Reminder: PLEASE READ THE WIKI before posting. It answers most questions you're likely to have when starting out, discusses bonsai development techniques, and even dispels a number of myths. Read this post for more info.

I’m posting this as a PSA because it gets a bit old answering the same questions over and over again, and especially having people argue with us over things that we've already exhaustively answered in both the wiki and in countless threads.

Please do us the courtesy of at least doing some basic research about bonsai and horticulture before launching into an enthusiastic debate with people who have decades of experience successfully developing actual bonsai trees.

• At a minimum, please read the wiki and ideally, read all the sidebar links as well. The wiki has been re-vamped recently to make it very easy to find what you are looking for, and everything is neatly laid out on a silver platter for newcomers.

• There are significant misconceptions out there about bonsai, including what they are, how they are developed, what species are appropriate and whether or not one can develop trees indoors. Most people show up here with some or all of these misconceptions, and that’s absolutely fine. We all start somewhere when we do anything new. But these are all questions that are answered in the wiki.

• Developing bonsai trees is not the same thing as growing a houseplant, and there are lots of reasons why this is the case. Bonsai is about creating realistic-looking miniature trees, and the techniques required to achieve this require more care and skill than a typical houseplant.

• If after reading through all this material, you still want to debate the merits of a particular technique, or need clarification about something you don't understand or agree with, that's great. Please start by posting in the weekly beginner's thread, which was created explicitly for this purpose. The weekly beginner's thread is also a great place to post those pics of the tree you bought at the big box store for identification or other care questions.

• In fact, there’s even an entire archive of previous beginner’s threads. It’s not a bad idea to read through some of these. It’s pretty likely you’ll find that somebody has already asked the same question you have.

We're very happy to help by answering questions and providing advice, and we devote countless hours of our time doing so. But please help us bring a little order to the chaos by doing your part and reading the provided materials before posting, and especially before launching into an argument where you may not have all the facts.

Thanks!

r/bonsai mods