Avoid Bonsai Scams
With the rising popularity of bonsai there is also the rise in those who see the opportunity to take advantage of those new to the hobby. With bonsai this comes in the form of selling bonsai for outrageous prices based on age, but should you be paying that price?
Does Age Matter In Bonsai? : Yes and No, if you’re just starting out then absolutely not. When your starting out you want to make your money goes as far as possible and purchasing old trees ( truly old trees ) isn’t the best way to spend your budget. You want to get some trees that you can begin to look after, make some mistakes on and get a feel for bonsai. However age alone doesn’t make a good bonsai, What makes a good bonsai is the work put in by the artist. A young tree can look fantastic if styled correctly and looked after well to maintain healthy foliage.
Mochikomi : In Japan Mochikomi is when a tree has been a bonsai for a very long time, This can be worth a lot of money because what you have is a truly old tree that is well and truly settled into its bonsai form, not only are the branches refined but they are old and have mature bark on them which matches the trunk. Mochikomi is hard to describe but when you see a truly old bonsai tree you will get it.
The Scam : Unfortunately public market places online are flooded with trees that are 20,30, 40 years old or even older depending on how brazen the seller is, I’ve even seen big box stores pulling this scam. They are selling young trees with a little tag that says ( insert false age here ). They then base the price off of this false age rather than the actual value of the tree. I’ve seen “30 year old” junipers on market place that are as smooth as a baby’s bum, not a single big of mature bark in sight ( odd for a 30 year old tree ), but yet the price tag reflects that of a truly mature tree with aged bark and refinement. This is a situation where a young tree has been freshly potted up and sold as a mature bonsai with a price tag that can be way above what the tree is actually worth.
What To Look For?
Aging Habits : Some of these scammers don’t realise what they are doing but they tend to age all their trees the same or with only even numbers. I’ve seen 1 seller where all his trees are 30 years old. This can sometimes be a dead give away that the age is false or he just did a lot of work 30 years ago and mysteriously always re-stocks with 30 year old trees. Maybe a 27 year old tree might break things up a bit for once.
Do We Truly Know The Age Of Trees? : As a nursery owner I can tell you we barley know the true age of 90% of the trees here, unless we grow them from seed we tend to not know as trees don’t come with a birth certificate. There are some people out there that have old trees that they grew from seed and know the exact age, but they are usually fairly well aged them selves ( makes sense right? ) if you have a 50 year old tree you grew from seed you would be at least 60 if you started at 10 years old. Some others say they bought the tree from someone and they were told it was X years old, but this could be false. Only 1 owner trees grown from seed can be aged properly for sure.
Some people seem to know the exact age of every tree they sell which is a red flag to me, especially if they are around the same age as the tree they know so well the age of.
We also cant really tell the age of a tree by its size. In bonsai, trees in a bonsai pot can stay small for a long time, you can also grow really young trees fast and make them big in a relatively short time before putting them into a bonsai pot, so size is no indicator at all for age. I have older trees that are more then half the size of some of my younger trees just due to how they were grown or how long they have been in a bonsai pot.
Bark, Bark, Bark : A really good indicator of truly old trees is bark, have a look at the species online and try to find some actual older examples of that tree and see the difference in bark. Japanese maple is a good example, when they are young they have very green trunks, as they begin to age they get covered in bark and become a more grey colour. This is true for branching as well, if the branches are truly old they will also have bark on them rather than being smooth juvenile branching. Japanese black pine can get deep plated bark on them when they are older and junipers also tend to get more flaky bark the older they get, they are all nice and smooth though when they are young.
Some bonus tips for purchasing bonsai
Is The Pot Good Quality? : Most market place sellers put trees in the cheapest production pots they can find but charge as though they are hand made works of art. Do some research on good quality pots and do some comparison.
Is the tree well styled? : this might be hard to spot if you are very new to the art but a few things you can check is the root flair or ( Nebari ), is it present and does it look nice? . Trunk movement and taper, does the trunk have some nice movement and does it get thinner the further into the top of the tree?. Branch refinement and placement, Are the branches well placed on the tree and are they ramified, meaning do they go from 1 > 2 > 4 > 8 and so on.
Is The Tree Healthy? : Obviously you don’t want to start off behind the 8 ball so buying healthy trees is always a good habit to get into.
Conclusion
So know you know how to tell a little bit better the value of bonsai, I would say don’t ever buy a tree just based off of age, buy it because you like it and truly feel like you are getting your moneys worth. 9/10 if you buy a tree because of its age you have just paid for nothing. If a tree doesn’t have all the things pointed out above its not to say those trees aren’t worth buying as they are for beginners and are a great start, you don’t need good quality trees to begin, but if an expensive tree doesn’t have those things then I would look elsewhere as you will likely get the same quality tree for ¼ of the price or if you are willing to pay that price for a tree you will get a tree that is much higher quality.
Also don’t be suspicious of all high priced bonsai as there are also a lot out there that are actually truly aged or worth the asking price, you just need to make sure they are the real deal.
