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recovering pine addict
Join Date: Dec-2004
Location: Louisiana
Posts: 395
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Sticks-in-a-pot
I feel like its time for me to post my true feelings about this site. I’m sure I’m not the first to bring this up but here we go. I enjoy the different forums but have noticed over the past few years that the majority of the members here believe that true bonsai is only a tree that one has been grow from a stick-in-a-pot or better yet from seed and that purchasing a nice tree is not what bonsai is about. I’ve noticed that posts that include the proverbial home grown bonsai get much more replies than the tree that is purchased at $500 or $1000. It seems that most here, and I may be wrong, do not believe that a tree purchased is worthy of a comment because the work is complete in their perception of the art form and the new owner has nothing to do but water it. They believe that because the tree may be old and cost a great deal that there is no work left to be done. I myself thought that I would never spend more than $50 on a tree 7 years ago but have over the years realized that to work on trees of that caliber they must be purchased. You are not going to grow a masterpiece or even the start of a masterpiece in your lifetime unless you start very young and start several hundred trees of the same species and work down to the 10% that have the potential to be a masterpiece. Believe me you can put years into a tree and have it decide that it has other plans. Some of which are not conducive to bonsai and to have it turn itself into a nice shrub at best. To gain the experience of working on an older tree is worth the money spent. Give up your sticks-in-a pot and do yourself a favor. Get out of bonsai or spend some money on a nice tree. That will do more for your appreciation of the art form than anything else you can do.
OK, you can ban me from the site now…
Tim
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