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hi all

im fairly new to the bonsai game so i kinda have no clue what im doing. i have two Black monkey thorn trees that are coming along nicely. but i just recently bought myself a conifer bush to try and bonsai but have hit a dead end creatively

what style should i go for here. any advice???????

welcome dane

It looks like there's a few trees in that pot. If that's the case i would recommend separating the and working on each one individually. Im interested to see your monkey thorns

well you have 3 choices: keep it as it is and do a multy trunk style were you would style as 1 tree with the 3 trunks...a group planting were each tree would be styled seperatly to create a scene in this case i would seperate now into 1 larger pot...or seperate and grow each induvidualy.

personaly i would leave them they look nice together,and yes monkeythorn topic please

I would seperate the trees and form them individually. These trees don't look like they live in harmony with each other. They each grow in their own direction. They do look like they could become some nice looking bonsai trees, but right now they are still too young to be able to represent a convincing old bonsai tree. Therefore I would plant these into the ground, or a large cement tub and leave them to grow undisturbed for a few more years before performing any training on them. This way you achieve the fastest growth with minimum efforts.

If you want to start forming a bonsai tree straight away, you could look for something that is a little bit more matured than these shrubs. You could also follow a beginners bonsai course. An experienced bonsaika can tell you what to look out for when selecting starting material. Often, it's also possible to buy good starting material straight from them.

Here are a few tips to start with:
1. Look for really matured trees that are kept small. (Houses with gardens that are for sale are usually a good source)
2. The most important thing is that the tree has a nice nebari (surface roots). If the tree doesn't have a nice nebari, leave it.
3. Second, the tree should have nice movement in the trunk and have a nice taper.

you don't have to start on a mature tree, what Dane has chosen looks very nice, and working on it while it is still young gives you more control on the trees overall appearance

MWid wrote: you don't have to start on a mature tree, what Dane has chosen looks very nice, and working on it while it is still young gives you more control on the trees overall appearance

Agreed. most of my trees are home-grown seedlings. And bending a 2 year old sapling in the shape you want is much easier then bending a 10 year old. You just need the patience to then wait 5 years for it to mature.

I suppose everyone has their own approaches, we could have a whole debate about whats best to do and what not, but in the end its what suits you

That's true. I have a few seedlings in my garden too which I take care of watching them grow, give some movement to the trunk, remove unneeded branches once in a while, etc. And it's always nice to watch it develop year over year knowing that you have complete control in what it will become. But just remember it will take years to develop a proper bonsai from a seedling this way. And in the early stages of developing seedlings it has a lot more to do with regular gardening than it has with bonsai. And you need a lot of patience with this process too. So for someone who wants to get in touch with bonsai it's probably more fun to start with material which you can form like an old bonsai tree right away. Which involves wiring, pruning, repotting, fertilizing, probably watch a few trees die, learn from your mistakes etc.

Hi Dane

Seems that MWid is correct, that there are a lots of trees in that pot.
But it looks like they are quite tall and thin, perhaps too thin to
work on individually...
I would consider separating them a bit, putting them in a shallower,
wider training pot and creating a group planting of sorts.