My first real bonsai! Excited excited excited! Prunus mume

Do you think George was worth the adoption price?


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Mihai

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Hello Nuts,

There is no point to this thread except to went some of my overwhelming excitement. My friends and SO can't tell the difference between a tree and a lamp post so all I have is you guys :).
22 minutes ago I finally purchased myself something resembling a real honest to god bonsai. All i had before was material either found or bought from nurseries that is light years away from a bonsai pot... as you can see in the other pictures i posted.
So... my new baby is a prunus mume, bought from ebay from a seller with 100% percent positive feedback.
I'm thinking of feeding it, loving it and calling it George...
Paid $90 for him... Yes, I am going to start calling George a him from now on...

Have a wonderfully leafy evening!
mume2.JPG mume3.JPG prunus mume.jpg
 

JudyB

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It's a pretty good looking tree! Not sure I'm into the name so much tho... :cool:
Get some wire on those branches if they can still be moved, too much too straight.
 

Alain

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Happy to see how happy you seem! :)

The soil and pot don't look very drainage friendly to me...o_O
May be a re-pot in something better no?...:rolleyes:

But nice tree btw! :cool:
 

Giga

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I like the tree - not so much the name. Seems insulting to a aged old tree - at least one that supposed to look aged. Wire those branches a bit and repot next spring and you may have gold there.
 

Eric Group

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Great pick up! $90 looks like a screaming deal for a trunk like that!
 

Mihai

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Hey guys, thank you for your thoughts and suggestions. They sound like a plan :). I'll slip pot it into something a little bigger and fill it in with pumice mixed with lava to improve draining, and in spring i'll do a thorough root prune and change the soil completely.

@Smoke: good man! you figured it out :)))
 

ConorDash

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Hey guys, thank you for your thoughts and suggestions. They sound like a plan :). I'll slip pot it into something a little bigger and fill it in with pumice mixed with lava to improve draining, and in spring i'll do a thorough root prune and change the soil completely.

@Smoke: good man! you figured it out :)))
nice....

"What's up Duck" (classic)



I couldn't stop thinking of that bloody cartoon when Mihai kept saying George lol. Good reference!
Are you genuinely new to bonsai? Cos you sound like you've a good grasp on it already.
Tree looks good.
 

Mihai

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Hi Connor,

I started compulsively buying nursery stock this spring when a friend showed me his trees (those who survived his cats anyway :)) ) and I've read every book I could lay my hands on since then. So I pretty much know the theory but lack the practice. I've been trying to find a bonsai club in my part of Romania but without much success... apparently trees in pots aren't a thing here. At the moment my balcony is overflowing with trees and hot peppers and my soon to be wife and me finally reached the conclusion that we'd better start looking into houses for next year before I smother us in greenery.
Got a followup question for you guys... bonsai tools are apparently more expensive than their weight in gold if they're Japanese made. Is there really any great difference between the Chinese sets and the ones made in Japan? Do they make your life really that much easier to be worth the price?

@source : you... the taper is indeed bitching!
 

ConorDash

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Hi Connor,

I started compulsively buying nursery stock this spring when a friend showed me his trees (those who survived his cats anyway :)) ) and I've read every book I could lay my hands on since then. So I pretty much know the theory but lack the practice. I've been trying to find a bonsai club in my part of Romania but without much success... apparently trees in pots aren't a thing here. At the moment my balcony is overflowing with trees and hot peppers and my soon to be wife and me finally reached the conclusion that we'd better start looking into houses for next year before I smother us in greenery.
Got a followup question for you guys... bonsai tools are apparently more expensive than their weight in gold if they're Japanese made. Is there really any great difference between the Chinese sets and the ones made in Japan? Do they make your life really that much easier to be worth the price?

@source : you... the taper is indeed bitching!

Im similar. I took to this hobby and since then, have dropped the lord of the rings book I was reading and have been reading bonsai guides online, just going from start to finish, through every topic there is.
bonsai4me.com was suggested by Sorce and been going through that. After that I think I will go on to evergreengardenworks.com, a nice lengthy guide just plain text and truck loads of it. But, I lack that practical experience too.

I bought this set: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/322107255151?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
It was sealed in plastic, so no second hand stuff, really good price, comes with a lot of stuff or there are a few variants of the same set with more tools in it. In hindsight, I think I could have gone bigger as they come with a nice set of pliers in the bigger set, that would be good for wiring... But any way. I was VERY surprised at the size and massive weight of the set! Nothing says reliable like a big old lump of metal. I couldn't say whether Japanese stuff is better, but I really couldn't imagine how... These do exactly what they are supposed to do and I see them out living me. Would highly recommend, for such a good price too. As a beginner, I didn't exactly want to invest 50-100£ in a set of tools for a hobby I started 3 months ago.
 

rockm

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Rules of thumb in buying tools:

