We have been having a bit of fun….
We’ve been having a little fun. We couldn’t resist creating this light-hearted cartoon of Lloyd doing what he does best – surrounded by bonsai, pruning scissors in hand and, inevitably, thinking about trees.
Just to reassure you, while we may occasionally create a fun illustration like this, the bonsai trees you see for sale on our website are very real! Our product photography is done by us, and where we say a bonsai is individually photographed, the photograph shows the actual tree you will receive. No AI-generated bonsai, no imaginary foliage and no magically enhanced trunks – just our real trees, grown and cared for at the nursery. Sometimes we add them to a background but the bonsai are always home grown!
Growing Bonsai Trees at Bonsai Direct
There is a much easier way to run a bonsai nursery than growing your own trees.
You buy finished bonsai. You unpack them. You put them up for sale.
Simple.
So why do we go to all the trouble of propagating, growing, watering, feeding, pruning, wiring and repotting bonsai for years before they are ready to leave our nursery?
Because we are bonsai growers – and we are rather particular about our trees.
At Bonsai Direct, we want to offer some of the best quality bonsai in the UK. To do that, we don’t want to rely entirely on the trees that commercial growers decide to produce.
We want to grow something better. And sometimes, something completely different.
Propagation units at Bonsai Direct – Devon UK.
Some of Our Favourite Bonsai Simply Aren’t Commercially Available
One of the biggest reasons we grow our own bonsai is variety.
Large commercial nurseries understandably concentrate on trees they can produce reliably and in substantial quantities. That’s perfectly sensible from a commercial point of view.
Unfortunately, it can also mean seeing the same relatively small selection of bonsai again and again.
We find that rather boring.
There are so many fascinating trees and shrubs that make wonderful bonsai. Some have beautiful bark. Others have tiny leaves, flowers, berries, unusual autumn colour or wonderfully characterful trunks.
If we think a species has the potential to become a great bonsai, we want to grow it – even if nobody is producing thousands of them commercially.
That means some of the trees you’ll find at Bonsai Direct have effectively grown up with us.
Amazing English Oak Bonsai (Quercus robur) grown by Lloyd at Bonsai Direct. Bonsai trees like this are not commercially grown.
We Can Grow a Better Bonsai from the Beginning
There is another important advantage.
When you grow a bonsai yourself, you don’t have to accept someone else’s decisions.
We can start thinking about the future bonsai while the tree is still young.
Which branches should we encourage?
Where do we want the trunk to thicken?
Does it need more movement?
Should that shoot stay for another season?
Would removing it now create a better structure later?
Sometimes the correct decision is actually to do very little and let the tree grow.
Bonsai is unusual like that. Occasionally, achieving a better tree in five years requires allowing it to look slightly wild today.
Better Trunks, Better Branches, Better Bonsai
We don’t want a bonsai to be simply a small plant in a bonsai pot.
We look for character.
As our home-grown trees develop, we can work on the characteristics that make a bonsai increasingly convincing: trunk thickness, taper, movement, branch placement and eventually fine ramification.
Repeated pruning encourages branches to divide into increasingly fine growth. Over time, that creates the intricate, twiggy structure associated with a mature tree.
You cannot manufacture that instantly.
It takes growing seasons, patience and a surprising amount of standing in the nursery staring at trees.
We like to think this is serious artistic contemplation.
Others might call it staring at trees.
Juniper Bonsai Tree Kit – This species was made popular by Mr Miyagi on The Karate Kid Movies.
Juniperus chinensis. This is a hardy evergreen outdoor bonsai tree species.
We Know Where Our Trees Have Come From
Growing our own also gives us something we value enormously: history.
We know how the trees have been cultivated.
We know the compost they’ve grown in, how they’ve been fed, when they’ve been repotted and how they’ve responded to pruning.
More importantly, we’ve watched them develop.
There is something enormously satisfying about seeing a tree that started as relatively unremarkable young material gradually acquire a thick trunk, interesting bark and a beautifully ramified canopy.
Then one day you look at it and think: Now you’re a bonsai.
Growing Bonsai in Devon Has Its Advantages
Our trees don’t spend their lives being grown purely to look good for a few weeks on a garden-centre shelf.
We grow bonsai as bonsai. Sometimes we import younger bonsai trees and then grow them on. We simply cannot grow everything but as the years pass we grow more and more of our own stock.
That distinction matters.
Our nursery team can concentrate on long-term health and development rather than simply producing a plant that reaches a particular saleable size as quickly as possible.
Trees experience the seasons. We watch how individual varieties perform and learn their peculiarities.
And they certainly have peculiarities.
Anyone who tells you that all bonsai behave predictably has clearly never grown very many bonsai.
High quality 34 year old Cork Bark Elm – Ulmus parvifolia with dragon roots. Grown and potted by Lloyd Noall from Bonsai Direct
Sometimes We Grow a Tree Simply Because We Love It
Not every decision has to begin with a spreadsheet.
Occasionally, we grow a particular species because we think it makes a fantastic bonsai.
Perhaps it has extraordinary bark. Perhaps it produces beautiful flowers. Maybe its autumn colour is spectacular. Sometimes we simply see a young tree and can imagine what it might become ten years later.
That’s one of the privileges of being a specialist bonsai nursery.
We don’t have to restrict ourselves to what is easiest to source.
We can experiment.
Some experiments work spectacularly well.
Others teach us never to try that again.
Both are useful.
We Want Our Bonsai to Be Better
Ultimately, this is the main reason we grow our own.
We are incredibly proud of Bonsai Direct and we want the quality of our trees to reflect that.
We don’t want to compete with ordinary garden centres by selling exactly the same bonsai. We want our trees to stand apart through their health, structure, maturity, variety and character.
That doesn’t mean every bonsai has to be an ancient specimen costing hundreds of pounds.
A young beginner bonsai should still be a good bonsai.
It should be healthy, well established and have the potential to develop beautifully. A more mature tree should demonstrate the years of work invested in it through its trunk, branching, proportions and overall design.
Whether it costs £25 or £500, we want to be proud of the tree we send.
This photograph shows the beautiful nebari (root flare) of this mature Japanese Maple Bonsai and the feature hollowed uro.
Of Course, Growing Our Own Is the Slow Way
There is one slight problem with all of this.
Bonsai trees have absolutely no respect for deadlines.
We cannot ask a trunk to hurry up because we’re running low on stock.
We can’t tell a branch that we’d really appreciate another year’s worth of ramification by Friday.
And unfortunately, no amount of encouragement will persuade a tree to become ten years old next Tuesday.
Growing bonsai teaches patience.
It also means that some of our more unusual home-grown varieties are only available in small numbers. When they are gone, we may genuinely have to wait for another batch to mature.
But we think that’s part of what makes them special.
From Our Nursery to Your Home
For us, bonsai has never simply been about selling miniature trees.
It’s about growing them.
It’s watching a young tree develop character. Making hundreds of tiny decisions over many years. Knowing when to prune and, just as importantly, when to leave something alone.
It’s about producing unusual species that we couldn’t otherwise offer and developing trees to a standard that we are genuinely proud to put the Bonsai Direct name on.
Growing our own bonsai takes considerably longer.
It creates considerably more work.
And it would undoubtedly be easier not to do it.
But then we wouldn’t have the bonsai we want to sell.
And where would be the fun in that?
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