A dark and hazy path

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I took an interest in bonsai trees early last year and I'm still interested now, although I'm starting to feel like it might not ne for me .
So far I have killed 1 tree , 1 satsuki azalea and 1 more azalea from the garden centre . I've had a close shave with one maple and I've bought one that came home with black tar spot and a huge graft site which ended up going back to the place I bought it from .
I've almost killed off a Chinese elm which got fried in my greenhouse and it dropped every single leaf but somehow bounced back. I still don't know what makes good pre bonsai material when I'm at the garden centre . Bonsai is so expensive and I don't know what's good value or not because people in UK have a habit of putting sticks in pots and trying to sell as bonsai for a lot of money .

I tried to be thorough through all of this , I done my research on old threads , I read , I re-read and I studied hard the advice people have given me on various sites and still I made mistakes that have cost me plants and time .

I'm not really a Gardner, I've grew a few annuals , tried my hand at chilis /strawberries. All with reasonable success , but definitely not a seasoned grower . More just sticking compost in a pot or digging a hole and throwing a few flowers in . I feel like this year with a lot of research to bonsai it has helped me with my garden plants , it's helped me to keep trees alive but I feel like I'm failing at the whole bonsai styling and knowing what to do or even where to start .

So anyway the point which I'm getting to is that although I try very hard to be better , I really struggle to understand what people are talking about on older threads and even advice given to me in threads I've started .
So for all the newbies and experienced bonsai folk .

Did you have a good understanding of gardening and growing trees / plants etc before starting bonsai?

Do yous understand most terms and phrases thrown about on this site?

If I have no one to teach me in person , am I wasting my time trying to learn bonsai?

Is it annoying when you're giving advice on here and someone keeps throwing questions back at you regarding the advice you just gave ?

Am I just not very good at this hobby?
 

leatherback

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:)

Sorry to hear the confusing oozing through. To be honest, I do get most of the things people throw around here. Some of the members just speak in tongues sometimes. But that is OK. You do not need all information to get good information. I have been growing stuff all my life. So for me, keeping things alive and recover things that suffer is second nature by now.

Without teaching in person one can still learn bonsai and grow great trees. That being said, spending time with people helps. As you are in the UK, I am pretty sure there are people within an hours drive that can help you. You do need to find them though :)

Move away from things being sold as bonsai and start with nursery plants. Most of these are a few years old. Well established in pots and healthy.Start with the basics, learning how to take care of the plant.

If you do look for things that are healthy and prepared for bonsai, talk to @BobbyLane on this site. Very helpfull, skilled with carving tools and constantly pushing nursery material into prebonsai.

Bonsai does NOT have to be expensive.
Learning how to keep trees alive, how to report without killing, those are skills that come easy to some, and a little harder to others. Once you realize the difference between a living tree and a healthy tree, and learn how hard you can work a tree in either situation, you are on your way.

People with genuine questions are always helped on this site, I find.
 

Paradox

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The only things I ever grew before starting bonsai were house plants and veggies.

Had no clue about the terminology when I started

If you need clarification, ask. It's the only way you'll learn

It can all seem overwhelming at first. There is tons of info to learn and care can differ by species, season and location. Take it one or a few species at a time and one thing at a time. You will most likely never be done learning but that is one of the best things about bonsai, there is always more to learn.

I would suggest a good basic book on bonsai it get you started with the basics like terminology.
Books can be a great help in getting started.

I want to reiterate what @leatherback said:
Start with cheaper material and learn how to keep it alive first. Bonsai hinges on the ability to do that more than anything else. Try to pick plants that grow well in your location. Learn how to water (seems silly but it matters), where to keep the tree in your garden, how to overwinter. Then you can learn when to repot, prune, wire.

Be patient with yourself. We all were new once and we all have killed trees.
 

leatherback

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We all were new once and we all have killed trees.
And even if we are not new anymore, we kill trees. I think I killed 5 this year with impatience.

After moving from know-nothing-imcompetance to keeping-alive-competent, impatiences becomes killer #1.
I know I shouldn't but...

I know I shouldn't but can result in great results. Or dead plants.
 

Paradox

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And even if we are not new anymore, we kill trees. I think I killed 5 this year with impatience.

After moving from know-nothing-imcompetance to keeping-alive-competent, impatiences becomes killer #1.
I know I shouldn't but...

I know I shouldn't but can result in great results. Or dead plants.

Lol this is true
 

Mapleminx

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I can only echo what @leatherback has said and he is one of our many fantastic forum members who do their best to help guide others. There are a lot of people on this forum that will offer advice when asked, some can be more abrasive than others in their responses but it’s rarely meant to come across as rude or unhelpful.

