begginer questions

Hello! My name is Bill, I am 17 years old and I live in Greece. It has been a while since I last had english lessons so please tolerate any mistakes
I am a begginer in the bonsai hobby and I find it very interesting!
Yesterday I bought two pre-bonsais, the so called mallsais. The first one is an ulmus and the second one a carmona macrophyllia. What I plan to do is try to keep them alive until winter, so that they aren't stressed and the weather cools,and then prune and repot them and maybe wire them, do you agree with that approach? Also, having read a few topics in the forum I understand that mallsais will most probably never become good bonsais, what trees do you suggest for bonsais? Thank you in advance for your time!
PS:can I see your forum from Tapatalk? I tried but couldn't find it

Here are some photos

Hi vasilakis13

Welcome to IBC   

The Ulmus parviolia need to be outdoors at all times...the roots a bit uncovered. What I would do, was to carefully take it out of the pot, and place it in a bigger and deeper, make sure to cover the roots. An then place it outside.
Next spring can you repot the tree, and look at the growth you won with given the tree a bigger pot.
The other tree would not survive in Denmark, so someone else will have to give you advise for the tree.

Find a bonsaiclub, they can help with all sorts of question, and help you to repot.

Kind regards Yvonne

There is not a bonsai club in my city, at least as far as I know. Generally, not many people are interested in bonsais here in Greece. However I found a greek forum where they gave me some good tips on the carmona. As I was told, it is a tricky tree and difficult to survive even here in Greece.
I was thinking about repotting at September, as the soil is 100 percent organic, the pot is low quality and the roots have covered the biggest part, do you think I could do that? Or is it necessary to wait for spring? Take into consideration that in the city I live temperature never falls below zero and in September it is around 20 degrees
Also while watering, should I water from top, or near the soil, and with droplets or regular water flow? Do these things matter?
Finally, do you know any good online stores that could ship pots world wide, as in my country they are hard to find?

vasilakis13 wrote:Hello! My name is Bill, I am 17 years old and I live in Greece. It has been a while since I last had english lessons so please tolerate any mistakes

bill, your english is better than 75% of 17 year old americans...
(and i am not joking   )

the one question i can help with is the watering...

you want a gentle fine spray in order to not wash away the soil,
especially when you get it out of the organic soil and into proper bonsai soil (aka substrate)
some folks avoid watering from the top, but depending on the species,
i sometimes like to give mine a good spray from the top and sides as it seems to help keep pests off the tree.

there are many watering cans and hose attachments available to provide a "fine as rain" gentle spray,
possibly as close as your local garden store.

re: pots, do you have ebay in greece ?
if so, that is not a bad place to start...

otherwise visit a local pottery studio (or maybe your school has one!)
and make some of your own... very rewarding having a tree you designed in a pot you made !

good luck and i wish i would have started when i was 17 !
as it is now, i will be lucky to see one of my trees in 30 years     

most of all, have FUN with it !

kevin

Thank you for your advice Kevin!
Ebay is available in Greece, I will take a look at it and hopefully shipping rates won't be a burden!
There is no chance any school in my country has a pottery, we barely have other basic infrastructures! But your idea was good, after searching for a while around the net I was able to find some professionals who design pots with clay and I will try to get in touch with them, thanks for the idea

https://www.google.dk/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=&oq=bonsai&hl=da&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4MDNE_da___DK504&q=bonsai+nordic&gs_l=hp..7.0l5j41l3.0.0.0.8616...........0.HlG_Bax9C5U

Here you find a shop   

I would still just place the tree in a deeper bigger container/pot for the rest of the year, and repot to a nice bonsaipot in the spring.

Kind regards Yvonne

you are welcome !

your pictures did not show up for me, so i am not sure what your stock looks like,
but there is no need to confine yourself to a "bonsai" pot...

there are MANY interesting thing that you can plant in and on...
large flat stones, rocks with depressions, hollow pieces of driftwood (fully dried out and treated w/ wood hardener)
hand-built wooden boxes, your grandfathers big shoe...

you can also make pots out of materials (other than clay) that you may have readily available:
some types are:
papercrete and hypertufa

i think there is some info on this forum under "pots"

I agree with you that a bigger pot is of highly importance as I notice that the soil is becoming loose from the pot. As soon as I find my next pots I will move them


I guess I will spend some time reading the pot forum, those were some good ideas, especially the stone pot!
Why couldn't you see the photos, were they private or is it something else?

not sure... all i see are picture icons...
maybe you "hosted" them, but then you need to copy the link and paste it where you want the pic to show up...
(there is a picture posting thread or maybe under FAQs)

btw, another pot idea i have when i think of greece (never having been there),
is the clay half-round roofing tiles like the ones in the top half of this pic:



a little muck and moss on the ends to contain the substrate, while allowing for drainage, and it might be nice.

"necessity is the mother of invention"

not having easy access to pots might make you come up with something far more interesting than the typical oriental style pot   

How can I grow moss? Are there any seeds for that?
Also what about the pruning? I read that pruning is done throughout the season, maybe with a more aggressive approach in spring, is that right? And what parts of the tree do I cut?

vasilakis13 wrote:How can I grow moss? Are there any seeds for that?
Also what about the pruning? I read that pruning is done throughout the season, maybe with a more aggressive approach in spring, is that right? And what parts of the tree do I cut?

depending on your climate, moss is free if you know where to look