Jen7520
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What to do with pre-bonsai from some one completely new

Hi All, I am new to this site and this forum. I hope that I am doing this right. I have some questions regarding the repotting of Bonsai. I bought these 2 Bonsai at Wal-Mart. (I know,not the best place to buy this type of plant from but as I am new to Bonsai I do not want to practice and fail on a plant that cost a whole lot of money. If I kill one of these little guys in my journey, it was $15. I can live with that) I believe these plants to be in a "pre-bonsai" state. I say this because, though it looks as if they have had some wire training, the pots that they are in are to deep and they are in a nursery type soil, not a Bonsai mix. The first thing I did when bringing these guys home was to remove the glued on moss and pebbles from the top and water thoroughly. I also know that once I put these jewels into Bonsai soil the thickness of the trunks are pretty much set in stone. I know that a year in the ground/large pot (I do think that means larger than what these guys are in) can equal up to 2 years growth in a Bonsai pot/soil mix and I really want to develop the nebari before moving them. (understanding that the current "top" of the tree's root base will not be the "top", but in fact higher than the bonsai top once root reduction as happened......Lord I hope that made sense) So the question is..... what should I be doing with these guys? Do they need to go into Bonsai mix/pot or should I just leave them be for a year or two to develop the trunk girth? And if I am leaving them in the pots they are now in, what does that mean for watering? I currently have bamboo sticks in the soil to measure moisture level but after 4 days they are still pretty wet and I would hazard that only the top 1/2 inch of the soil has begun to dry.
Any and all advice is welcome
Attachments
Fukien Tea.jpg
Juniper.jpg

imafan26
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Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

The first plant is a fukien tea. It is a weed in my yard but makes a good bonsai. It is more tolerant of a range of light conditions. I am not fond of the mall sai shape. It is not natural but it does appeal to many people.

The second plant you have is a juniper. As far as training goes the juniper is easier to wire and train. The one you have is easiest trained as a cascade. I don't like the moss and decorative pebbles very much. It is only for aesthetics and if it is glued on it is not good for the plants. The pot is really big so it has probably not been root trained. Junipers are not indoor plants. They need to be outdoors. They are very tolerant of cold but intolerant of low light.

The best thing to do if you seriously want to get into bonsai is to find out where the local bonsai society meets. Most bonsai societies sell or know where to get the training wire and tools and at least here they have a fundraiser a year that features beginner plants. If you bring your plant to meetings, you will be able to get help in training it.

Jen7520
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Joined: Thu Feb 15, 2018 1:09 pm

Thank you for the reply :) Yep I knew that they were a tea and a juniper and that the juniper would be finding a forever home outside. The only reason I have it sitting on a cool window sill right now is cause I am not sure what conditions it is coming from and it is still a bit cold here. (Which would normally be OK for the Juniper unless it has been grown in a controlled environment/greenhouse setting. So at the moment, it is going outside during the day and coming inside for the super cold nights. (warmer weather moving in here though so I should be able to leave it outside soon)
I also am not a fan of the training that has be done on the tea tree and am hoping that I can somewhat change the direction of that growth as time continues and I do want to train the juniper in a semi cascade style.
My biggest/most immediate concern was the soil (it IS soil, almost potting mix) and the watering. Don't want to drown the poor guys and I did remove the pebbles and moss. I mean, I guess I understand why they glue them on for transport purposes but I also know that it prevents air circulation at the very least and at the very worst prevents the soil drying out quickly enough thereby encouraging root rot.
I do want to eventually get into training the roots for a Bonsai pot but I don't want to "get too excited" and inhibit trunk growth as I would like both of these to be a bit thicker. I am also want to get an elm and a ficus (not a big fan on the ginseng ficus due to the bulbous roots but could see working with a different type of ficus. Really like the willow leaf ficus or bay fig. The Benjamin is OK but not my favorite) Then there is the potential of an umbrella tree forest type bonsai that I really like as well.
My daughter got me a Bonsai kit for Christmas that came with seeds for Japanese Black Pine, Japanese Wisteria and Dawn Redwood but I know that, even if I manage to get them to sprout and grow, it will be at least 5 years before I can really start training them. They will be in LARGE nursery pots as opposed to in the ground since we plan on moving in the next 2 years or so.
The point of this journey is that I love the look of Bonsai but have always been to afraid to try my hand at it, now with the gift from my daughter I have the "excuse" to start. Knowing that Bonsai is a "hobby" that will span decades and that often times there won't be much to do with my trees, I will need more than one to avoid boredom with my newest planting obsession.

