Beginners' Bonsai Rack

[Unagi]

Recently I watched one of @leatherback's videos (you are truely a fantastic creator, thank you for making the videos ) where he said that you will have a tons of cuttings on the side once you start to have a little bigger collection.

I, and probably other beginners as well, would love to have many different spicies to see what sticks, but trying to get them one by one, especially if you dont know if you will like the trees, can be expensive.

Yesterday, on an auction site, I run into someone who sells a rack with many different bonsai cuttings / "pre-bonsai".



They are mostly pruning waste, but they are otherwise valuable Bonsai spicies.

Why there are not more offerings like that? It seems to be a win win for everyone.

P.s. I made the first licit, but it will finish only next week. Although, I was not originally interested in many of the offered spicies, that is the point of buying them this way. I hope I will win it, and will find other ones like this.

 

[WIlliam_Butler_Yeets]

it seems cool, although personally I would be interested in a package that has older plants, even if there are fewer of them

 

[TrevorLarsen]

Very cool. Defiantly a very long term project, but the journey is the fun part to me the destination is second. If that was avalible at a store near me I would for sure buy it.

 

[leatherback]

Why there are not more offerings like that?

Well.. It is common knowledge one cannot grow bonsai from cuttings or seed

 

[eplov90]

It's a cool offering. @Unagi. I'm sure you will be having fun with those over many years!

That being said, I actually think the best thing that I did as a complete beginner(I'd say I am still a beginner) was to decide at the end of the first year to only work on one species, Japanese Maples. I got rid of the standard starter junipers, larches and chinese elms I had immediately picked up along with my first maple, and started adding more JMs. My personal goal was to progress towards the trees that inspired me to start bonsai, Kokufu maples, and I felt like couldn't learn or experiment as much when working with only 1/2 trees of a single species. After 3 years I now have 25+ JMs and still feel like I am scratching the surface of knowledge but have enough of a base where I feel comfortable adding Tridents and maybe will add other deciduous trees in the coming years.

The mixed platter type of deal I think is great if your goal is to learn about many trees, have a diverse collection of trees and figure out what you like but may not be for everyone.

 

[pandacular]

Why there are not more offerings like that? It seems to be a win win for everyone.

Around here, I usually see this sort of thing given as gifts at club meetings. Maybe not a lot of a variety of species, but it’s very common for someone to bring in, say, 50 rooted cuttings and hand them out.

 

[Gabler]

Around here, I usually see this sort of thing given as gifts at club meetings. Maybe not a lot of a variety of species, but it’s very common for someone to bring in, say, 50 rooted cuttings and hand them out.

I've added a couple of species to my garden by picking up cuttings off the ground at club workshop events. It's also easy to find seeds and seedlings at public parks, parking lots, etc. For species seldom planted along streets and in parks, you can always order a pack of seeds online. As a result, there's not much demand for young seedlings and rooted cuttings. Those of us who are cheap enough to start bonsai from cuttings are cheap enough to look for free seedlings.