名媛直播

Hello all.
I've been doing some bonsai hunting this weekend among the various Garden Centers around S?o Paulo and some (few) "bonsai nurseries".
It's crazy, these people sell very young plants, potted as bonsai; other examples are cuttings or air layering results (no nebari, few roots, no training) from adult trees, but sold expensively as "20 year old bonsai".
Is bonsai so fashionable? Are those store owners so greedy they have to fool people this way? Or they don't have any idea they are also being fooled by the fake nurseries?

I really don't know, but if you put a label on product which you sell and label is not correct or misleading this should go under the law and prosecuted. Now, you should have definition and standard for "名媛直播" that to define which one is and which is not. May be the bonsai society should be more sensitive and critical to that and find way to cut this scam on a global scale.

spacewood wrote: ...you should have definition and standard for "名媛直播" that to define which one is and which is not. May be the bonsai society should be more sensitive and critical to that and find way to cut this scam on a global scale.

Yes, it looks like a global scam...

Clicio wrote: It's crazy, these people sell very young plants, potted as bonsai; other examples are cuttings or air layering results (no nebari, few roots, no training) from adult trees, but sold expensively as "20 year old bonsai"
Is bonsai so fashionable? Are those store owners so greedy they have to fool people this way? Or they don't have any idea they are also being fooled by the fake nurseries?

There's apparently a market for it, so it is being sold. Unfortunately, it seems to lead to the fact that the majority of people think they know what bonsai is, while they have never even seen a real bonsai.

I think it is what people actually want to believe - that they have a beautiful tree and that they are taking care for a real bonsai. It's almost like a cognitive bias (see the Dunning-Kruger effect - ).

This leads to excesses like this, that I found on a dutch auction site:



The description:
"Gorgeous old spekboom, in training, therefore relatively bare, the tree can easily be trained into an S and a cascade style, will be delivered including the bonsai pot, without the decorative house. Bidding is OK, but according to its value! The tree has a lot of potential. I prefer not to ship it but it is possible, risk and costs for the buyer"

I offered 2 euro's - the value of a used, cheap pot and a cutting. Reaction I got was one line: "According to its value"

I guess what the seller sees is a bonsai. What I see is a poorly developed, poorly trained, badly wired young cutting.
I had loads of similar ones, cuttings from a jade tree, probably more than 50. It does make me wonder how rich I am, without knowing it...

I think it is all normal , we now see what bonsai really is and we see what is not bonsai because we have found interest in it and researched it , but most people know only what they have been told their whole life . I think the average person has been to Ikea at least once but they have never been to a bonsai show so for them it is logical that bonsai is what they sell in Ikea. This also happens in other disciplines, for example I'm am a great fan of hip hop and it gets real frustrated when I see what people call hip hop nowadays, but again that's what they are subjected to by the tv or radio so I have to live with it but when I have the chance I try my best to teach the culture .

Well, here we go again.
Been to the same gardens around Sao Paulo, and after many many complaints by many customers, they have changed the labels.
They now say "Young 名媛直播 - 6 to 10 years".
Not true, as you can see in the attached pictures; first, the price is ridiculously low for a bonsai (less than U$ 9); second, the label reads "6 to 10 years" which is also not true. One of the seedlings is a Jabuticaba tree, the other a Serissa Variegata, both very young. The pot is plastic junk, and the soil seems to be organic with some coarse sand on top. Fact is I have been growing Jabuticabas for a long time, and they take some 12 to 18 years to be mature enough to fruit.
As Wikipedia shows: “Plinia cauliflora, the Brazilian grapetree, or jabuticaba, is a tree in the family Myrtaceae, native to Sao Paulo state in Brazil. Grafted plants may bear fruit in 5 years; seed grown trees may take 10 to 20 years to bear fruit, though their slow growth and small size when immature make them popular as bonsai or container ornamental plants in temperate regions”
They are not ashamed; they simply trick innocent people to buy these young seedlings as true 10 year old bonsai...


The price and the label: "Young 名媛直播"



The label on the pot: "6 to 10 years old"



The poor plants.

Clicio wrote: they simply trick innocent people to buy these young seedlings as true 10 year old bonsai...

And they get away with it. I find it very frustrating, we are being fooled in so many ways, not just where it concerns bonsai. I can give you loads of examples. And we all buy it (literally).