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rainbowgardener
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It sounds like you have done some homework and have an idea of what you are doing. I appreciate that, since many people write in here who have no idea.

"The first thing to remember is: Trunks will only fatten up when the plant gets a lot of growth. Bonsai trees in small pots where we effectively limit the growth will not show a lot of growth in trunk thickness. Growing trunks mean growing your tree. This is one of the main reasons why –as a rule of thumb- serious Bonsai growers will start off by worrying about the Nebari and trunk, before growing a canopy. Effectively, you start building a tree by creating a good root structure, then a good trunk and then the branch structure." https://www.bonsaiempire.com/blog/bonsai-trunk-creation

That is a nice article about bonsai development.

So I think that tells you that if you want to end up with an artistic bonsai (as opposed to the mass produced mallsai you now have), you need to put them in big pots for awhile, not in bonsai soil.

While you are sitting around waiting for your trees to grow trunks, keep reading!! :D

There's lots of good bonsai info here, including: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=1479

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/bonsai/

Keep us posted how your trees progress! :)

imafan26
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Posts: 13962
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Starter plants for bonsai aren't usually even in a nice pot. We grow them out in a nursery pot or dig them up if they are a mature specimen and start root pruning in gradually smaller pots. Right now I am working on training my bougainvillea. It is over 10 years old. I dug it out of my yard and it did not die, so I put it in a pot and started to cut it down. I took it to one of my friends in the bonsai society so he can give me advice on how to cut it back. It has a nice shape but he said the branches were out of proportion. This plant was cut down frequently since it puts out 20 ft canes. I bring it back for the meetings so I can get advice on the next steps. I have down easy bonsai before junipers, jade, geometry tree, and ficus. I have failed with kinsu orange and this is my first try at a bougainvillea which can be tricky to work with since it is not the easiest plant to work with the roots and it puts out long shoots that become brittle fast so I have to learn how to do the topwork. It is in a training pot, not a bonsai pot. I just reduced the root to get it into the pot.

It does sound like you have done your homework. I would start with the easy plants plants before moving on to more challenging ones. If you want to do the chinese elm. I would not buy a bonsai, but a starter and just grow it out for a couple of years to acclimate and figure out where it fits in your home. If you move to a very different environment, all of the plants will need to be reacclimated. It takes time to figure it out what conditions it needs and if you kill a starter it is less painful than a bonsai or even an expensive mall sai.

Jen7520
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Joined: Thu Feb 15, 2018 1:09 pm

Thank you all for your replies. I have done a lot of research (love bonsaiempire's FAQ/Info section) One of things terms used in your replies that I had NOT heard was "mall sai". So I googled it ( I love google too lol) and found a very interesting article on how to rescue a mall sai and it is exactly what I was looking for! I knew that the pots/conditions these trees were in were going to cause problems. This article gave me really really great ideas on how to ensure that these trees don't die on me in the next 3-6 months. Now I am excited about what to do with these guys and can't wait to get started. And I know now not to bother buying "bonsai" from places like Wal-Mart/Home Depot/Grocery stores. (or any of the million other places you can buy something that "kinda" looks like a bonsai but is almost guaranteed to die without some major rehab)

The article is located at
https://www.instructables.com/id/Bonsai- ... g-Mallsai/

Thank you thank you :-()



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