As many bonsai fans I love to make trees from seed, in fact at Hatoen we do it professionally in order to facilitate the access to trees at reasonable price that allow our customers to carry out their projects.
When you start the project of a tree you have to take into account what you want to spend and the patience that you will have to see the results you want. As an example I have positioned in this matrix four trees that can be purchased on our website.
A two-year-old seedling has a fairly slow development: it needs to develop a root system that allows the incipient leaves to be fed. The more leaves the more roots, but you want to begin impatiently to pinch in order to form the primary branches and you want to prune the roots to form the nebari … The next five years seem an eternity, and few things happen.
If the tree is grown and it is worked well, at ten years it begins to look like a bonsai but often the trunk seems too thin, the branches too thick, there is no conicity and the nebari says nothing. Heroic decision: I keep the trunk and I will remake the branches.
At fifteen years the wounds of the original branches have healed, the new ones are in place and you begin to be proud of your project (in summer that is, when the leaves hide the poverty of the branching).
At twenty-five you have a bonsai that is acceptable at the local club exhibition: it has a pretty nebari, a certain conicity on the trunk, reasonable primary and secondary branching….
From here it is necessary to insist, pinch, defoliate, transplant, prune the roots, replace some branch that died….
According to your ability, and with the good advice of other colleagues more expert, your tree might be accepted at a national exhibition when it is 30, 40, or 60 years old …
The price of young trees is relatively low; If you do not want to get bored in the first years of training, my advice is that you spend a little more money and start at least with a good trunk.
