If you wish for a unique home-based business opportunity with lots of potential for growth, why not consider establishing a bonsai business?
Some Requirements For a Home-Based Bonsai Business
Gardening Skills – Unless you’re willing to pay for hired help, you have only yourself to depend on for nurturing your bonsai plants to growth. If you weren’t born with a green thumb, you can still learn the necessary gardening skills for having a bonsai business either by self-study or enrolling in a gardening or bonsai growing workshop.
Small to Moderate Capital – The amount of your investment will depend on the size of the business you wish to establish, and whether you wish to grow outdoor or indoor bonsai plants. A bonsai business however will prosper depending on your skills the level of attention you give it and requires no equipment or machineries to run. As such, investment costs are still minimal compared to other types of businesses.
Space – If you don’t have a garden to work with and use as your business setup, you have the choice of reserving a portion of your room for your bonsai business and focus primarily on growing and selling indoor bonsai plants.
Licensing – To ensure smooth operation of your business and pay your dues to society, do take the time to apply for a license for your home-based bonsai business. Since your business doesn’t generally involve or produce too much noise or disturbance, getting licensing for your business should be a simple thing to do. If you live in a subdivision or village however, you’ll have to ask for additional licensing and permission from the authorities of your residence community.
Tips for Making More Money
If you are using an outdoor setup for your bonsai business, take the time to decorate it beautifully as this is will be the basis of your customers’ first impression about your products. Remember to post a moderate-sized but tasteful signage in front your home to let people know about your business.
Take advantage of the global market of the Internet. Advertise freely about your bonsai business by building a website, posting messages in gardening forums, placing ads in online classifieds, and discussing it in your blog. Consider making podcasts as well by giving free bonsai tips then inserting in the middle of your discussion an advertisement about your bonsai business.
Similar to how bonsai plants take time to grow, expect the same from your bonsai business as well. Be patient however and your patient effort will surely be rewarded!
Filed under Bonsai Trees by 
Bonsai trees aren’t difficult to care for. If you have the experience of rearing other household plants, then you’re sure to succeed with a bonsai. The only difference of the bonsai trees to other plants is they are actually ‘trees’. That being the case, they can be killed even if they are kept inside during the winter.
But if you think that planting a tree in a small container can magically turn into a bonsai, you’re mistaken. It takes continuous shaping and pruning. It also depends on what kind of species you have.
Caring for bonsai is like a stylist caring for his client’s hair. Not all cuts are essential. There’s a particular cut or style that will work better. The same goes out to a bonsai.
Bonsai trees are shrubs and trees. Their heights are stunted artificially tying the branches using wires or pruning the roots. This practice started in China and was later on adapted by Japanese.
Some bonsai enthusiasts go out and get a ready-made bonsai. Others prefer to make their own. What they do is they get seeds or cuttings and dig the bonsai plants themselves.
You can start your bonsai hobby by taking care of a young shrub or tree. We suggest you rear bottlebrush, she oak, crepe myrtle, fig, silky oak and ironwood. Make sure to ask your nursery what are the recommended bonsai for your locale’s temperature.
When selecting a plant, consider the following factors:
- the bonsai needs material which you will work with so get a tree that has branches
- the bonsai’s trunk should be wide, preferably its base
- the leaves should be small
- the branches should start closely to the ground
- the plant must be healthy
Also, the pots must have holes for drainage. Pots that are glazed can be an obstacle for the plant to breathe. You can add your own creativity by choosing a pot for its texture and color, just as long as it is perfect for the plant you bought.
If you want to be guided thoroughly, in terms of pruning and shaping, there are hundreds of books about the subject in your local bookstores. Some even have illustrations of the works of renowned bonsai artists such as Matsuhito Kimura.
All you need is basic wiring and pruning skills. Soon enough, you will be able to change a rugged and mangy old bush and shrub into a well-shaped bonsai you can display in your centerpiece. Or if it’s a bonsai tree you spent hours pruning, it can be the center of your garden.
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When you hear ‘bonsai’, the first image that comes to mind is a miniature tree. Aesthetic miniaturization of trees that are grown in the containers is an art practiced by Japanese, Chinese and Korean.
For the Chinese, it is ‘penjing’, for the Korean ‘bunjae’, whereas for the Japanese, the term is ‘bonsai.’
The Chinese were the first to grow miniature-size trees in containers. They started doing so around 200 CE. This is how herbal healers transported medicinal plants.
The practice spread to Japan during the Heian period. Landscape gardening was given importance during the Tokugawa period. Maples and azalea were cultivated by the wealthy for a pastime activity.
The term used at that time was ‘hachi-no-ki’ which means “a tree in a pot.” Bonsai was used in the Meiji period during the late 19th century.
There are various kinds of bonsai. These are the slant, formal upright, informal upright, raft, literati, cascade, semi-cascade and the forest/group.
The slant style bonsai is like the straight trunk of any upright trees. The apex extends to the right or the left of the base. The formal upright is similar to a straight and tapered trunk. This is as opposed to the informal upright that has curves and bends with the apex usually found on top of the roots.
The raft bonsai is considered to be a phenomenon because it takes place after a tree is toppled from natural force or erosion. The branches then expose the edge of the trunk. Roots grow from these buried portions. A literati is when the trunk line is bare and there are minimum branches on a somehow contorted trunk.
Cascades are models of trees that grow on the side of the mountains and the water’s surface. The tip or the apex of a cascade bonsai reaches underneath the lip of the pot. Finally, a forest or group bonsai is a group of trees that grow altogether in a pot. These are usually of a similar species.
Bonsai are classed according to their sizes. There are styles and techniques associated to the shito and mame bonsais. These are the bonsais that are grown in pots as small as thimbles.
The bonsai enthusiast must know that the smaller the size of the bonsai, the greater the care he must exert. The miniature sized bonsai often requires special attention.
Bonsai is often found in the center of a garden when set alongside an urban or wild landscape. Bonsai collectors put high value on the bonsai because of the plant’s ability to exhibit age as they mature.
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