When bonsai suddenly bursts into your life, you are greeted, perhaps inundated, with new horticultural concepts, Eastern and Western aesthetics, and lots of advice, some of it seemingly contradictory. Add a dash of plant names in Latin and design concepts in Japanese, and just the thought of jumping into bonsai can be almost over whelming.
People find bonsai to be of interest for many reasons.
Regardless of from which direction you approach bonsai, there is always the question of how to get started. The first thing that you should realize is that interest in bonsai implies a profound respect and love for Nature. One does not start out into bonsai by collecting trees that are growing in the wild. Although you may follow the bonsai manuals on digging practice to the letter, you probably do not yet know how to even water your new acquisition, how to fertilize it, or how to preserve or enhance its original form. In many instances, a tree similar to the one you have just collected could have been bought for very little money at any nursery.