Bonsai or not

So there is a thing I would like to just talk a little about. Prices and bonsai plants.

My hubby loves doing bonsais. He has many that are older then we have been together, and some that are younger (we have been together now for 29 years).

We have very often gone to various stores and seen "bonsais" for sale. Oh some of the price tags on these precious little plants are so high that we are shocked by what a cheap one goes for.

Then we look some more and we have to laugh. It is a bonsai or is it? Most of the ones we have seen look to be very young plants. Something that the hubby would have planted from seed a year ago and called it a bonsai.

How do we know? Well, look closely. Even in miniature forms you can see the grow of a tree or plant in its bark. Young bark is very, well young looking. As you can see, I am not the bonsai person, but many times I can look and tell this is not a very old plant or tree.

So what's up with this? Sales, that's what's up. Someone comes along with an idea that they want to make money. Lots of money, but they don't want to put the work and time that actually goes in to growing a bonsai as this will take way to long.

So you stick a sapling, a little baby tree in a pot and say it's a bonsai. I don't find this very nice but it is how life works. There are so many people out to scam other people that sometimes it just makes you wish for nicer people.

So if you are not careful you could buy, for that expensive price, that little year old plant and think you have the real deal. That's ok, till someone comes along to pass on a bit of the truth to you.

This reminds me of my bonsai tree. She is about 2ft tall and somewhere around 30-35 years old. She is quite pretty most of the time, but she was given a very deep trimming this year and has yet to recover from it. Next year might be a root trimming year. I have to find out when the hubby last did that for sure.


Here is a picture of her from this last winter. She is covered in snow. So you cannot see her well, but I think you can tell she needed that heavy trim this last spring. See the one at the far back, that's the hubby's pride and joy. She too is coming back from a heavy trim. Just behind mine you can barely see the hanging rock. That has a tiny bonsai in it.