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Originally Posted by alangs1
Thanks for all the advice guys. And i'm going to take the advice and plant them into larger planting pots. However, a couple more questions are raised. What type of soil should i plant them in? And generally how old should each of those trees be before they are planted into bonsai pots? And last but not least, how am i to make sure that they don't grow too big that they can't fit into a decent bonsai pot? (i mean mostly height wise) Thanks again
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I admit it - I am one of the "Plant it in the ground people..." - so I shall answer your question without using the G-word.
Soil: Nice question. You should plant them in free-draining bonsai soil - if you search this site you fill find literally hundreds of message written about the subject. My soil mix is 1/3 granite chips, 1/3 seramis(turface) and 1/3 Akadama. Sometimes I throw in another 1/3 (is that allowed) of pine bark. You might be better just searching for the nearest bonsai nursery and buy ready-mixed soil from them. When I plant them in the "G-word" I don't worry about the composition - it just always seems to be ok.
Time: Nice question. It "depends". It depends on how big you want the trees to be. I grow a lot of smaller trees (due to space problems) and they take 3-5 years. Most people grow much bigger trees and they will be growing 10-20 years. I kid you not.
Too big: Nice question. You take absolutely no nonsense from them and you just chop them back when they get too tall. There's quite a lot written on the grow and chop method; I use it all the time. Here's what I do. You don't just let them grow 30cm (1foot) and then chop off the top 1/4 - no no, you let them get 60cm or 1m (2 feet - 3'3") or even 2m and them chop them back to just a few centimeters (couple of inches) above the roots. Brent Walston at evergreen gardenworks is the master and has written several articles on his website which you need to digest:
http://www.evergreengardenworks.com/bonsaip.htm
http://www.evergreengardenworks.com/bonsaibe.htm
Waiting the next 2 years before you have something to chop will give you chance to read your way through this website ; it contains just about everything you need to know and quite a lot you don't.
Jerry
in Amsterdam