Bonsai care guides
Practical how-to guides written to actually keep your tree alive.
- How to Choose Your First Bonsai — The best first bonsai is not the prettiest one in the shop — it is the one that matches where you can actually keep it and how much attention you can realistically give. Choose well and the tree forgives your early mistakes; choose badly and even careful care can't save a species in the wrong place. This guide helps you pick a tree you can keep alive.
- Fertilising Your Bonsai: When, What, and How Much — Because a bonsai lives in a tiny volume of fast-draining soil that gets flushed every time you water, it cannot forage for nutrients the way a garden tree does — so feeding is not optional, it is how the tree eats. This guide covers what the numbers on the bottle mean, when to feed through the year, and the situations where feeding does harm instead of good.
- Your First 90 Days With a Bonsai: A Beginner's Guide — The first three months with a new bonsai are less about styling and more about keeping the tree alive and settled — the single biggest cause of beginner failure is doing too much, too soon. This guide walks you through what to do, what to leave alone, and what to realistically expect.
- Indoor Bonsai: How to Actually Keep One Alive — The uncomfortable truth behind most dead "indoor bonsai" is that the majority of bonsai are not indoor plants at all — they are outdoor trees that were sold for the windowsill and slowly starved of light. This guide covers which species genuinely tolerate indoor life, why a bright-looking windowsill still isn't bright enough, and how to keep the right tree thriving inside.
- Overwintering Bonsai: Cold-Season Care — A hardy tree that would shrug off a hard frost in the ground can be killed by the same frost in a bonsai pot — because the roots, not the top, are the vulnerable part, and in a shallow container they have nowhere to hide. This guide explains why potted trees are at risk, how to protect them, and how winter care differs between hardy and tropical species.
- Pruning vs. Pinching: Shaping Your Bonsai — Pruning and pinching are two different tools for two different jobs — one builds the tree's structure, the other refines its silhouette — and knowing which to reach for is half of good bonsai design.
- When and How to Repot a Bonsai — Repotting is how you keep a bonsai's root system young and healthy in a tiny pot — done at the right time it's routine and safe, done at the wrong time it can kill an otherwise thriving tree.
- Bonsai Soil: What to Use and Why — Bonsai soil looks nothing like potting compost — it's mostly gritty mineral particles — and once you understand why, most watering and root problems start to make sense.
- How to Water a Bonsai (Without Killing It) — More bonsai die from bad watering than from any pest, disease, or pruning mistake combined — and the fix is not "water more" or "water less," it's learning to read the tree and the soil in front of you.
- Wiring and Shaping a Bonsai: The Basics — Wiring is how you turn a bushy little tree into a bonsai with movement and direction — coil wire around a branch, bend it to where you want it, and hold it there until the wood sets.