Bonsai (101 Essential Tips) Paperback – September 8, 2003

These 101 essential tips are certainly not going to make you master bonsai grower over night, but this book is definitely a must for the beginner. I have purchased or read many DK book in the past and the best asset these books bring to the reader are the marvelous photographs. This book brings that feature along with it to make a very enjoyable experience to the novice bonsai lover. The book itself is small and is akin to holding a Reader's Digest in your hands, albeit just a tad smaller. The pages have excellent photographs or diagrams as the case may be. For example, when you want to learn about wiring the trunk you will see three numbered set of instructions, each with a diagram, and then a completed diagram of a tree with instructional points.In this book you will learn and explore several sections:Starting a Bonsai: You will learn what bonsai is, what to look for in a plant, purchasing plants, rescuing sick plants, culling plants from the wild, growing them from seeds or cuttings, grafting, and air-layering.Design Principles: You will learn how to create balance, the visual effects of root spread, important features of the trunk, viewpoints, size, scale, containers, and what to avoid (types of branches to prune out).Bonsai Styles: You'll learn how to "copy nature" and learn about "upright, informal upright, semicascade, cascade, and slanting styles." In addition to those basic styles you'll learn about broom, literati, root-over-rock, clasped-to-rock, twin-trunk, clump, straight-line, and sinuous styles. You'll also learn about Saikei and group planting.Year-Round Color: You'll learn about seasonal color groups, each listed with suggested species to use.Useful Tools: You'll receive a brief overview and get to see photographs of a selection of pruning, cutting, wiring, potting, and power tools (there are no photographs of these tools).How to Create a Bonsai: You'll learn how to choose containers, you'll see container styles, you'll learn how to prepare a pot, how to prune to shape, clipping & growing, reshaping a plant by wiring, wiring the trunk, branch wiring, and the basics of wiring.Caring for Your Plants: Watering, where to put your plants, root pruning, repotting, trimming, leaf cutting, finger pruning, diseases, pests and systematic spraying.Propagating Bonsai: Seeding, transplanting seedlings, cuttings, potting, air layering, and grafting.Some Suitable Species: Fukien tea, red Japanese maple, bamboo, honeysuckle, silver birch, trident maple, Satsuki azalea, atlas cedar, Elaeagnus, banyan fig, winter jasmine, banyan fig, winter jasmine, honey locust, Scots pine, crab apple, flowering cherry, wisteria, mountain ash, and crape myrtle. You will learn the scientific name of each plant and will learn how to prune them.Display & Arrangement: You will learn both indoor and outdoor displaying and will learn how to exhibit bonsai.Each of these sections is brief, but will greatly assist anyone who thinks they would enjoy bonsai. Chances are, if you order this book, you have already made up your mind. I ordered this book for someone who is very excited about this hobby. If you are expecting to learn everything there is to know about bonsai in this book, you will be disappointed. If you look at this book as a starting point to a lifetime of enjoyment learning about bonsai, you will be thrilled. There is an index in the back of the book if you are looking for something specific. No doubt about it, this little book will be the start of something big for anyone who browses its pages!

Bonsai - 101 Essential Tips, won't be the only book I read on the subject, but it is great for a beginner to bonsai. It was only $5 at the time of purchase, and a very good value for that price.This is the size of a pocket book rather than a full sized book. I wish that this had been even more in depth. Maybe that would discourage some people from the hobby though.This was a concise overview and how to. It explained the history, why to do it, ways to get started building your collection of specimens ( grow from seed, grow from cuttings, collect from the wild, etc). It showed how to take cuttings, how to root them, how to do air layering, etc. It explained the different bonsai styles and included pictures of each. He listed attributes that give bonsai character - texture, bark, shape, taper, ...ways to give your piece that aged and graceful look. Then for each style it explained the tools used, plants, methods of achieving the styles, wiring, pots used, ways to display, and methods of collecting trees. There was a fair amount of attention given to root trimming and care. There was also a fertilizing and care/maintenance guide. Finally, it gave a list of about 20 trees that tend to work well for bonsai. Each explanation and each tree or plant explained had a color photo to accompany it.It is surprising just how much information fit into such a small and short book. Harry is a man of few but well thought out words.This would make a great addition to a gift set for someone wanting to get started with bonsai. It is encouraging, not condescending in any way, easy to follow, and makes it seem like with a bit of patience, even the beginner reading the book can achieve good results with the advanced methods presented (rooting on rocks was even completely shown/explained). I really think it gave about as much information as a much longer book simply because it was about the art and methods and was not filled with fluff and anecdotes.It would not be something I would select for an intermediate to advanced bonsai hobbyist though. This book was not meant for that level of bonsai enthusiast.

So this book is okay, but not great. I would assume anyone buying this book would have some sort of interest in bonsai and have already done a little preliminary research. Unfortunately, that means that this book won't be very helpful. I was very disappointed with the information provided in this book. I know this book is titled "essential tips" and therefore the information contained should be short, sweet, and to the point - but I was still hoping there would be some new information to learn from this book. Unfortunately, all the tips in this book are things you can learn from doing a quick search on Google. I feel like this book was created for someone who has absolutely zero knowledge of bonsai. All of the tips were just too general for my taste.However, I don't want to completely cast this book aside. This book has absolutely wonderful pictures in it - something I find very useful when learning about bonsai. They're clear and crisp and high quality. I found that to be the most valuable aspect of this book - and the reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 3. Looking around the internet, I've noticed it can be hard to find good pictures, especially step by step pictures showing the basic pruning and shaping methods. This book has that, and what the text itself lacks, it makes up for in its pictures.So with that, I'll say that this book is decent. If you know nothing at all about bonsai and are looking for a brief introduction, or if you'd like a handy picture guide covering the basics - then I'd recommend this book. If however, you're looking for a textual guide or perhaps to gain some more advanced knowledge about bonsai, I'd tell you to save your money and buy something else.