Is anyone here interested in starting with bonsai, already has some knowledge or are you curious about it and just want to lurk?
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What I always hear from experts is that you should start by making, I’m not saying you shouldn’t let some seeds grow, but if you only do that you are going to start practicing bonsai technics in 6-7 years, you are probably going to fail and the tree is going to die (get used to killing a couple trees in the process) and you are going to learn very little in a lot of time. You should buy some sort of pine tree and start practicing a specific style (for a pine tree I would recommend you a moyogi or chokkan, they are also easy for beginners in contrast with something like takozukuri or fukinigashi).
Also buying a tree that is already a bonsai with a few years is a nice experience since you can watch it and learn from it, you also get to do some annual trimming and so on, and it might give you the impulse to start practising. Just be aware that you probably are going to kill it.
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Yeah, that’s exactly what most people recommend, go to a nursery and buy a tree which a bit big but not too much and try and find one that has a nice shape for the style you are going to doing. All trees can be transformed into a bonsai, so yeah, nuresry trees are bonsai trees most of the time!
I’ll try and search a good pine for beginners and also a website that goes through the very basics of style in general so you know more or less what to do. Please update if you do some progress!
Here is a really nice and little list of the very basics to keep in mind when doing bonsai: https://www.evergreengardenworks.com/rules.htm
Also, indoor bonsai most of time is totally totally not a good idea and anyway they will never grow as faster, bigger and more beautiful as outdoor ones.
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Great! I heard that cold helps at some point, too, although I’m not sure when or what it does.
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I am! Actually, I am planning on doing it on a chili plant. We’ll see how it will turn out!
Be aware that even though you can make bonsai with non-trees, they need to be perennial, otherwise you don’t have enough time for them to grow and become a bonsai. This is why you can’t make a cannabis bonsai, lol.
Oh yes. Chilies are perennial even though the most common species is called Annuum. But we’ll see how it turns out!
Great! Please update a photo once you have some progress, I would love to see it!
sudden curiosity, is bonsai cultivation basically extended exposure to the blue spectrum and training, or is it something else completely different?
Is blue spectrum a specific kind of light? But anyway, there are a couple of things to keep in mind when considering what a bonsai is. First of all you prune the roots in a way that favours the reduction of the size, you prune the leaves to make them smaller, and then there’s the aesthetic part of it. So yeah, it is not so much the exposure to the light.
yeah, i was referring to elector-magnetic radiation with the wavelength of ~400-500 nm, typically referred to as blue light, extended exposure to which of plants will produce short and and compact plants, which is the reason why i thought that it might be used when growing bonsai
do you have any beginner resources in mind that you could link to start growing bonsai?
The reduced size is mainly achieved by removing roots and pruning, and also the fact that you limit the growth’s size by having it in a small pot. Maybe light affects, too, and, I am unaware.
I am going to look for some tomorrow, I watched a youtuber when I began but he speaks Spanish, so I will try to find something in English.
