I am thinking of buying a bonsai tree from amazon and i wanted to know what kind i should get for a beginner and how much attention it would need and any equipment i would need to care for it
Bonsai trees are trees. They grow out of doors best, situated always in same location. As far as care, a well weathered bonsai is attained through years of patient attention. They appear best after the gardener has developed his own wrinkles.
Bonsai's are so zen. I adore them. My favorite indoor varieties are Flowering Lavender and Baby Jade, but if you like more of that knotty twisted trunk look I suggest the Chinese Elm. They require very little attention and no tools ~ finger pruning is a great method for shaping your tree, just pinch of new growth.
DONT buy a 'bonsai' tree from an online store. it is NOT a bonsai tree. bonsai is not a tree, it is an artform. 99% of the 'bonsai' trees you see for sale are just juniper clippings with rocks glued to the base. they choose juniper because the tree will still look alive after having been dead for a month. if you really want a bonsai tree, you should try to grow one yourself. it's really easy. here's how to spend half what you would on amazon and get a more rewarding experience: buy a semi-shallow pot that isn't taller than it is wide and go to a nursery and check out the small shrubs. you can use mostly any tree used for hedges like chinese juniper, boxwood, cedar, larch, holly, pine, some other small fruit bearing trees. pick out a tree that looks small, squat, has good branches, is healthy, etc. basically you want to turn this shrub into a bonsai tree. now go and buy a small coil of wire - the weight should depend on how big your tree is. what you want to do is trim the tree until you get an overall shape, then lightly wrap the branches with the wire and gently move them to the position you want them in. if your tree is especially healthy, you can probably remove the tree from it's original pot and remove 1/3 to 1/2 of the rootball (preferrably the bottom half) so that it fits into the small bonsai pot. the bonsai pot should have two holes in the bottom so that you can tie the roots down into the pot and fill with soil. bonsai take years to grow and it can be very rewarding. once you get good, you can go into the wilderness and collect your own trees. the japanese call this 'yamadori' and it's my favorite type of bonsai.
I wonder if there are any beneficial or medicinal parasitic or symbiotic mushrooms one could innoculate the pot's with? It would be like having your own Smurf village!
You can certainly cultivate mushrooms in the substrate regardless of whether they are mychorizal with the tree.
True, but would be cool to get a crop of Chantarelles or Fly Agaric's going ontop of the Entertainment stand. :2thumbsup:
Do they think chanterelle or fly agaric is preferable to psilocybe sp. for decorating their village? If so, I have a problem with their bourgeois attitude.
And wtf is that about anyway? I'm not disputiong your approach to cultivation and care of them by any means, merely expanding the window of diversity in a hobby which requires a great deal of patience and skill. I hope you're not simply being a Luddite about it because I generally respect your posts and opinions..
i was just joking around bro. adding mushrooms and stuff like that would detract from the artform in my opinion. i have multiple small complimentary pots with no trees in them, just small bits of moss and small ferns for display purpose, and i can see how this could be neat if done with fungus, but it's just not within the realm of the artform. the chinese artform 'pen-jing' has room for creative stuff like that, but not bonsai.
Fair enough, I can certainly appreciate a firm opinion for one's own approach. :cheers2: I'm just kind of interested in it as the idea of extending the artform, considering the varieties of effects on growth and such by being choosy about what myco-organisms one allows in the pot. Keep a batch of spawn in the fridge and the hydrogen peroxide on hand to wipe out anything and everything in there from time to time,,, That's just what my mind does with anything it crosses I guess.
