Bonsai Tools: What You ACTUALLY Need

[@zbarcalab4390]

I can agree with most things you said, but not with needing dedicated bonsai scissors, there's plenty of gardening scissors that have long, thin blades, the good quality are also way cheaper than good quality bonsai scissors. Also, the concave cutter is not a neccesary item in every bonsai artist's tool box, some people don't like that perfect, flawless bark with no scars, scars tell a story, they give character to a tree.

[@RABonsai]

You can get some cheap bonsai scissors. It s no need to use other materials. Concave cutters are a must. Scars are one thing, bad cuts are another. Bonsai trunks develop character with age. Cuts need to heal over on deciduous and tropicals. Also, big cuts that don't heal over look hand made and wreck the natural look of the tree. If you want scars, you make them look natural, but you make them on coniferous bonsai. And they are transformed into jin or shari. Having holes and carved trunks on anything else is a ticket to death in time because they are a health hazzard for the tree.

[@zbarcalab4390]

@@RABonsai they don't NEED to heal over, deadwood, hollows, carved trunks should be normalized on deciduous bonsai, you can use wood hardener on them and a hollow trunk might be a health problem for a big tree because it's losing it's structure, it might fall over, but in bonsai it really isn't a problem. People should really think outside of the japanese aesthetic when it comes to decidous, give them scars, hollows and stop giving them pad structures so they look like pines.

[@RABonsai]

Go for it if you want. I told you it's a health issue. I've saw big yamadori bonsai masters that decided not to do this anymore because 30 yo trees were starting to die. I've talked and looked at 15 yo yamadori that were carved by need (a part of the trunk died from frost) and clearly that was a home for bugs. Deciduous exposed wood will always keep rooting whatever you do to it and it will extend to the living tissue. It may take 10 years, it may take 35 years, but it will happen at some point no matter what. Coniferous are a total different animal. It's nothing to do with thinking outside the box. This info came out a few years ago and now everybody understands why the Japanese were so insistent on trees without scars. They just didn't tell why to the rest of the world and always kept it as a design flaw. But now we know. For the design, the BEST advice that I've heard like....EVER, is: "Make a bonsai look like a tree, not a tree look like a bonsai" and it's got nothing to do with Japanese aesthetic. I started to think way outside the box in this year, so you will see at least a couple of funky designs.

[@credencefaith]

​@@RABonsaiowned