[Bonsai Beginner's weekly thread - 2026 week 41]

As promised, the one which deserves it's own post.

It's a Shimpaku Juniper, and let me tell you the pictures don't do justice to the first bend. It drops and runs almost flat before the apex picks up, and the live vein runs through the deadwood the whole length of it.

2nd picture for a closeup, as someone relatively new and exploring this was a stunning piece of art, the meticulous effort into making that bend and one can tell it wasn't done in a night - it would have been multiple attempts of bending it little by little as to not break the trunk. I stood there for a while soaking in the bend, the wiring, and the shape of the tree.

Just beautiful.

Ended up doing some hard chops on this awhile back. The lower branches are starting to back bud

Eventually I will air layer the top left but that's next season probably

I was really nervous about what to expect going to my first bonsai club meeting but I had a really good experience. I got to talk to other people and someone wired my tree while showing me how to wire trees. Then I let someone borrow my raffia to fix the broken branch on their tree.

It was a lot of fun and I'm excited to go to the next meeting. They said I'm taking good care of my tree and they look healthy so I'm proud of myself.

I don’t have a before photo on hand, but I can tell you it was only a few roots when I got this tree in the mail lol. It was an import that I got in June.

Anyways, I pulled it from its pot only because I had noticed the leftover water in the drip tray was pretty stinky. Smelled like death. But I found no mushy roots, no decay, just a vigorous and healthy root system, and the smell? Well it smelled healthy, like roots and earth.

I think the foul smell is because of all of the decaying ladybug corpses that are currently mixed in there, they have all started to grow mold and look gross. I had bought a couple thousand ladybugs a few weeks ago to annihilate an aphid infestation, which they absolutely did. But as expected, a lot of them were nearing the end of their lifecycle, so this tree became their gravesite.

I cleaned up the top soil a bit and just put it back in its pot. Maybe next summer I will prune the rootball. I think it’s fine for now.

Thoughts?

First and foremost, I hope I’m not breaking any rules. I’m trying my best.

Also a disclaimer: I tried to post this yesterday on Bonsai Nut but I feel the site is a bit buggy since my post appears and disappears from my profile, while also not having been approved yet. I suppose I’m too new there to not be considered a threat.

Hi everyone, happy to be a newcomer to this really cool hobby. I started with Bonsai this year around April (northern hemisphere) and have now gathered many different trees and have many different projects going on. I’ve definitely made many mistakes and have probably caused a tree or two to found themselves in a state which isn’t compatible with life. Most of them do look promising, so I hope I can at some point share something I can be proud of.

But to the point of this post: Yesterday I found a specimen of a particular cultivar of Ginkgo, called Colonnare Maris. I had seen this particular tree many times this year already at the garden section of a hardware store. With me being a noob and not wanting to spend much on a tree I might irreparably harm, I decided to let it be. Yesterday however, I saw that it was 50% off and it also looked so beautiful in yellow that I finally took it home.

By now I’ve seen plenty of different styles of Bonsai, and due to the nature of this specific cultivar, I was very excited to try training this tree into a Kabudachi. Frankly it already looks like many trunks fused together at the base, so I figured this would be a great new project for me to start.

I now turn to you more knowledgeable people for some enlightenment as to how I might choose to proceed next.

My plan is to make sure that the tree is strong and healthy when spring arrives, since I plan on doing some air layering on it. I honestly cannot bring myself to cut and discard ginkgo branches as though they didn’t need ages to get to this size.

Also, I want to get the tree into a smaller pot than the one it’s in right now at some point. I’m not a huge guy and while I can move it around a bit, I would rather not have to do it if it weighs half of me.

My thinking was that I could use some guy wire through winter to start shaping the multiple trunks to point outwards (already have the wire in place), all while keeping the tree in its current pot in a wind-protected area of the garden, but my partner made a good point about maybe putting it in the ground to protect the roots in winter. That would thwart my idea of the guy wire, though, since I have no other anchors but the rim of the pot itself. He then suggested I put the whole pot in the ground, which sounds feasible to me, although I would probably drill a couple more drainage holes to be safe.

Is there anything that would deem the plan less than optimal? I would then repot as early as possible in the spring (maybe late winter?) so that the tree has enough time to grow and harden leaves before I start air layering.

As for the main tree itself, I would keep it relatively compact after the air layers have been removed and wouldn’t do any drastic wiring or pruning during the growing season in order not to stress it too much.

Does my plan sound sensible or do you think I should operate differently? I’m open to suggestions and ideas.

Thanks a lot 

PS: cat pictures as payment. Hope they are enough :)

Can't believe it happened to me! All the way in the back of a local garden center, tangled in some larger trees. Who knows how long it was there. They were having a half off sale and a lot of old scraggly plants, really unhealthy looking. Hard to believe this beauty was among them. My guess is it was passed over in favor of larger beeches over time.

