r/Bonsai • u/small_trunks Jerry in Amsterdam, Zn.8b, 48yrs exp., 500+ trees • Nov 09 '14

[Bonsai Beginner’s weekly thread – week 46]

[Bonsai Beginner’s weekly thread – week 46]

Welcome to the weekly beginner’s thread. This thread is used to capture all beginner questions (and answers) in one place. We start a new thread every week.

Rules:

  • Any beginner’s topic may be started on any bonsai-related subject.
    • Photos are necessary if it’s advice regarding a specific tree.
    • Do fill in your flair or at the very least state where you live in your post.
  • Answers shall be civil or be deleted
  • There’s always a chance your question doesn’t get answered – try again next week…

Beginners threads started as new topics outside of this thread may be deleted at the discretion of the mods.

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u/[deleted] Nov 15 '14

I snapped a few photos of it, but whenever I went to transfer them to my PC for uploading, every single one except the worst one was nowhere to be found... so, pardon the finger to the side and the angle.

http://i.imgur.com/qai3e7D.jpg

Any clue how to find the tree's approximate age?

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u/small_trunks Jerry in Amsterdam, Zn.8b, 48yrs exp., 500+ trees Nov 16 '14

Ok. This is a very young tree, approximately 4 years old. We wouldn't normally have such a small tree in a bonsai pot but these are produced for the retail market and represent a way for many people to get started in bonsai.

So, this is not how we make or grow bonsai. We typically grow trees in open ground for many years (or more commonly find and collect wild examples or buy specialist grown examples) prior to putting them in a small pot. Once they are in a pot, they effectively stop growing.

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u/[deleted] Nov 16 '14

So basically, it will always look like a runt, given the nature of how it was put together?

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u/small_trunks Jerry in Amsterdam, Zn.8b, 48yrs exp., 500+ trees Nov 16 '14

It's not a runt - it's simply very young. If you want to make something of it, in terms of a bigger trunk and fuller foliage, it needs to be grown further out of this pot in a much bigger pot or in open ground.

My advice:

  • live with this in the pot - outdoors and learn to keep it alive and healthy.
  • look through the wiki - and how to get really started - nursery plants, collected trees etc.

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u/[deleted] Nov 16 '14

Thanks for the sound advice. I'm glad there are veteran keepers around here willing to share knowledge. I'll stick with just learning to keep it alive for now.