Bonsai as a hobby

I often find myself stressed about bonsai. I might be in the minority, but there could be others out there who feel the same way. I decided to put down my thoughts about how I tried to decrease the stress of bonsai and increase the enjoyment of it.

1. Making mistakes

I used to be much more concerned about making a mistake and because of it I would not do things, being worried about doing the wrong thing. At some point I realized that doing bonsai means making mistakes, but, hopefully, fewer mistakes each year. Luckily, as long as those mistakes don’t kill your tree, the tree will help you correct the mistake in the future. Compassion goes a long way, and I really had to work on having compassion towards myself.

2. Having too many or too few trees

When starting in bonsai I did not feel like I should buy many trees before I got my skill to a certain level. As a result I had few trees and practiced too many procedures on those few trees. Doing too much to a tree will slow it down, so the collection did not progress well. Then I went in the opposite direction and accumulated more trees than I could take care off and again some of the trees did not get enough attention. However, I do think that having too many trees is better than too few because … you can always give away a few. I am lucky to have friends around who can benefit from a couple of “hand me down” trees. When I look at my trees I think that maybe half of my collection I got for free from other club members.

3. Finding the time

This one I still struggle with the most. Bonsai is way more time consuming than I think, particularly, when I am trying to do a good job . I often feel rushed despite the fact that I have the most understanding and accommodating family. So here are the ways I found useful in managing the time. First, I need to communicate to myself and the family about how much time I plan to be working in one session (usually it is two hours). Then, I plan what I want to accomplish and try to cut it in half. If it is repotting, I hope to just do one tree in those two hours, and when I am done I try to re-evaluate and see if I have enough time to do another project. I always try to remember to leave time for cleaning, but I don’t always have the time to clean . Some jobs can be left for a few hours and be finished later. In fact almost all jobs can be finished an hour later. In Japan when lunch is served the work stops (trees that are out of pots during repotting sessions just get buried in the soil).

Another balance I struggle with is spending time on my trees vs. spending time with the club. I often feel guilty about any amount of time I spend on club related activities, because there is always more bonsai work that can be done. But I try to remind myself that without a club I would not be doing bonsai so I think of it as breaks from bonsai work and just fun. But I do try to be protective of the time I spend on the club, because there is always more one could do.

4. Regret of missing out on work

This one is one of the constant feelings I get. I should have repotted this tree or grafted this tree. I should have done this differently or I should have found the time to do that earlier. What I learned is that there is always next year so and there is never enough time so it is important to prioritize. All this starts with a list or a plan: what has to be done to keep trees healthy. what needs to be done to get best trees progressing, what would be nice to have accomplished.

5. Trees dying

Yet another thing I had to learn to be ok with is that trees sometimes die. Sometimes I know why that happened and sometimes I don’t. Trees dying is part of bonsai. It happens to all of us, even pros. There is an expression I learned in Japan – Shoganai. It literally means “it could not have been changed” but I prefer the more common expression “shit happens”. Amazingly, the one tree that started this adventure is still alive, but it is a bougainvillea and those are hard to kill 
6. Having a vision for the collection

Having a vision for the collection is something I am not certain about, but I think it is important. This is something I am working on. I used to buy trees on a whim, when there was an opportunity or I just could not resist doing it. Now I have somewhere around 50 trees, and I think I need to start thinking about where I would like to be in a few years. I refer to work on just a few species – maples and pines, for now, but at some point I realized that many of my trees have the same feel so I started to think about how the trees would fit together. Another big part of it is how the trees are displayed in your garden. I am still not clear on this, but this is something that I am thinking more and more about.

7. Taking pictures

Probably the most important thing for long term enjoyment of bonsai is taking pictures. There are many reasons for it. Pictures help you document the progression of trees. It is very easy to forget how things were just a few years ago. Whenever you get a tree to a point where it has progressed to a certain point it is good to know how far you have come. The trick is to remember to do it and cell phone camera makes things easier because pictures get automatically saved and are easy to find. I try to keep a folder for each of the best trees where I can document the progress.


8. Travel. A lot. Not only to Japan.

Travel is super important part of bonsai for me for a couple of reasons. First, that’s how I learned most, by traveling to Japan and starting to learn at Aichi-en first with Peter Tea and then with Juan Andrade, both were apprentices in Japan. But also traveling to see Peter in CA when he got back – I learned a lot from spending a few days a year with Peter. I am hoping to continue to travel to visit people. I got to pick up some material and pots in my trips as well. But the most important reason is that you get to meet amazing people and get a different perspective on bonsai. I have not done enough traveling to shows, but that would be something I would like to start doing a little more of. I am hoping to go to Taikan-ten this fall.

9. Hire professionals.

I don’t think there another way to learn that is better than hiring good professional bonsai artists to work on your trees. Figuring out who you are most comfortable with might take a little time but when you find that person or persons try to develop a relationship with them. This is what makes bonsai fun – relationships. This is true for both bonsai artists as well as potters. There are some amazing potters now in the west and we as hobbyists can do a lot to support and encourage them and it is easy too – buy more pots!