I shouldn't have, knocking off a bud at a place I wanted a branch by accident, damaging/breaking off a branch while wiring, cutting the roots too far etc etc.

Especially today, my tree was back budding a lot, and I was getting a bud in the perfect spot. But alas, it got knocked off when I tried to inspect it closer. As a beginner, it gets really demotivating sometimes, and the nature of bonsai makes it punishing when you make mistakes because you can never predict how the tree will respond and change.

How do you guys get past the fear of making mistakes as a beginner? I would truly appreciate the advice, as every choice I make is always so hesitant. It could be a tiny branch, and I'll be fearful of cutting it in the case that I'll live to regret it. Watching people like Peter Chan amaze me since they have no fear when they prune and repot, and aren't afraid to sometimes be rough with the tree.

Think twice, cut once.
Look with your eyes, not your hands

First remember, you are going to make mistakes, that is how we learn.

Always stop and think about what you are doing.
As Leatherback said, always look at what you are planning before you do it
Never do anything in a rush or when youre not feeling up to putting in the attention or concentration a particular task needs.
Remember the mistakes you do make and dont do them again

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canadianlights said:

On my journey making some bonsai, I've made a lot of mistakes along the way. Pruning off branches that I shouldn't have, knocking off a bud at a place I wanted a branch by accident, damaging/breaking off a branch while wiring, cutting the roots too far etc etc.

Especially today, my tree was back budding a lot, and I was getting a bud in the perfect spot. But alas, it got knocked off when I tried to inspect it closer. As a beginner, it gets really demotivating sometimes, and the nature of bonsai makes it punishing when you make mistakes because you can never predict how the tree will respond and change.

How do you guys get past the fear of making mistakes as a beginner? I would truly appreciate the advice, as every choice I make is always so hesitant. It could be a tiny branch, and I'll be fearful of cutting it in the case that I'll live to regret it. Watching people like Peter Chan amaze me since they have no fear when they prune and repot, and aren't afraid to sometimes be rough with the tree.

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Get some training so you have some confidence in what you are doing. Practice under the guidance of more experienced people. Have a plan, put down in writing what you want to accomplish, what order the actions should be in. If you do not have access to a club or mentor gather some basic literature or video instruction from recognized professionals.
It is easy to be afraid when you do not understand what you are doing or what you should be doing!
Accept the fact that you will make mistakes, but learn from the mistakes and do it less and less.

To be brutally honest, the trees you are working on right now are most likely gonna die before you get really good at bonsai. As much as you hope to keep them forever, expecting for them to become masterpieces, etc. they probably wont make it. Sorry to be a little harsh, but its true. Not many people still have their first trees from when they first started bonsai. These are your learning/ practice trees. If a bud gets knocked off or wrong branch gets cut, that's how you'll learn for the future.

As the years go by new buds/ branches will grow to replace missing buds or you'll learn to wire a different branch to fill in that space. Also acquiring more (cheap)trees will give you enough work to do that you won't focus on one bud or branch as much.

plant_dr said:

To be brutally honest, the trees you are working on right now are gonna die ....

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Probably very likely but not necessarily true. I still have the first 3 trees I ever purchased.

I do agree though that the first trees you buy are most likely the learning trees and most if any will ever be a great tree.
I still enjoy my very first trees nonetheless

I've been doing this for 25 years, and still make mistakes... but just usually not the ones I was making 20 years ago. Sometimes, you just have to take a leap of faith and do something you're not comfortable doing. If the results are acceptable, do it again... and if they aren't, try to understand why. Also, the internet is a great resource that many of us didn't have way back in the dark ages. Read, read, read... somewhere in the deep and dark archives here on B'nut, I know at least one person might have mentioned that spring time when buds are swelling and extending is the worst time of year to be even remotely heavy handed with your trees... and, yes, I have accidentally knocked at least one or two buds off my trees messing around with them when I know I shouldn't... this year. Ultimately, it's the journey that matters, so don't beat yourself up too much... develop a little patience and enjoy the ride.

canadianlights said:

On my journey making some bonsai, I've made a lot of mistakes along the way. Pruning off branches that I shouldn't have, knocking off a bud at a place I wanted a branch by accident, damaging/breaking off a branch while wiring, cutting the roots too far etc etc.

