John:

Welcome to the forum. The first thing you need to understand is that
there are indoor and outdoor trees. Depending on where you live, most
outdoor trees MUST be kept outside and must be allowed to go dormant in
the winter, which means somewhere protected but cold. I keep mine in an
unheated garage (Zone 5-6). Keeping an outdoor tree inside, even during
the night will not be good for the tree and may even kill it. Keeping
an outdoor tree in a warm indoor location for winter and not allowing it
to go dormant will ultimately kill it.

Indoor trees are typically tropical trees like ficus. Most of these
trees can be kept indoors all year, although I even put my indoor trees
outside in the summer.

In my area and most others a Juniper is an outdoor tree. I keep my
juniper outside day and night and in winter they stay in my unheated
garage. Your choice to buy a Juniper is a good starting point, however
I'd recommend you pick one up locally instead of going mail order. I
have no experience with the company you chose, however by buying your
tree locally you'll save shipping, you'll get a tree that is hardy in
your area and you'll pay a much lower price for a much better tree and
not put it through the stress of shipping. I'd check out Lowe's, Home
Depot or Wal-Mart depending on where you are. They have a great
selection of several different types of junipers starting as low as
$4.99. Look for one with an interesting trunk and healthy foliage.
This will allow you to work on a tree that you can afford to kill and
you will kill a few.

Tools and other supplies are available from many of the vendors on-line.
There are many great vendors that support this forum that will have
everything you need. I'd start simple and get a small pair or concave
cutters, some wire (maybe #1 and #2) and a book or two. Eventually you
can purchase a pot or two and buy or make your own soil.

I learned a lot by watching the pictures in the photo portion of this
forum and reading some books. You'll make mistakes at first, you'll
ruin trees at first and you'll even kill trees. We all do that no
matter how long we've been working at this. For me I never consider it
a mistake to ruin or kill a tree unless I didn't learn something in the
process. I had some horrible trees my first year that turned into
pretty interesting trees in my 2nd year.

It's a long slow learning process but I guarantee you'll love every
minute of it. If you have the space I found it best to have several
trees to spread out my bonsai-energy so I didn't work too much on any
one tree.

If you read a few books you'll find that now is not the best time to
prune, however I never follow the rules UNLESS it involves an expensive
tree. With a $4.99 juniper I'd prune whenever I wanted to. Just be
aware of the risks of pruning now.

As far as other trees check out your local nurseries and home centers.
Buy the ones you like. You'll buy some crappy trees at first but
gradually you'll get better at choosing a tree, keeping in mind things
like proportion, and trunk taper.

No matter what you do have fun with it, enjoy the learning process,
learn from your mistakes and don't be afraid to test the "rules" every
so often. I killed a few in the process but some of my best trees went
from full 2-gallon landscape trees to a tiny pot and full pruning in one
late summer day. The rules would say this is a huge mistake and it
probably was but there is no law in bonsai, only guidelines. You have
to learn the boundaries and techniques on your own. If you do have a
local bonsai society consider joining or at least attending a meeting or
two.

I'm sure this is more than you wanted to hear, but if not I and others
on the list would be happy to answer any other questions you come up
with.

Enjoy,
wmcorcor

== -----Original Message-----
== From: John ]
== Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 6:44 PM
== To:
== Subject: [IBC] Another beginner to Bonsai(help?)
==
== Hi all, I've been reading lots of info in here and I've decided that
I
== would like to try to have a bonsai tree.
==
== I think I want something that I can put on my outside window seal
== during the day and take inside during the night. I was thinking
maybe
== the typical beginner Juniper.(I like the flowering bonsai's too, but
== those are probably harder to take care of, especially for a college
== student right?).
==
== anyways, there is a bonsai kit online here
== http://www.bonsaiboy.com/catalog/bonsai-starter.html that looks sort
== of interesting. They say the juniper is about 3-4 years old and I
was
== just wondering (I've been looking at a lot of older Junipers) If I
can
== 'sculpt, form, make' whatever you wanna say, the tree into a curve
== trunk, or is that just natural with some of these trees.
==
== if anyone has any other ideas where I can buy a decent bonsai kit,
or
== juniper for not that much(my mom may already kill me for buying a
== bonsai) I would be very very very appreciative :-)...
==
== I am really interested in bonsai...
==
== thanks
==
== John
==
==
************************************************** **********************
== ********
== ++++Sponsored, in part, by Mike Page ++++
==
************************************************** **********************
== ********
== -- The IBC HOME PAGE & FAQ: http://www.internetbonsaiclub.org/
--
==
== +++++ Questions? Help? e-mail
== +++++

************************************************** ******************************
++++Sponsored, in part, by Mike Page ++++
************************************************** ******************************
-- The IBC HOME PAGE & FAQ: http://www.internetbonsaiclub.org/ --
+++++ Questions? Help? e-mail +++++