Thank you mirai

Beginners
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I saw my first bonsai tree in a botany video in 7th grade in 1991 and fell in love. I’ve killed many trees, taught beginner classes at a nursery and to random friends, and I’ve kept trees alive for decades–but I have never had a base, fundamental knowledge of techniques, practices and horticultural principles. No teacher I’ve had has been able to explain things clearly and with in-depth reasoning to back it up.

The knowledge base you guys are pushing out is absolutely incredible. Just the sheer number of hours of information is astounding. I appreciate the candor, the science-based explanations and the quality of audio, video and material being worked on. I’m a filmmaker and a photographer and let me just say you guys are crushing it.

I was prompted to make this post because I just executed my first full Mirai-style repot. I made the soil mix, built sifters with various screen sizes, screened the soil particles, made the chopsticks, collected the moss, made the top dressing, assessed the root mass, knew the right time to safely do the work, secured the tree well, made sure to get the soil into all the air pockets, chopsticked correctly, watered it in—and I feel fucking great about it.

I obtained a solid knowledge base and executed and it feels great.

Thank you Mirai, thank you Ryan.

And now some pics. This crape myrtle was 8’ tall when I found it, forgotten in the back corner of a nursery last May (2017). I sawed the rootball in half and put it in some bonsai soil. It thrived the rest of the summer (huge cuts sealed over in one season).

I was too scared to chop it low enough at the onset, but as I learned more about crape myrtle (you can chop them back like a bald cypress and they’ll bounce back), I chopped it back and started planning the tree. I chose a front (which I am now second guessing, ha!), and now I’m starting the second growing season with this tree.

I just did the big repot, took out a lot of problematic structural roots, had to spray out the rootball to remove all the stubborn clay left over from the nursery. I feel great about the repot and the future of this tree.

Thank you again for sharing all this knowledge in this format (I carry the ipad around the house as I watch/listen)–this is an astoundingly solid resource you folks have built.

keegan

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I can’t agree more with every single word! Well expressed @keegan :+1: And nice work with crape myrtle :slight_smile:

I’ve been trying to learn from all sort of youtube videos, checked many bonsai websites for information, bought books, went to workshops (well not many and still not member of any club…) but none of them has shared so detailed all knowledge as Ryan decided to do with the team he has. He is extremely talented artist, bonsaist and teacher! Obviously must be talented in finding very talented people to have such a gang behind this so we can learn and communicate, website, videos etc.

Thank you Mirai :kissing_heart:

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I’m going to piggyback on this post and also thank Mirai for their work. After pouring over books, and online videos, I was always confused and unclear about the why certain things are done in bonsai.

Something that I began to notice as I killed a bunch of nursery stock, is that this piece meal way of learning wasn’t really teaching me to think about what I was doing. A lot of these articles or videos were always very specific to the area/zone where the creator of the content was working, or very specific to the species being worked on. They never really told me that though, so I would end up washing off all of the soil on a pine, because the guy in the video did it to a maple.

That’s what makes this website/team special. We are being given the why behind the work, so that we can learn when and where to use it on our trees. We are being taught how to hold the brush against the canvas, instead of how to color by numbers. And that right there, is worth the price of admission.

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I can’t agree more!!!
I have lots of books, -all the ones you should have, and I remember the first video
I watched of Ryan, I said, “I learned more in one video than I have from all my books!”
THANK YOU MIRAI!

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Thank you so much guys!

Mirai Live wouldn’t be what it is if it weren’t for all of you and the vibrant community that has been growing around us. :blush:

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Balance of water and oxygen…hmmmm …ohmmm.
AND a side of Mirai on Tuesday!
Thnx…

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