There are an endless number of ways to create bonsai with different plants requiring different care and starting with young seedlings or rooted cuttings,  airlayers or potted nursery stock, or gnarled ancient trees dug from the mountains. An understanding of bonsai terms will give you an insight into how bonsai are created and the challenges of each stage of bonsai development. 

          STARTER STOCK or "PRE-BONSAI."  These general terms mean different things to different growers.  They may designate plants that someone somewhere has trained into a bonsai. It could be a seedling or a recently rooted cutting that has not received any bonsai training whatsoever. At bonsai nurseries, young plants are root pruned at an early age to remove any tap root and begin training a shallow compact root system.  The primary apical growth tip is pinched or the trunk actually pruned back heavily to create strong lower branches and trunk character.  Starter stock or pre-bonsai plants are generally young and inexpensive.

          POTTED NURSERY STOCK.  This could mean plants varieties that are unsuitable for bonsai training or an old nursery-grown tree that may have extraordinary bonsai potential! Good bonsai material generally have small leaves, compact growth, many branches, and a trunk with character. But the most important is whether or not that plant will grow well for you. Some nurseries will take a pot-bound young plant and simply put it into a larger nursery container with more media, but without trimming or untangling circling roots.  If this has been done several times, it's a daunting challenge to untangle the layers of roots. To create a good future root system, over three-quarters of the roots may be removed. It's then necessary to remove three-quarters of the top growth and give it special care to help it recover.  In many parts of the country where there are no bonsai nurseries, try to locate a bonsai club whose members will help you to find good sources of bonsai materials.

         FIELD-GROWN or COLLECTED STOCK.  The finest bonsai in the world often began as ancient knarled trees collected from the timberline or from harsh environments where nature has sculptured extraordinary trees.  These take a lot of skill, but if successfully collected, within a few years they will be more impressive than trees that you may have trained for over 20 years! Gain knowledge and experience by joining a bonsai club!  Tackling field grown nursery stock is also exciting and the success rate is often based upon how the stock was managed. In bonsai nurseries in Japan, pre-trained bonsai stock are field-grown in rows like vegetables to allow vigorous growth to thicken trunks. Roots are pruned periodically and there's a very high success rate when transplanted back into a container.

         PREPARED BONSAI STOCK.  These are generally only available from professional bonsai nurseries of trees whose training began while the plants were very young. Quality will vary with the skill and standard of each grower. The best prepared bonsai stock will have stout trunks with character, several strong branches, and a shallow compact root system.  These may be three to five years in training and while significantly more expensive, they are ideal for beginners. But if prepared bonsai stock is not available in your area, you may have to create your own.  Here's how:

         1.  These are the flowers and berries of a tropical shrub known as Golden Dewdrop (Duranta repens) with attactive berries that hang in clusters. It's good for a taller bonsai grown outdoors in full sun. It tends to die-back and is considered difficult so it is not likely that it will be available anywhere as prepared bonsai stock. Most are used in landscaping and this plant was obtained from a garden shop.

         2.  When pruned for best form and removed from the 6" nursery pot, roots completely filled the pot. The top was starting to die-back which indicates the tree was pot-bound.

       3.  Cut through the circling roots and with a root hook, begin to remove the outer roots. In bonsai, the roots that are nearest to the base of the trunk are the most important. The roots farthest from the trunk are less efficient and are shortened or removed. 

        4.  After removing the outer circling roots, another layer of circling roots was discovered.  This tree was originally grown in a 4" nursery container, and when it became pot-bound, was potted into the 6" container with additional media, but without cutting the circling roots.  So it was necessary to untangle and remove a second set of cirling roots.

        5.  After getting past the second set of circling roots, cleaning the roots from around the trunk shows that the plant had also been planted deeply in the pot. Carefully expose the trunk until you see the first surface roots.

        6.  Over 95% of the roots were removed.  Long roots were shortened and the fine roots near the trunk base were retained.  When it is necessary to remove such a large amount of roots,  it is also necessary to further cut back top growth and to provide special care to help the tree recover.

        7.   Prepare a larger container with tie-down wires and a hill of coarse bottom drainage material. We cover 50% of so of this hill with a sheet of plastic to prevent the potting media from clogging the drainage layer.  The plant is positioned, additional media added, and the plant firmly secured to the pot with tie-down wires so it will not shake. This will allow the new roots to become quickly established.

        8.  At the completion of the potting, additional branches are pruned.  There's only a small amount of potting media used in a shallow layer.  This will create a wide shallow root system.  Once the media is firmed down with a potting trowel, the pot is placed in a large tub filled with water up to the rim of the pot for 30 minutes or so to allow the water to totally saturate the media. After draining, we add more coarse bottom media on top to serve as a mulch and to protect the surface roots.  With good care, the tree will resprout and it will be ready for training in a year or two. Too often, creating and managing an ideal root system is not given enough attention. 

          SEMI-TRAINED BONSAI.  There are many ways to train bonsai but it's recommended that wiring, pruning, and potting not be done during the same training session as it puts too much stress on the tree.  Trees that have all the attributes of "prepared bonsai stock" quickly progress to semi-trained stage and branches are positioned and the overall shape developed. Generally at this stage, the emphasis is on creating strong growth without concern for the size of the leaves.  Each time the tree is pruned, multiple new growth emerges. The selection of which growth points to retain determines the future shape. Tree at this stage are usually repotted every few years to assure healthy growth and may be eight to 25 years in training.

          SPECIMEN BONSAI.  Mere age does not automatically mean a tree becomes valuable. Trees grow at different rates but at one point, a well-trained bonsai attains a special gradeur. This is usually after about 30 years of training.  Branches have developed sub-branches and detailed twig ramification. The shallow root system with strong surface roots have developed an attractive buttress where the roots meet the trunk.  Leaves naturally reduce in size and at this "refinement stage," the bonsai trainer focuses on steady stable growth. 

          CONCLUSION.  The aristocratic Chinese elite began growing artistic pot plants as part of an individualistic lifestyle that including many cultural arts. The Japanese codified various detailed practices and it is possible to learn bonsai as an occupational craft with thousands of rules and practices passed down in schools or through family nurseries. But in the last 50 years or so, bonsai exploded and became an international hobby with many new forms of bonsai being developed. 

          Bonsai is the most challenging complex horticultural art requiring knowledge of plants, container growing, and training techniques. There are now many different kinds of bonsai.  Most traditional temperate climate bonsai are grown outdoors and these require a high level of skill and discipline. 

         Some tropical bonsai such as ficus or the fig family of plants can grow indoors if given greenhouse or high-light conditions. They are often grown outdoors in full sun when night temperatures are above 50 degrees F.  Houseplants are being trained for year-around indoor bonsai.  More bonsai nurseries provide ideal prepared bonsai stock and a growing number of bonsai clubs throughout the country share and teach the basics of bonsai. There really are no secrets anymore!