Hi ALL, since you are discussing mallsai I thought I'd show this one which may give some people an idea
of what goes on with a tree bought from a retail outlet.

This Juniper is called a 12 inch Bonsai and cost 120 aus dollars. It is healthy and to a newer person to Bonsai probably looks amazing. Something like this can be a good start and once at home should just be cared for and kept alive.
Once a person generally gets the hang of watering,caring for the tree and including allowing new growth then it can be worked on and begin transforming it into something more Bonsai like.










Once you have been doing Bonsai for a while you will begin to understand the proceedures which will move a
tree like this forward in the direction of a Bonsai tree.

this is how I went about beginning this Mallsai junipers journey,




some foliage removal



and some bark removal



the planting angle will probably be altered to the right

I next wired the branching to give me a start to my design










the tree is recovering very well and in fact I have given it a repot into some bonsai medium

Hopefully this give some inspiration to newer bonsai artists and older alike,

take care,

Nice progression and decent outcome.

I would never refer to this as a mallsai though. This is just a generic juniper, as obtained from larger gardenstores for use in the garden. Mallsai is really a specific mass-produced 'bonsai interpretation', in my view.

No. Maybe you all call it differently but this juniper was potted/prepared by bonsai nursery for sale by retail chain store(not bonsai stores) and sold as Bonsai to the public.
A tree as you describe would be a pre-trained tree or Bonsai stock from Bonsai Nursery only and not mallsai. You would never find pre-trained trees sold as Bonsai in a chain store here.

thanks for comment.

Hey Craig, whereabouts are you at?

This is sold in Europe as bonsai, and is what we here would refer to as mallsai:

www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00234546/
www.ikea.com/hk/en/catalog/products/90164898/

leatherback wrote: I would never refer to this as a mallsai though. This is just a generic juniper, as obtained from larger gardenstores for use in the garden. Mallsai is really a specific mass-produced 'bonsai interpretation', in my view.

I agree. Usually I write 'that's not bonsai', but in this case I would add 'but that's not mallsai either'.

bloomin' good progression as leatherback said. good job

Four weeks further... how is this tree is doing?
Looking at the Shari, I wonder if it could survive that ?

In the are I marked there seems to be no connecting tissue - or is that because of the shadows on / quality of the photo ?

I think a branch is there (jin), in front of the right edge of the trunk (in the photo).

This is what I see, however not clearly. So if there is no connecting tissue, there may be a problem there as Auk says.

bob wrote: This is what I see

It's the shadow of the trunk on the wall. I've removed it, and now I see that what I saw is not a part of the trunk that is stripped, but actually that shadow.




Still, it seems pretty risky. I've understood junipers have a linear sap flow - the root under a branch feeds that branch - so cutting through it interrupts the sap flow to that branch and may kill it.

The shari I have made on my juniper all are under branches I removed or jinned. As the parts of the trunk that feed other branches get thicker, it 's a bit easier to see where the live veins are.

[edit]Noticed I have to correct something:
A root under a branch feeds the branch above it: that's not completely true. What I mean is that that root has a path to a branch - not necessarily straight up to that branch[/edit]