What Bonsai Questions is for. PLEASE READ

If you are a beginner to bonsai, if you bought a bonsai on impulse, if someone gave you one, or if you have a nursery plant you'd like to turn into a bonsai, we can field your questions here.

If you want to identify what plant you have in that bonsai pot, we can try to help. Clear pictures -- including close-ups of the leaves -- are a must.

If you have a bit more experience with bonsai and have a tree in development and wonder what you might do next, here is where to ask and where you will get many varied answers to guide you.


Whatever you ask, please let us know where you are from -- especially if you didn't say in your profile -- and your climate zone. It makes a difference to our answers.

What are we NOT particularly well equipped to do?

If you have never grown a plant before, we cannot give you a horticultural education. Neither can we provide you with a full course in bonsai. There are many good books out there. Visit your library.

There are a few good websites -- For bonsai-related information, I highly recommend the articles at Brent Walston's www.evergreengardenworks.com. Harry Harrington's http://www.bonsai4me.com/ also is very informative. There are others of more or less use.

For general Horticultural information in the United States, your local Cooperative Extension Office (almost every county or parish in the USA has one) is the place to start (see: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/). In other countries, state agricultural universities or colleges may offer similar services, but the information in the extension office databases is so universal, everyone should find it useful.

One of the purposes of the Internet Bonsai Club always has been to offer help to its members. The Bonsai Questions Forum is where you come to find that help.