Especially today, my tree was back budding a lot, and I was getting a bud in the perfect spot. But alas, it got knocked off when I tried to inspect it closer. As a beginner, it gets really demotivating sometimes, and the nature of bonsai makes it punishing when you make mistakes because you can never predict how the tree will respond and change.

How do you guys get past the fear of making mistakes as a beginner? I would truly appreciate the advice, as every choice I make is always so hesitant. It could be a tiny branch, and I'll be fearful of cutting it in the case that I'll live to regret it. Watching people like Peter Chan amaze me since they have no fear when they prune and repot, and aren't afraid to sometimes be rough with the tree.

Click to expand...

It's like murder. If you kill one person it can depress you for a long time. If you kill lots and lots of people like Hitler or Stalin or Saddam you get used to it being just one more part of getting through the day. I've found that volume works well for me. I don't buy just one of anything. By the time I get down to the last one I can pat myself on the back for finding a tree that's a real survivor. It never ends. Just as soon as you think you know it all, you'll do something stupid. One of the blessings of being old is forgetfulness.

Make More.

Wait.
I had a key new bud die on me once.
It is back, and other key new buds are also in place. So it was never a mistake. It simply wasn't time.

You should never be "rough", but it pays to know what "rough" is and when you can get away with it.
This can only happen when you lose the fear of making a mistake.

So get familiar with them.

Make more.

Sorce

You probably can't get past making mistakes.
You can learn what to be careful of so as not to accidentally break something but probably need to make the mistakes in the first place to learn. In may cases it is more a case of a bad haircut - seems terrible at the time but it will all grow back soon enough.
I think the key is to stop thinking of what you do as mistakes.
When one option ceases there is almost always another. Many of the 'mistakes' and 'accidents' posted here have actually forced the owners to reassess their tree and move forward to something far better than the original.
Be prepared to make decisions and move forward with your bonsai rather than stagnate with the current rubbish trees.

I got a good laugh out of the title just reading it! Lol, but really, I recall my early phases in my bonsai adventures, fondly referred to as the Frankensteinian Era, followed by the Slam Dunk Bada Bing it's a Bonsai Era. Man! I made every mistake known and even made up of few of my own. Oh yeah, some I did repeatedly especially in the chop crop and slam it in a pot department. Whew! boy I had a heap of bones! You get to a point with it that you just want to stop killing trees. Don't even care about bonsai at this point. Let's just see if we can keep this alive first. So, some back pedaling and everything came out of the bonsai pots and into grow boxes or garden. Seven or eight years I didn't have a tree in a bonsai pot. Thing is, dead trees can't teach you anything. I'm just this spring transitioning as many of those trees to ceramic pots and moving forward into the refinement phase. I'm certain I'll find a whole new bunch of different mistakes to make.

Great thread... nice to see other perspectives and attitudes.

Send it.

You can't learn without making mistakes. I've been doing bonsai for 30 years and I haven't made every mistake yet, but I'm working on it. Over the last few years I've been pushing myself, so I'm making more mistakes, but that's fine. It does really suck when a tree dies, whether it's your fault or not. At least I only kill seedlings any more (knock on wood). When you brake a branch, learn how to fix it.
This is a complex hobby/art/interest and it's not possible to advance without making mistakes, so don't beat yourself up.

RKatzin said:

I got a good laugh out of the title just reading it! Lol, but really, I recall my early phases in my bonsai adventures, fondly referred to as the Frankensteinian Era, followed by the Slam Dunk Bada Bing it's a Bonsai Era. Man! I made every mistake known and even made up of few of my own. Oh yeah, some I did repeatedly especially in the chop crop and slam it in a pot department. Whew! boy I had a heap of bones! You get to a point with it that you just want to stop killing trees. Don't even care about bonsai at this point. Let's just see if we can keep this alive first. So, some back pedaling and everything came out of the bonsai pots and into grow boxes or garden. Seven or eight years I didn't have a tree in a bonsai pot. Thing is, dead trees can't teach you anything. I'm just this spring transitioning as many of those trees to ceramic pots and moving forward into the refinement phase. I'm certain I'll find a whole new bunch of different mistakes to make.

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Hey Rick; do you have any Manzanita, Kinnickinnick or Sadler Oak worthy of Bonsai on your property? Still want to get down your way. Maybe this year? Stay germ free.

