Bonsai refers to a "tree in a tray"... and just about any tree can be
trained as a bonsai, and other plants for that matter. Some plants do not
like being in pots, others look out of proportion. The way I see good bonsai
is, here's the goal: if you were to take a picture of the bonsai, just the
plant-nothing in the background or nearby to suggest scale, it would look
like a normal sized tree. Only until you saw something to compare it to
could you tell it was a small one in a pot.
And it doesn't have to be a shallow pot- a cascade style would fall over if
it were in a shallow pot! Different species of trees lend themselves to
different sizes of bonsai also, I have seen some bonsai in pictures that
looked awesome and was amazaed they got that type of tree to be bonsai'd...
then I saw the real tree in person and it was WAY bigger than I thought!
Different people have different definitions of what becomes too big to be
bonsai...a lot of it is in the styling of the tree. Just sticking a tree in
a pot doesn't immediatly make it bonsai. And when I say "tree" I don't mean
a pine or juniper, most woody plants can be trained as bonsai. I say a
picture of a rose done as bonsai (wish I could find more pics!), and a rose
isnt' what most people would call a tree...
Seeds will make you impatient if you don't also have a bigger plant to
work with... The tendency will be to overcare for the seedlings (trust me on
this!). I'm finding this out the hard way, I have a tendency to be
impatient. I have to "hide" plants from myself that are too young/immature
to work with or I'll work with them anyway! To stop myself from doing this,
I went to Home Depot over a period of a few weeks and picked up some
junipers to style-those little buggers grow so much they keep me too busy to
mess with my poor holly plant or my baby pine seedling . And for a few
dollars, you get practice on styling.

Susan L. Marsh

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