Generally speaking, most of us start a bonsai by going to a friendly neighborhood nursery, buying a plant, usually in a one or two gallon plastic container, taking it home, and then we either take it to a workshop or begin to try to turn it into a bonsai at home. This works, especially if we have the luxury of buying the plant from a bonsai nursery. Thus a beginning bonsai is born. The raw stock purchased in a bonsai nursery often times has had the benefit of having been pruned and wired to at least a basic shape. Not all of the shapes are necessarily those one would wish but the chances are that, some where in the vast sea of plants there is one that you can work with. Obviously before the purchase is final the nebari (roots), the trunk line and the primary branches are familiar to you and are judged to be workable material. Be careful in any ease to absolutely know where the primary surface roots are. Many times the plants are repotted with excess soil and the trunk of the plant may be short from the first primary branch to the top of the soil. Upon removing the excess soil to reveal the primary surface roots it is found to be entirely different and the distance between the first primary branch and the primary surface roots is quite long. It is better to discover this at the nursery than at home where you have no recourse but to use the plant or plant it in "the yard" My next recommendation is to remove the plant from the pot, cut the longest roots back to their second branch and plant it in a sunny place in the yard. Feed and water regularly and start developing the branch structure. One of the criteria you used in buying the plant was that the trunk and major branches were in the right places and that the trunk had the desired movement". Now we can concentrate on developing the secondary and tertiary branches and foliage. Secondary branch development is encouraged by periodically removing the apical bud (Meristem) from the primary branch. Tertiary branching are encouraged by removing the apical bud (Meristem) from. the secondary branches. The plant will tend to out grow the plan for it; however, with continual attention being given to 'pinching' the tips of the branches, the plant will develop better branching and a larger trunk than if it were kept in a pot. Pinching the tips of the branches is more than merely grasping the tip between the thumb and fore finger and squeezing; it means that as we squeeze we pull to actually remove the tip. In addition to the care given to the top of the tree it should be lifted out of the soil in February to cut the longest roots back to two branches and arrange the surface roots into a pleasing pattern. This is more difficult when the plant is in a bonsai pot. This is also a good time to wire the tree at this time as it will be very difficult to do once the plant is back in the ground. Re-plant the tree in the ground and repeat this process until the tree has reached its desired shape and proportions. The process can span several years or two years depending on your patience and the development rate of the tree.

This process is especially effective when creating a grove or forest. Trees can be grown to the exact size needed for the forest by planting the primary trees in the ground in the first year and planting the secondary trees in the ground the second year and so on, all the while trimming and training the previously planted trees. When the trees have reached a satisfactory stage of development the grove or forest can be planted into a bonsai pot.

Sure it takes a long time, but Rome wasn't built in a day nor is a bonsai created in a three hour workshop. The workshop can produce something of value, however, because the techniques for developing the tree in the workshop are the same as used for developing the tree in the ground--only in the workshop environment, time (the fourth dimension of bonsai), has been radically compressed. Time is the fourth dimension of a bonsai. Width, depth and height are all three necessary to avoid having a planar tree. Without time a bonsai does not exist. It is either growing or dead. Whoever has called a dead stick a bonsai?