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Hi Rod....

My only thought to you starting with a ficus, is how do you heat your house? If you are like a lot of Northwesterners and you heat your house with wood, you may wish to consider something else. Ficus are not fond of significant heat changes. To this end I have never bought one. Don't keep the heat steady enough.

I certinally recommend you start with a juniper. Any home improvment store will have them and they are a lot of fun for the begininer. Because there is usually a lot of foliage to work with, and they take quite a bit of abuse.

Now some thoughts on junies and just bonsai...

When you style it, be sure to not use shears or cutters on anything but branches themselves. If you need to refine the foliage itself, use your fingers. Using metal on juniper foliage will make the tips brown. To encourage compact growth on a juniper you should pinch the tips of new growth all along the outside edges.

When you pot it, aside from reducing the root systems (which on junies can take a pretty good beating), add some ozmocote to your soil makes a nice steady fertilizer so if you forget or don't have time the trees still being fed. You can still use miracle grow as well to just give your tree every chance. The roots on a junie will tend to be severly overgrown in a nursery pot, so be patient. If you can get a root rake that will help or a good chop stick to help you loosen it. If the roots are a brick you can always soak them a bit. And I will sometimes take my saw (designed for bonsai) and use it to scar into the root ball a bit to help me break it apart.

When selecting junie at the nursery or the local HI store, make sure you really part the foliage to get a good sense of the trunk movement. At the HI stores their junies can sometimes have outrageous twists and sudden turns, that make for a poor bonsai. You'll want to buy the biggest trunk you can afford of course. And if you can poke around in the soil a bit and get a feel for what kind of roots it has, so much the better. You want to remember you and this tree are going to be friends for a long time. Best to choose wisely.

When deciding how your juniper will look, be conservative. Many times those new to bonsai will reduce their stock to only a few branches with lil poofs of foliage at the ends. Look for a balance between being able to see the trunk itself, and having a crown of foliage.

And of course last but not least by any stretch, junies are an outdoor tree. They can come inside for short periods of time to be enjoyed, but if you have a deck, best to keep it there. In winter you will want to provide it some winter protection against freezing. For me this ended up meaning I packed my trees into styro coolers surrounded by bark mulch up to two inches above the pot level. They did well with this treatment. I think only one tree ended up having any damage at all. And I think the damange was done by the time I realized I had bonsai popsicles.

Well actually I could ramble on more in my bonsai thoughts... but I want it to be disgestable. Please feel free to post any questions you might have. If I don't know. I know those who do. Answers would be provided in short order.

And just for grins and giggles... here is a pic of my very first tree, a Blue Star Juniper. I aquired it from a nursery for about $24 dollars as I recall. It's trunk is only about 3/4 of an inch. But it is a plesant enough of a tree. I too initially made the mistake of whacking back the tree to a nubbin. And so I am still waiting to be able to let it catch up with itself a bit. This pic is only about a week old, so the tree had one full growing season to recover.

But just remember, with every tree you do or see, your vision of bonsai will mature and change. Your goals on your very first effort will probably seem amusing in a short amount of time, and thats ok...

Welcome to bonsai in the Northwest!

Kind Regards,