New to this site and to Bonsai

Just wanted to say hello -- my name is Brian and I am extremely new to Bonsai. I bought a few trees and have started a few as well but I rly don't know literally anything about the art except that I love nature and the idea of Bonsai.

Maybe someone could link me to some good learning material on basics, what wireing is, styles..... you know the whole 9 yards. I have much time on my hands so I look forward to learning this art.

Thanks up front,
Brian (atonal)

Hi Brian... and welcome to IBC the best resource for Bonsai on the web... you should take a look through lots of the older posts and you will see that just about every question you have/will have has been asked here... PLUS post questions and you are sure to get a response.

Brian, Welcome to the IBC, this forum is great but I would highly recommend trying to find a local club or study group near where you live. There are several in Tennessee - search the American Bonsai Society web site. For example there was just a big show in Nashville this past weekend. Good luck and have fun.

Welcome Brian,
I'm also new to the forum. Good luck with all your trees.
Tona

Tona wrote:Welcome Brian,
I'm also new to the forum. Good luck with all your trees.
Tona

Rob Kempinski wrote:Brian, Welcome to the IBC, this forum is great but I would highly recommend trying to find a local club or study group near where you live. There are several in Tennessee - search the American Bonsai Society web site. For example there was just a big show in Nashville this past weekend. Good luck and have fun.

tony wrote:Hi Brian... and welcome to IBC the best resource for Bonsai on the web... you should take a look through lots of the older posts and you will see that just about every question you have/will have has been asked here... PLUS post questions and you are sure to get a response.

Thanks for all the welcomes and info -- will be doing a lot of reading for the next few years

Hi Brian,

Welcome to the club !, Im just two years old as bonzairre, one piece of advice that i can give to you my friend is that try to observe how other bonzai grower near to your place did and also try reading other bonzai books, because like other says it is an art, there you can find all pertinent techniques that you can gather from start to well develop bonzai, but it takes more patient having one..goodluck

ferdz

Ferdie * wrote:Hi Brian,

Welcome to the club !, Im just two years old as bonzairre, one piece of advice that i can give to you my friend is that try to observe how other bonzai grower near to your place did and also try reading other bonzai books, because like other says it is an art, there you can find all pertinent techniques that you can gather from start to well develop bonzai, but it takes more patient having one..goodluck

ferdz

Thanks so much for the advice Ferdz -- so much to learn - so many trees to shape - so little time in a day

It's not to late to reconsider the hobby. Yes I know "I only have a few trees".....then it will be a few more, buying pots, tools, books and oh yes,.... more trees. Then you will never be free from the curse of the little trees..........Welcome.

David Forsyth wrote:It's not to late to reconsider the hobby. Yes I know "I only have a few trees".....then it will be a few more, buying pots, tools, books and oh yes,.... more trees. Then you will never be free from the curse of the little trees..........Welcome.

I was thinking about finding the fountain of..... what was it called now, must be getting old so I can go back about 30 years and start this venture

Thanks for the welcome!

I live about 3 hours from the nearest club, I have picked up quite a few books on ebay and other places and attended a novice workshop about 8 yrs ago that was helpful and got me hooked. Trial and error, killed alot of trees. I found that if I collected native trees I could learn at little cost and they over wintered well. This forum is great as are visiting club websites and reading their newletters. Good luck to you and hope to see you here again.

atonal wrote:

Ferdie * wrote:Hi Brian,

Welcome to the club !, Im just two years old as bonzairre, one piece of advice that i can give to you my friend is that try to observe how other bonzai grower near to your place did and also try reading other bonzai books, because like other says it is an art, there you can find all pertinent techniques that you can gather from start to well develop bonzai, but it takes more patient having one..goodluck

ferdz

Thanks so much for the advice Ferdz -- so much to learn - so many trees to shape - so little time in a day

Hi Brian, well for me, that the idea of having a bonzai, a never ending story, it takes a creative mind to accomplish a creative work of art, a stress free hobby of mine..goodluck friend

ferdz

Hi Brian

I hope this helps.......

The internet is rotten with information, the trick is to find what you need.

Start by finding out the species of trees that grow in your area. Let's say Elms.

Then Google 'Elm+bonsai' - for this example obviously you'll find many hits, but basically it's just to find out if a species is worthwhile.

If you don't have a bonsai nursery at hand and you trawl normal nurseries or look at collecting trees, the same process applies: Identify, determine suitability and go on from there.

Once you have a target species you can start searching on this and other forums, this is where learning/knowing the Latin names will help, you'll find just about any question you have, has been asked and answered.

GerhardGerber wrote:Hi Brian

I hope this helps.......

The internet is rotten with information, the trick is to find what you need.

Start by finding out the species of trees that grow in your area. Let's say Elms.

Then Google 'Elm+bonsai' - for this example obviously you'll find many hits, but basically it's just to find out if a species is worthwhile.

If you don't have a bonsai nursery at hand and you trawl normal nurseries or look at collecting trees, the same process applies: Identify, determine suitability and go on from there.

Once you have a target species you can start searching on this and other forums, this is where learning/knowing the Latin names will help, you'll find just about any question you have, has been asked and answered.

Thanks -- I should have browsed through the forum to see but I didn't take the time to search -- I will search from now on because I suppose people get tired of "newbs" asking the same questions over and over again lol. Newbs = trouble

Hi Brian

Newbs = trouble

Nope......at least I hope not since I'm a (4/5 year) noob myself!

I hope you catch the drift of what I'm saying, starting out you tend to go into information overload, which leads at best to over-spending on unsuitable material!

Just my opinion, but IT is a lot easier to find if you know what IT is in the first place.

You need to put in serious time reading, I mean few hours a day....
I was (am) very lucky that at times my job allows for that.

GerhardGerber wrote:Hi Brian

Newbs = trouble

Nope......at least I hope not since I'm a (4/5 year) noob myself!

I hope you catch the drift of what I'm saying, starting out you tend to go into information overload, which leads at best to over-spending on unsuitable material!

Just my opinion, but IT is a lot easier to find if you know what IT is in the first place.

You need to put in serious time reading, I mean few hours a day....
I was (am) very lucky that at times my job allows for that.

I have plenty of time on my hands and love to learn so I'm good on that. I agree with what you are saying about info overload -- been there on some other things before with that and have learned how to approch new things (I hope )

And I was jk on the noob thing but I know personally I can ask many questions about things I could easily look up eleswhere. I also know how to help others in areas that I know (outside of Bonsai) and I welcome questions, but that is a personal attribute I suppose. I think teachers have that attribute - not that I am one though

Hi and welcome. There is a lot of information out there. Here is a place that I used to read from all the time. Its a great source of info.

google evergreengardenworks and it should be the first page. Here is the link as well. http://www.evergreengardenworks.com

Luc

Great ty so much