Good news!! I dont have to work!!!! I rarely get mandatory overtime called off, but the gods have granted me this and I get to go tomorrow and meet him with the club I am joining!!!! Thanks for the video... I'm more excited then ever now.

Blayd wrote: Good news!! I dont have to work!!!! I rarely get mandatory overtime called off, but the gods have granted me this and I get to go tomorrow and meet him with the club I am joining!!!! Thanks for the video... I'm more excited then ever now.

I'm sure you'll enjoy it. BTW you're never too old. You just need to acquire more mature material
Great to see your enthusiasm!

Yes. I've been a novice for quite a few years. My failures have been a learning experience, and theres no doubt, education, is by far the first and most important step, in this endeavor, I've been "educating" myself since my fathers passing, to see what lured him to the art. I've learned, there are admirers of bonsai, and practitioners. It took some serious time to get to a place in my life where I wanted to be a practitioner of the art, as well as an admirer. And seeking out those who have the experience, failures, and success's to help me move forward, and possibly make my young trees a work for others to forward is really quite exciting., I have about 15 very young trees, of varying species, that will never be bonsai, at least in my hands at my age, But I have learned along the way, and now realize, that if I wish to see any kind of vision brought to fruition, I will have to find more mature raw material, or as my young trees are, give better raw material, to the next gen of artists. Theres no substitute for a mentor, education, or at the very least, experience and advice, combined with education to turn life, into an art of expression. It's exciting to think about what I can learn, practice, and try, to possibly become a canvas for somebody else 30 years from now. OK. we are experiencing a serious change in weather here, from 77°F ( 25°C ) to 22° ( -5.5C ) for the next week or so. So I have trees to move. Thanks again all. and hope this is a long and interesting journey.

G'day all from Sunny (actually its torrential rain atm) Australia

So I've been interested in Bonsai since I was 6-8yrs and would watch Shredder from the TMNT muse about his diabolical plans for the turtles while caring for his bonsai. The image has always stuck inside my head (more romantically lol) and have thought from that point onwards, that caring for Bonsai is pretty badass!!
My actual time with bonsai is less than a year, fearing I wasn't stable enough in my goals to properly nurture Bonsai, but as things have now significantly changed, I'm thoroughly enjoying the experience and happily putting in place what I've learnt so far.

Im a God-fearing, Specialty Barista, stoked surfing-lover of bonsai and hope to really develop my skills as a hobby.
I look forward to the caring and nurturing of Bonsai along its creative journey and hope to pass on what I learn to my future children one day

It's a pleasure to make everyone's acquaintance in the community of Bonsai.
Below is my first little dude affectionately named 'Whisky'!

Had to make a quick update to my intro, and as advice to others that are new to the art of bonsai... ask questions of those that know.
For example, my "serissa" that I mentioned in my original post, is not. It was losing leaves so I asked my local bonsai club (which I belong to) what to do. Besides "move it outside" they also asked me to upload a photo. A few immediately said "not a serissa, it's a jade-variegated". Yeah, I trusted how it was labeled when my wife bought it for me, and just went with it. Regardless, I did an emergency re-pot (getting rid of all organic component of soil) in pumice and akadama, kept it outside, and now it is flourishing with new growth everywhere. Saved it from potential root rot by probably a week at most.
So plain and simple, if a plant is not doing what you think it should be doing, ask!!

Now I have TWO jades (one standard, and one variegated), NO serissa's, and my very young ficus I forgot to mention originally that are all being trained. Since then I've acquired: hinoki cypress, mugo pine, japanese maple, azalea (2), propagated 5 weeping willows, and collected a mystery maple from my yard. My spring re-potting will be busy!

Hello,
My name is Travis and I am from harrisonville, Missouri. I have been studying bonsai for a few years, I got my inspiration from a juniper I seen in colorado and have been in love ever since. I joined a local Society and have been reading a lot on bonsai. I have a few trees and plan to grow my numbers bigger.

I'm Lisa from Independence, MO and I'm veey new to bonsai. I've been reading all about them and admiring their beauty and I just bought my first plants. Don't laugh but I picked them up at Wal-Mart garden center. I figured since I'm a rank beginner I should start off learning on plants that I didn't pay a ton for so at least if (when) I screw up I won't be out a huge investment. I have a coworker who has been growing bonsai from seeds for many years so at least I have someone I can turn to for help. I want to get the hang of caring for them before I buy one of his "babies" because of feel terrible if I took something he's nurtured for several years and killed it. So anyway I'm going to give them some time to acclimate to a new location before I try and mess with them any, other than water and feeding anyway but I'm sure I'll have questions for you all. I'll share pictures of them later when I get home from work. I couldn't decide which I liked better so I bought both - sad thing is Wal-Mart labels everything as indoor bonsai but not what type of plant so i need to identify them. Pretty sure one is a fukien tea tree but the other one is a mystery as of yet. Thought it was chinese elm but I'm starting to think its a type of ficus. Both of them have tiny white flowers but leaves and bark are totally different so my first task will be identification

Hello Lisa welcome to the forum. I am also from Missouri and we have a bonsai society that meets up at loos park. We have a mini exhibit on July 22 that's open to the public, if your interested on becoming a member and see what we got going on I welcome you to come out. We also have master weekends were a pro comes and dose a demo and a workshop.

Howdy folks~ My name is Kay, i'm from Canada's eastern coastal area. I've always been facinated by bonsai trees and i'd love to learn more about raising and caring. I don't know how much i'll post, but i look forward to reading other posts. I decided to look into bonsai as an actual thing to try just now because I managed to accidentally come across some sprouting seeds in an old apple about two months ago and now I have two little sprouts growing in a container just outside. They look like they're doing okay so far, but i'm considering raising it as a bonsai tree. I'm a totally newbie to actually doing it though so. I'm hoping I'll do alright. haha.