Blog
About me
I first became interested in miniature trees at the age of 13 or 14, after watching a TV report just a few minutes long. It seemed quite strange and fascinating to me that you could grow an ordinary tree in a small pot so that it stood…
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What is bonsai?
Bonsai (盆栽) is a Japanese word — “bon”, a small pot, and “sai”, a plant (a plant grown in a small container). Bonsai is the Japanese art of growing miniature trees using special techniques. These…
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The history of bonsai
There is a view that growing miniature trees in pots began in ancient Egypt. The Hanging Gardens of Semiramis in ancient Babylon might also be considered a forerunner of bonsai. But modern, classical…
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Bonsai styles
The natural conditions in which trees grow vary enormously. Some have almost ideal conditions for development: enough light, the water and nutrients they need, and open space for the canopy to…
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What should you know before giving a bonsai as a gift?
Choosing a gift is often hard, and there are many things to take into account — especially when we want the gift to be meaningful, symbolic and memorable for the person receiving it. As a rule, a…
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Bonsai school
The art of bonsai came to Georgia late. Even today many people lack accurate information about bonsai, although plenty of reliable sources in various languages can be found online. In the early '90s,…
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Why is bonsai expensive?
Why is bonsai so expensive? I would put the question differently: why can't a bonsai be cheap? First and foremost, the main reason is, of course, time — the time it takes to create a bonsai. As a…
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Our space
My first bonsai lived on the balcony of an ordinary apartment block. Since I had only a few trees, I didn't need any special space for them. Over the years I worked on more and more trees, and within…
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Buying a bonsai
In a great many countries, bonsai are sold in specialist shops or at regular exhibitions. In Georgia, bonsai can be bought in garden centers. These are mostly small ficus or Chinese elms produced…
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Grapevine bonsai
The grapevine (Lat. Vitis) is a genus of plants in the grape family and includes about 70 species, found mainly in warm and temperate regions. Up to 4,000 grape varieties are known, differing from…
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Everything in brief
This chapter brings together several important rules you need to know when working on bonsai. No rule or principle written for styling should be treated as a strict law that must be obeyed. These…
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Bonsai and the internet
The beginning. When I started working with bonsai, I had only one book, and I have often said that because there was no internet back then, I lost a lot of time figuring out how a bonsai could be…
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