ALWAYS go Japanese if available. Chinese tools are iffy in quality. Some very good, most are crap.
You get what you pay for. Cheap is not good.
Bad tools can screw up your trees--uneven blades, overextension of pivot points, etc. can chew branches off, break them, etc.
Complete tool sets are an unnecessary expense. You will regret buying it down the road.
Decent collections of tools are put together over time, not all at once.
Buy ONE tool at a time over time. Saves money and regret.
Buy concave cutters first. Get the best ones you can afford. Decent small or medium sized concave cutters can be bought for less than $50.
Most specialized tools' jobs can be done by "regular" scissors, wire cutters, etc.
As you learn, shop around.
Best place to buy tools is at bonsai events. You can't tell quality (well, you kind of can by pricing) online. At a bonsai show, you can actually pick tools up and handle them. You can feel the difference in higher quality tools compared to cheap.
If you buy online, buy from reputable bonsai dealers, NOT on random sellers on ebay. If you buy on ebay, always check what else the seller has up. If it's DVDs, Japanese kitsch, posters and crap, stay away. If it's trees, pots and other tools, might be worth the trouble.
Stay away from "vintage" tools and tools sets. They are crap and mostly used up. A rip off, even if the seller provides "provenance" to some ancient bonsai master (who's name no real bonsaiist will recognize).
 

Mihai

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@Connor: if you feel like taking a break from bonsai lit and don't want to go back to tolkien try Steven Erickson the Malazan book of the fallen. That series rocks. I just finished J Naka's Bonsai Techniques I and it's absolutely worth the money. Great piece of work.
@rockm thanks for the tips. Sadly the bonsai show option is out of the question. There really aren't any in a 500 Km radius :(. Do you have any experience with Ryuga tools? saw the name pop a lot on the internet.
 

Giga

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Tools and wire r very impotant to invest in to be sucsessful at bonsai! The rest will come with time if you listen and learn
 

ConorDash

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Rules of thumb in buying tools:

ALWAYS go Japanese if available. Chinese tools are iffy in quality. Some very good, most are crap.
You get what you pay for. Cheap is not good.
Bad tools can screw up your trees--uneven blades, overextension of pivot points, etc. can chew branches off, break them, etc.
Complete tool sets are an unnecessary expense. You will regret buying it down the road.
Decent collections of tools are put together over time, not all at once.
Buy ONE tool at a time over time. Saves money and regret.
Buy concave cutters first. Get the best ones you can afford. Decent small or medium sized concave cutters can be bought for less than $50.
Most specialized tools' jobs can be done by "regular" scissors, wire cutters, etc.
As you learn, shop around.
Best place to buy tools is at bonsai events. You can't tell quality (well, you kind of can by pricing) online. At a bonsai show, you can actually pick tools up and handle them. You can feel the difference in higher quality tools compared to cheap.
If you buy online, buy from reputable bonsai dealers, NOT on random sellers on ebay. If you buy on ebay, always check what else the seller has up. If it's DVDs, Japanese kitsch, posters and crap, stay away. If it's trees, pots and other tools, might be worth the trouble.
Stay away from "vintage" tools and tools sets. They are crap and mostly used up. A rip off, even if the seller provides "provenance" to some ancient bonsai master (who's name no real bonsaiist will recognize).
Fair enough, everyones opinion is valid. The common sense of checking with the seller, reputation etc should be done, no matter what you buy. As my set was sealed, it wasn't going to be tampered with. I was confident with my purchase when made and even so now, that I have it. The whole, cheap is not good, build up collection over time.. I won't argue it, its all opinion and you have yours, but it doesn't mean 1 way is the only way. When said like you have Rockm, anything sounds bad.

Unfortunately we are all limited by money so going for something cheaper, as long as it meets other requirements of reputation, usefulness and reliability of the material, I'd go for it. Not all of us have done the craft for many years and have it all already. I wouldn't recommend ebay for bonsai trees, no matter what the persons rep is. I actually never use Ebay, only recently its apparently gotten a lot better and starting to earn my trust a bit more. Their buyers protection is unbelievably good for the buyer.. unfair almost. Any sort of unhappiness with whats bought and you get refund, keep the item. Its unfair on sellers really.

The exact same set is available on many other sites like, Amazon, York Bonsai, cherry blossom bonsai etc.

@Connor: if you feel like taking a break from bonsai lit and don't want to go back to tolkien try Steven Erickson the Malazan book of the fallen. That series rocks. I just finished J Naka's Bonsai Techniques I and it's absolutely worth the money. Great piece of work.
@rockm thanks for the tips. Sadly the bonsai show option is out of the question. There really aren't any in a 500 Km radius :(. Do you have any experience with Ryuga tools? saw the name pop a lot on the internet.

