The Little Book of Bonsai: An Easy Guide to Caring for Your Bonsai Tree Hardcover – Illustrated, January 28, 2020

I was able to read this book over the Thanksgiving weekend. While it's The Little Book of Bonsai, it packs a lot of great information in by condensing topics down and strategic use of bulleted lists.The aesthetics of the book are phenomenal! The things that make this book aesthetically pleasing to me are the soft colors and font selections. I love the tan pages at the front of the book with the white lettering, the white pages with grey lettering and the way the headings and body text are not only visually separated by font type, but also by size and color! I also love that the information is organized into bulleted lists.This book is beautiful from cover to cover, which is exactly as it should be considering the subject. Bonsai is the horticulture and art in one.The photos possess excellent lighting and color contrast and the subjects are superb. Teh trees pictured inthis book are amazing.This book’s target audience is the beginner, and the author did a great job of not over complicating things. There is a great balance between writing content that was just enough to get a beginner started versus providing full on data dump!Chapter I, Bonsai Style was excellent and covered these ideas really well. For example “finding the front” was really well laid out and the pictures provided are great.Chapter II, Caring for Your Bonsai. The author did a great job covering the appropriate environment (tree placement) and how this affects watering frequency.Chapter III, Tools and Techniques I like that the author identified two groups for the tools; Basic Tools and Beyond the Basic Tools. Pruning was good, but personally I would like to have seen a little more information regarding pruning on specific trees that would be common for a beginner. So, say a discussion on pruning junipers and then one on deciduous trees. Maybe a list of species that have die-back when pruned and how to account for that.Identifying the branches to prune was great as well as the remainder of the topics in this chapter.Chapter IV, Containers and Display Great! Good chapter, precise and to the point.Chapter V, Appreciating Different Species I loved this chapter; eye candy and great bullet points. I really appreciated the “Key Feature To Develop” for each species. (I have some tabs in my book to reference back to.)Chapter VI, Next Steps I’m so glad the author had this chapter in the book! This really provides a great conclusion to the book. Hopefully it spurs the reader to go further.I really like this book and I would definitely recommend it for beginners, not only for the information, but also for the low cost/high value of this little wonder! I’m looking forward to your next book from this author!

I have always wanted to try my hand at growing Bonsai trees. Because it is not hard to practice, it is hard to achieve. It takes months/years to grow trees that are Bonsai and I probably will pass my creations to my grandchild who wants to try her hand at this creative endeavor. I should have attempted this many years ago, so I would suggest that if you are considering trying this art of Bonsai, begin it now. I look forward to my attempts. :).

My first book on Bonsai was written by a gentleman of Japan (sounds like lyrics from THE MIKADO). His phrasing made it hard to understand many points, and the few photos in the book were in black and white. This volume, on the other hand, speaks my language, is a bit longer, and has a lot more photos, and in color. I would suggest that if someone is going to write something to be published in another language than their own, they should make sure it is proofread by someone who can speak both languages fluently, and that they make sure, even if the book is meant to be inexpensive, that any photos are in color for a topic about trees and artistic endeavours. It is the 21st Century.

I have only been caring for plants and getting into training prebonsai for less than two years, so take my qualifications at that.Bonsai Tonight is a great blog, the author has extensive experience, and this book would be great for a person looking to get into bonsai by book.My only gripe is that bonsai soil is mentioned only once and in passing. While I know each hardiness zone is different and every gardener has different soil mixes, I do think it strange a whole section was not devoted to the importance of considering good soil types, oxygen to water relationships, and drainage. Many “bonsai” soils in box stores are nearly cactus/succulent soil and simply are not the best for the growing healthy trees. Watering and soil are some of the toughest aspects of miniature container growing.

Very pleased with the quality of this book, great for beginners just getting into the art of Bonsai. Makes a good gift also

Made a great birthday gift for my niece. She loves books, and she loves plants and botany, so this checked off both boxes for me. She started reading it as soon as i gave it to her. The book itself is hardcover and appeared to be well-constructed. No complaints whatsoever.

Excellent book for anyone interested in bonsai

This got pretty good reviews so I tried it. It’s ok but you can get more out of a 15 minute YouTube clip without spending the money. Photos are great and great references for the results you want but it lacks in depth steps to creating a bonsai.