Regional Bonsai Care: The state of bonsai technical training in the United States

摘要

Pursuing the art of bonsai in the United States frequently starts by seeing refined bonsai in a show, signing up and taking a beginner's workshop to produce your first bonsai, joining a local bonsai club, and then taking a few workshops to produce more of your own bonsai. The local bonsai club introduces the "newbie" to more information on development techniques such as wiring, repotting, etc. through general meetings and club events. Bonsai clubs, while providing a valuable social outlet and resources for further education of the newbie, usually have no mechanism for providing the more structured training needed by the student to continue his/her personal advancement as a bonsai artist once the basic concepts are touched on. Some "newbies" may attempt to shorten the learning process by purchasing more refined trees, but this is expensive and can be frustrating if you do not know how to maintain and further develop the purchased tree. Bonsai are living, changing creatures and do not stay the same no matter what the owner does in trying to keep them exactly the same. Bonsai shows in the United States are full of good trees that were not maintained in a proper manner after purchase.