I don't make mistakes when it comes to bonsai (apart from buying akadama and JBP), I make motivated, unmotivated and accidental choices and deal with them.
It's your point of view that obstructs your pleasure. Happy little accidents.

You knocked off a bud? Well, alright, now you need to come up with a new plan. Time to get creative! To be flexible.
Then again, if your entire design depends on a single bud, then the plan for the design might be a bit faulty. I think I heard one of those youtube guys say something like: If you form a bond with a branch, then it can potentially ruin your tree because you're scared to cut it off. So either form a bond with every single one of them and they become equal, or form no bond with all of them.
I think Ryan Neil does this mind trick sometimes in a couple of videos. I'm paraphrasing here: "See this branch? This is a great branch, the best branch ever, built from scratch over a decade, we need to incorporate it into the design because of that!" He then proceeds to cut it off. "Now we don't have to think about it anymore, and we can focus on the tree."

Same goes for killing an entire tree, it's a costly lesson sometimes, but the best lesson you can get.

They key, I guess, is to stay flexible. Attachment is a choice.
If you know how trees behave and have the horticultural part down, then it starts getting fun.

Be prepared to propagate or grow your own - it provides several advantages. 1. It gives you lots of material to help improve wiring, pruning, styling etc. Practice and repetition will definitely boost your skills. 2. It's free stuff so you won't be as pissed off if it dies and you're much more likely to push yourself. 3. Because you have more stuff to do it'll lessen your desire to over pamper your other material to death.

Hi! Yes there's manzanita all over the place. Sadler Oak I never heard of, but there's a dwarf white oak, Quercus garyanna Brewerii or Brewers Oak. There's s dwarf Canyon Live Oak, too, Quercus chrysolepis vaccinifolia or Huckleberry Oak. Also a lot of Oregon crabapple and yew out the wazoo.
I'm finally making connections with the CascadeBonsaiSociety and lots of excitement and talk of group collecting trips etc, you would be most welcome!

Never experiment on the mother.
Get 10 to 20 others [ cuttings etc. ] of the same type.
Work on them.
Good Day
Anthony

@canadianlights
I feel your pain. I have a couple thoughts.

First, beyond the horticulture of keeping the tree alive, there are no real "rights" or "wrongs". So if the tree is still alive when you are done, don't beat yourself up about having made right or wrong choices. What doesn't look good today might looks great with a year or two of growing out. Or sometimes not. But "looking great" and looking "not so great" is not a right or wrong situation. What we do does not carry the weight of a moral decision. So if the tree is still alive at the end of the day, you did no real harm.

And, there is a general rule with bonsai, we do not use rare and endangered species. So even if we make a fatal mistake for the tree, the tree won't be "the last of its kind". Even those 100 year old Ponderosa pines, while it is sad to loose a "good one" the Ponderosa is one of the most abundant pines west of the Mississippi, there is an enormous population of them. They are in no danger of extinction. Similar with Shimpaku, or Yews from the landscape industry. We'll never run out.

(let's not catastrophize about climate change here in this thread, assume we avert the worst of the potential disaster in our near future).

So let your confidence build. There are no right or wrong artistic decisions, and horticulture decisions, you will know soon enough whether you got it right.

Oh and for horticulture. There is the "useful approximation". Most trees have a wide range for each environmental factor in which they will survive. Warning: Geek out ahead: Think of an n-dimensional response surface state space (response surface methodology), the environmental factors, water, soil chemistry, pH, nutrients, sun, humidity, and so on are all axis for the n-dimensional state space. The range for each trait the tree tolerates creates the hyper-volume, and any point inside the hyper-volume the tree will survive, and optimized, will thrive. There is a large n-dimensional volume inside which the tree will grow and thrive. If one trait is marginal, if the others are optimal, normally the tree can compensate and thrive. End of geek out.

None of the horticultural factors need to be perfect, they just need to be "good enough". Somewhere in the range that the tree tolerates. There is such a thing as a useful approximation. Close is often good enough. That is the beauty of horticulture. Endless capacity to tweak improvements (optimise the response surface) but a wide range of "plenty good enough".

So your choices in front of you with your tree are not deep moral choices, have fun. There are very few real, or significant rights or wrongs.