There are a lot of half decent cheap nursery stock out there which can make for some great learning material, they may or may not make a great bonsai but you will learn how to care for that species, how to keep it alive, be pest free, how it responds to wiring, how to try and compensate for its flaws when shaping it, how it’s care changes when transitioning through the seasons etc…
Learn how to maintain the tree before going all Edward Scissorhands 😉. You mentioned a Japanese maple, personally I’d hold off on those until you have gained more confidence unless you find some very low priced ones you don’t mind loosing if things go wrong. I wouldn’t drop them in the beginners bucket.
 

berzerkules

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As with anything, you learn from your mistakes. If you lose a tree or any plant for that matter, you just learned how far you can push it. It's discouraging and disheartening to lose one but if you learn from it it wasn't a total loss.

I just started keeping trees this year but I grew up around family members that always had plants and I've never lived in a house that didn't have plants. I'd help my grandmas in their gardens from an early age. My house was always a jungle as a kid because my mom kept like 50 house plants no matter how small the place we were living was. Some basic plant care just came naturally to me because I was exposed to it as a child and I paid attention.

As for bonsai material, I've collected 90%+ of what I have. I have not bought a single tree, the only bought trees I have are gifts from my sister. I live in Alaska so I guess it's faily easy to collect from nature because there are trees everywhere, just not a large variety. I've lost some collected trees but it helps me learn what stresses certain species and how to adjust and care for those stresses.

At the end of the day I'm more concerned with enjoying the time I spend growing trees and learning as much as I can and not worrying about styling a tree, yet. I'm trying to build a better foundation of knowledge and experience so when the time comes to really get into transforming a collected tree into a piece of art I will know the limits of the species I'm working with.

I still gladly take advice from as many sources as possible. Try to learn from others mistakes and success while also trying to pust the limits of all my plants, I always have. I have a long way to go and expect many failures but, in the long run if I'm just having fun and learning along the way it was a success.

If you enjoy the process keep at it, I don't think it really matters if you never have a show worthy tree as long as you're having fun. I'll never have trees in shows or be in a club because there is no clubs or bonsai nursery in my entire state. I'm in it for my own enjoyment because I love picking on plants.
 

sorce

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If I have no one to teach me in person , am I wasting my time trying to learn bonsai?

In person learning is overrated.

They say this is a lesson in patience when really patience is just a lesson in self discipline.

Sorce
 

BobbyLane

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i started from growing house plants and balcony plants before moving onto mallsai trees. i have learnt everything from the internet and being hands on and working on loads of trees. i can remember asking a lot of newbie questions in my first few months, then i began to use the forums search bars to get my answers. i dont think you need a teacher, everything is online, but you have to be consistent, just logging in to forums once or twice a week or researching bits here and there isnt enough imo. depends how much you want to be better at bonsai i guess, we see dozens of members here who were very enthusiastic at the start then disappeared after a few months.
 

Deep Sea Diver

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I can’t speak for others. Ya gotta keep be resilient in this hobby. Mourn your losses, but keep your momentum.

The way I learn best, and I’m certainly not very learned in bonsai like many others on this site, is to research, train, observe, practice with assistance, practice on my own, have others to refer to, make mistakes and repeat…. Not necessarily in order!

I’m not proud to say I’ve killed off trees, but I have. It hurts to see one of my trees in pain. Pain that I caused.

The key is to figure out why and not make that mistake again. Yet sometimes I end up repeating a mistake and killing off another and another tree before I learn what caused it. Maddening.

Eventually I realized its hard to tell what causes an issue when you have only one of each tree. (Slow learner!)

As a result, I started getting a number of young trees, each of the same type, to help me concentrate my learning on these species… at least eight of each, many more of some. First Japanese Maples, then Trident maples, Satsuki and Black Pines. That helped a lot.

I like all my trees, but satsuki and maples I like a real lot because things happen quickly during the growing season with these guys. That makes it easier to learn fast, to gain confidence.

But still each step forward isn’t without a loss.

In last winter’s azalea “Whips from cuttings” experiment I must of killed off a dozen or more prospective satsuki whips until I learned what things caused these to die off. Deaths happened so often I gave the phenomena a name “Sudden Whip Death Syndrome” . 😉. Luckily there were still about 50 left to mess with more in the spring!

This spring’s Ebihara practice run on 35+ young maples yielded some spectacular failures, resulting in more tree carcasses… and some really awesome results.

So never say die, buy a bunch of cheap stuff and try.

cheers
DSD sends
 
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