BOOKS? (recommendations)

Hey guys, looking for more reading at barns & noble, anyone have good book suggestions for a beginner that they recommend? I have a shimpaku juniper if you know of any specific tree books also.

Thanks all,
Cale Snider

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perfect thank you Jim!

I didn't see it in there - apologies to Jim if it is - but also I'd recommend the Stone Lantern / Bonsai Today Masters' Series Junipers.

Nope. It is not. Someone is welcome to send me a review so I can add it.

Most of those I are books I own, or have owned, and since I have most issues of BT, I never have owned those -- and besides pines and junipers aren't among my favorite bonsai, so I haven't many.

I suppose I don't need to say this but, books are written by people in a specific place and frequently the information is specific to that area.
For example, the safest time to repot a Juniper in Florida is in Jan. but most Bonsai books will not advise that.
The same is true of Pines and pruning/decandleing. The books and even visiting "experts" will give you the wrong timing on a lot of care dates.

Billy M. Rhodes wrote:I suppose I don't need to say this but, books are written by people in a specific place and frequently the information is specific to that area.
For example, the safest time to repot a Juniper in Florida is in Jan. but most Bonsai books will not advise that.
The same is true of Pines and pruning/decandleing. The books and even visiting "experts" will give you the wrong timing on a lot of care dates.

True. This is my major frustration with my books actually. I like the ones with other time "markers" like; bud time, leaf/flower drop, flowering, leafing, etc.

You need to buy newer books, Billy. <g> Many of the newer, especially non Japanese, books use more useful terminology, like "late winter or early spring" instead of arbitrary months.

Jim

I buy books all the time and you are correct, but the advise is still based on the climate of the author. We don't have late winter and early spring here, we have more like late fall and early spring, without the winter part.

BTW, I saw what I think is a new book at BAM last week with a 2012 publication date, I think a photo of an Elm Forest that is in the Bonsai Museum, Yangzhou, China was planted during a workshop during our tour in the fall of 2010.
The frequent problem with some Bonsai books is that they are reprinted with a new cover, but the same information. One author complained that the publisher owned the rights to his book and did this sometimes without telling him.

Billy M. Rhodes wrote:I suppose I don't need to say this but, books are written by people in a specific place and frequently the information is specific to that area.
For example, the safest time to repot a Juniper in Florida is in Jan. but most Bonsai books will not advise that.
The same is true of Pines and pruning/decandleing. The books and even visiting "experts" will give you the wrong timing on a lot of care dates.

Understanding local weather (yours vs where the info is coming from) is key here. All of the satsuki info says to repot after they bloom - because that's how they do it in Japan. What they don't tell you is that the weather in Japan at that time is nothing like what we have here, especially in the S. E. USA.

thanks guys all this seems helpful. ill have to look into some of those books and make sure to refer back to here about date advice. thanks all

Cale Snider

What I love is that when you look at some of the older US and UK books and then at some of the recently published ones, what you get is essentially a history of the development of bonsai in the west. To my mind the trees shown in the older works are a lot "rougher" than the more refined recent ones and the techniques have come on leaps and bounds as well. It's a great reflection IMHO on how much we have progressed over the past 25-40 years or so.

Cale, books are great (some more so than others) but they don't come close to what you can learn from the locals if you have a club nearby.

I agree with Russel on this one. I've been a member of my local club for a little better than a year now, and it's been helping me a lot to be involved with a community of people doing the thing I'm interested in. Their knowledge and experience ( both individually AND collectively ) makes it possible for me to pick up a lot of subtle things that I might not ever find in a book or figure out on my own, especially when it comes to the local climate issue. Not to mention that you get to go and hang out in other people's garden and see what they're up to. Gooooood motivation.

On a related note, since books are the focus of this thread, one of the other percs of joining the club has been that I have access to the club library. We don't seem to have any books in there but it does contain a nice backstock of magazines. Lots of good knowledge to be had in those as well as pictures.

fiona wrote:What I love is that when you look at some of the older US and UK books and then at some of the recently published ones, what you get is essentially a history of the development of bonsai in the west. To my mind the trees shown in the older works are a lot "rougher" than the more refined recent ones and the techniques have come on leaps and bounds as well. It's a great reflection IMHO on how much we have progressed over the past 25-40 years or so.

I think that is especially true of some of the trees in Peter Adams' series of books. Some of the trees in The Art of Bonsai appear in later books.

Jesse McMahon wrote:I agree with Russel on this one. I've been a member of my local club for a little better than a year now, and it's been helping me a lot to be involved with a community of people doing the thing I'm interested in. Their knowledge and experience ( both individually AND collectively ) makes it possible for me to pick up a lot of subtle things that I might not ever find in a book or figure out on my own, especially when it comes to the local climate issue. Not to mention that you get to go and hang out in other people's garden and see what they're up to. Gooooood motivation.

You still have to extrapolate the weather/climate between Asheville (where the club is) and here (where we are), Jesse. That's a couple thousand feet downhill (or more, in many cases) and a climate zone (or two) difference. All in 45 miles.

On a related note, since books are the focus of this thread, one of the other percs of joining the club has been that I have access to the club library. We don't seem to have any books in there but it does contain a nice backstock of magazines. Lots of good knowledge to be had in those as well as pictures.

You're always welcome to come read my library.

JimLewis wrote:You still have to extrapolate the weather/climate between Asheville (where the club is) and here (where we are), Jesse. That's a couple thousand feet downhill (or more, in many cases) and a climate zone (or two) difference. All in 45 miles.

Good point, Jim. This is a great example of the sort of thing I learn talking with you that maybe we don't always get around to discussing up the mountain at meetings. Glad to know ya. And glad I joined the IBC, otherwise who knows.

JimLewis wrote:You're always welcome to come read my library.

Consider me ready to come and invade your library for an afternoon. PM and let me know when is good for you and we'll proceed to the planning stages.