I love the LOTR series, so I wanna get through all the books :). But thank you for the suggestion. Bonsai just simply took over for now. If i go in to something, I go in 100% and do as much research as possible. Ever since I joined this site, I've not stopped asking questions, commenting and annoying people like Sorce and Rockm :p
 
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Potawatomi13

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I just got couple of Roshi tools from Stone Lantern on sale. Wire cutter and knob cutter. Already have too expensive Concave cutter as well as fine trimmer shear and cheaper mid sized shear as well as regular size garden shear and a really great Pocket Boy compact saw if needing something bigger cut by a really fine and sharp saw. Only so many tools really needed and believe only a smaller concave cutter is still needed. Fine shear or present concave cutter used carefully can do almost all cuts needed. Do much internet shopping including Ebay and Amazon. Getting best deal is half the fun of shopping for special things like this. Also unless planning on becoming big professional or having 200 trees intermediate grade tools are all that's needed. Novice too wimpy and professional too expensive;).
 

rockm

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Fair enough, everyones opinion is valid. The common sense of checking with the seller, reputation etc should be done, no matter what you buy. As my set was sealed, it wasn't going to be tampered with. I was confident with my purchase when made and even so now, that I have it. The whole, cheap is not good, build up collection over time.. I won't argue it, its all opinion and you have yours, but it doesn't mean 1 way is the only way. When said like you have Rockm, anything sounds bad.

Unfortunately we are all limited by money so going for something cheaper, as long as it meets other requirements of reputation, usefulness and reliability of the material, I'd go for it. Not all of us have done the craft for many years and have it all already. I wouldn't recommend ebay for bonsai trees, no matter what the persons rep is. I actually never use Ebay, only recently its apparently gotten a lot better and starting to earn my trust a bit more. Their buyers protection is unbelievably good for the buyer.. unfair almost. Any sort of unhappiness with whats bought and you get refund, keep the item. Its unfair on sellers really.


I love the LOTR series, so I wanna get through all the books :). But thank you for the suggestion. Bonsai just simply took over for now. If i go in to something, I go in 100% and do as much research as possible. Ever since I joined this site, I've not stopped asking questions, commenting and annoying people like Sorce and Rockm :p

No need to get defensive. I just listed those things because that is what I have learned over a long time doing bonsai. Take it or leave it.

I went the bonsai tool set route when I first started out. I wound up replacing those cheaper tools after they'd broken or produced uneven results on some of my trees. I replaced them over time with better tools that I learned I actually needed as I gained hands on experience.

I have three or four tools that I use reliably and continuously--concave cutter, medium shears, wire cutter and root hook. (BTW, the three pronged root hook can mangle roots pretty badly if used aggressively. The single root hook is better for untangling roots and repotting, at least in my experience).


Yeah, money is tight. Replacing tools is expensive. Buying quality up front saves money.
 

rockm

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@Connor: if you feel like taking a break from bonsai lit and don't want to go back to tolkien try Steven Erickson the Malazan book of the fallen. That series rocks. I just finished J Naka's Bonsai Techniques I and it's absolutely worth the money. Great piece of work.
@rockm thanks for the tips. Sadly the bonsai show option is out of the question. There really aren't any in a 500 Km radius :(. Do you have any experience with Ryuga tools? saw the name pop a lot on the internet.

Ryuga is a brand sold by YM Group in China, which says it is a "very big manufacturing group in China producing premium quality garden tools under OEM for Japan market."

They say they build to "Japanese Standards" and have strict quality control.

This is something of a trend. The Chinese are producing some high end products for the Japanese market these days, including tools and bonsai pots. I have some of the high-end Chinese bonsai pots. Nice and some are better than what's coming out of Japan these days. However, over time, I've noticed that the Chinese pots develop issues like leaching, loss of overglazing in patches and can be more easily chipped than comparable Japanese-made. To me that indicates the Chinese are catching on, but are still getting up to speed on some stuff. Don't know if that translates to tools or no.

Ryuga looks pretty good, although the prices I've seen on U.S. bonsai sites is in line with medium-grade quality Japanese tools. $54 for a concave cutter on Wee Tree. Joshua Roth (a tool reseller here in the U.S.) also carries the line.

I don't have Ryuga, but I'd bet they're pretty decent for the money.

http://ryugabonsaitools.blogspot.com/p/about-ryuga-bonsai-tools.html
 

Mihai

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Let's all play nice gentlemen :). No need for pecker measuring up in here :). The real question after reading your answers: so as a matter of fact you guys only normally use a few 2/3/4/5 tools on a daily basis... those are the staple and everything else is just frosting... right?
 

rockm

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Let's all play nice gentlemen :). No need for pecker measuring up in here :). The real question after reading your answers: so as a matter of fact you guys only normally use a few 2/3/4/5 tools on a daily basis... those are the staple and everything else is just frosting... right?
Yes. Investing in more than two or three tools up front isn't really worth the money.

A good concave cutter as a first tool is a great investment. $50 will get you a solid medium-sized concave cutter. "Regular" tools like scissors, hardware store wire cutters, Chinese restaurant chopsticks (as a root hook) etc. can be used instead of buying those things right away. Knob cutters, two sets of shears, trunk splitters, root scissors, jin pliers etc are frosting, really. They make jobs easier, but aren't critical.
 
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