Need a little help

[Adair M]

wow great tree

BonsaiNut can be a great resource. Before asking a question, read thru the archives. You can read prior posts, and usually find useful threads. You will also begin to learn which posters provide meaningful content.

Bonsai is a tricky hobby to learn. There are so many misconceptions and myths about how it’s done, it’s hard to sort through all the “information” and glean the nuggets of good practices out of the piles of rubbish.

Beware of anyone who says stuff like, “I’m a beginner, too, but what I would do is...”. Just ignore it. He might actually be correct, but it would be just by luck, and not by experience. You don’t need someone conjecturing about how things are done.

The best information comes from guys who have “been there, done that”, and will show you with pictures of their trees of what, when, where, and how it was done.

 

[AppleBonsai]

BonsaiNut can be a great resource. Before asking a question, read thru the archives. You can read prior posts, and usually find useful threads. You will also begin to learn which posters provide meaningful content.

Bonsai is a tricky hobby to learn. There are so many misconceptions and myths about how it’s done, it’s hard to sort through all the “information” and glean the nuggets of good practices out of the piles of rubbish.

Beware of anyone who says stuff like, “I’m a beginner, too, but what I would do is...”. Just ignore it. He might actually be correct, but it would be just by luck, and not by experience. You don’t need someone conjecturing about how things are done.

The best information comes from guys who have “been there, done that”, and will show you with pictures of their trees of what, when, where, and how it was done.

I actually agree with this- all of it. It's seems there are many here that just want to attack... I speak with my own experience and if not I will say that "I've had no experience, but my friends take X approach and it's quite successful"... and not that years are the only thing that matters, but I've got 18 years in the hobby- I've killed enough trees to learn the hard way too! I try to avoid spraying out dictated knowledge without testing it myself- usually many times before I am comfortable commenting or giving advice. People get on their high horse to be the first to say others are wrong. It's not a BNut only thing, it's an internet thing and a people thing and not being able to perceive things like intent. I to have had my words taken the wrong way and when I read it over I still can't always see how it could be read in the way someone took offense. There are many ways to skin a cat- and they are super delicious too! Seriously, as bonsai goes there are many ways to do the same thing with varying degrees of success dependent on the thousands of variables involved. One of my favorite physics teachers used to say "It's not what you don't know- it's what you DO know that ain't so." And this is why I revere the experience and my own experimentation with my own variables with water, my own microclimates, the elevation of the particular container from the ground, the material of the table it sits, etc, etc, etc. I guess I should start sharing more pictures though!

 

[M. Frary]

I only use a "drainage layer" of large aggregate in larger landscape pots so i dont waste a ton of better bonsai soil

I fill them with sand.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Beware of anyone who says stuff like, “I’m a beginner, too, but what I would do is...”. Just ignore it. He might actually be correct, but it would be just by luck, and not by experience. You don’t need someone conjecturing about how things are done.

The best information comes from guys who have “been there, done that”, and will show you with pictures of their trees of what, when, where, and how it was done.

Amen.