Not sure what the plan is yet but I will most likely just reduce it when spring comes and see how I feel about chopping the trunk high up. Absolutely love the smooth bark and stature. It's a little over 4' tall overall.

After and before. I was really thinking this was an impossible bit of material to work on. It seemed like it would just be a mound. But the sucker bent well without any damage and I'm honestly floored with the design. A twin trunk juniper! I really couldn't be more happy. My thinking is that the branch stub at the base will represent the front. Hard to tell exactly from the photo but I went with mimicing the angle/movement for the dominant trunk and the branch at the bottom.

And yes not to worry, he was put in a training pot and reduced the first week of August. Super healthy root system. The roots are happy currently and I didn't take much off today while wiring. It started back buding a couple weeks ago so I'm convinced it will be just fine.

This tree was air layered then let free to regain vigour. It was then defoliated to work on the wiring.

It's out of my price range but it's neat for sure

I work landscaping and will occasionally pull struggling shrubs from clients who no longer want them to give them a second life as bonsai. This firebush was completely dried out and on its last leg when I took it from one of the restaurants that I service (2nd pic is it just a few weeks ago, after I’d revived it). I’m still incredibly new to bonsai but I’m pretty proud of this one!

Washington, DC - Newbie

Strolling through the local home improvement store i came across this Juniper Parsoni that had a pretty thick trunk and good movement. I decided to give it a go. I have been working on this over a few days but would appreciate any tips or pointers based on the group's experience.

One photo was after cleaning up a bunch of branches and the second is closing in on the final styling. A little unsure of what i should do with the apex and if i should leave it long to keep growing or if i should cut it down now. Also happy to get ideas on potting angle. Please let me know what you think!

u/happytrees2be and I are doing a presentation on oak bonsai for our club this Saturday. Reply with a pic of your oak bonsai and I'll include a link to this thread in our presentation.

My seed-grown Adenium, Glory. I've been developing her into a literati–cascade-style specimen, focusing on the exposed caudex and long, sweeping branches. She has a caudex circumference of approximately 22 inches and produces prolific, double pink blooms.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the branch structure and overall composition, particularly how the silhouette could develop as the tree matures.

Honestly those two are my only bluebell in stock, but I gotta release it for a good deal. Finished cutting all the leafs in one sitting. Took me a whole 3 hours to finish it. With a little help of caffeine and nicotine.

See a lot of people posting Portulacaria Afra cuttings, and consider myself a broader bonsai beginner… but as far as Ports here is my 2 cents and pics (Portulacaria Afra, both defoliated this spring and fall cuttings shown, 5/8 years in training): 1) grow as much as possible every year and trim 95% every year, or you will never get a nebari / thick trunk / proper branch reduction 2) extremely fast draining soil / maximum fertilizer / maximum sun / daily watering if soil + sun means daily soil drying (don’t rot them, #1 way they die), 3) CUT AND GROW to shape… cut back hard / defoliate and keep them healthy and they will sprout everywhere you could possibly want a branch. Wire only works on long established branches (as seen in #1) and not with wrapping around the branches, only year+ or longer application pulling strong branches into position, stop wasting your time wiring any port branch that isn’t fully woody. Just my two cents, not a lot of port lovers here so sharing what works for me.

Shine on

Finished styling this bad boy today with Zuma Fleischmann of Bonsai West. I got it in early May, let it grow all summer, wired it to the tips, and then formed the pads and set them, and Zuma built the apex. Needs a year or so to fill out some thinner spots, but I am very happy with it. She’s about 40” overall. About 30 years old with great movement and deadwood.

I/wehave about 32 hours into it, inlcuding three 1-on-1 sessions with Zuma where he watched me like a hawk. He tackled the apex today while I watched, but the wiring was mine, forming the pads, and setting most of them. His manner of i instruction was to wire a pad and then have me do the rest Same for setting them

I’m a book collector, and my advice to newbies is always to buy fewer books of better quality. same here, which I finally acted on: start with excellent material.

As I was leaving, Zuma was showing me some great starter material… On to the next one!

It's been a couple years since I brought in my shohin Kingsville Boxwood. I purchased this tree about 15ish years ago from a guy in San Jose who was moving to europe. The foliage was a solid helmet of green, that I opened up and have to constantly keep at. The trunk doesn't thicken at all but it grows lots of leaves.

It's in a nice glazed pot from Taiko Earth. The stand is by Ole Lausten and the accent is a fern in one of my RCP pots.

I’ve been doing bonsai for a few years now and I wanted to start selling some pieces. Here I have a thuja twin trunk and an old gold juniper. Both were nursery stock I’ve been training a couple years now. Just curious what price points I should be starting at when selling pieces like these. I am located in California if that helps at all and I was thinking of selling them on Facebook marketplace. Any tips or information would be appreciated as well.