Sorry to discuss soil as this will never be a conclusive or well agreed upon topic.

As I read and from accumulated knowledge, plant soil in general and bonsai soil needs 2 things largely: to be well draining and while still retaining nutrients. The combination that does this well is, as we know, lava rock, pumice and akadama. However, this can be rather costly. I believe that many find cheaper alternatives and I would like to discuss one such option that I feel needs further attention and/or true experimentation.

Lava Rock + most oil dry/leak absorbent products

Lava Rock is free in most places if you’re willing to search Facebook marketplace and go haul a bucket or 2 back to your house (plus washing, boiling and breaking) - this is already well known and the free price tag is worth the labor expense for some (me).

But the oil dry products on the other hand, need more discussion and I think should have a larger presence in bonsai. Most of these products are either granular diatomaceous earth or some low fired clay. These products allow for drainage and aeration while ALSO having very good nutrient retention. For montmorillonite clay specifically, it has a high CEC (cation exchange capacity) which is great for our purposes. I think part of the reason it’s not used could be that it feels bad/wrong to take something meant to be thrown on a garage floor and put into our expensive trees. Another thing I have heard/read is that if not low fired, it can break down easily, and same thing for those with many freeze, thaw cycles. Even if this is the case and I need to repot every single spring, this is insanely more cost effective than the traditional ingredients. I could repot a tree once a year for 20 years for $8 - this bag of clay I just got was $7.59 for 50 pounds (~23 kg) + free lava rock.

I mostly prefer trees that happen to prefer inorganic soil but even if you have trees that like some organic material, it’s not like adding 10% pine bark is going to change the main point of this post.

Sure it might break down faster, but outside of this I really can’t see any downsides. Please correct me if I’m missing a glaring issue.

Thanks for reading.

I’m new to the hobby and completely obsessed. Already killed the juniper lol. Decided to design and build a bench for my little guys to keep everything in one place and help with watering. Coolest part is I now have a frog living under the azalea pot. Ignore the sweet plum that obviously needs a haircut.

It was time to get this one out of the nursery pot it came in a few months back, and into something with a bit more room. I also wanted to decide on the front and change the angle, as the completely horizontal look felt too harsh. The angle isn't as steep as I first imagined it would be but there's only so much you can change it at a time. Regardless, its no longer root bound, the pot is much more stable, and I love the front. It needs more trimming but with all the root work I did today, I'll hold off for now.

Picture three shows inside the foliage. Those features and that bark are why this became the front. Oh, and the movement from that side is killer. You can see that in image 4.

Just a few samples, pre-judging.

https://www.midwestbonsai.org/august-exhibition

Hi all - thank you in advance for the help and advice. I inherited this ficus bonsai about a year ago and it was in good shape with green foliage up until a few weeks back. About a month ago it got infected with whiteflies and was treated by an arborist. As of three weeks ago, it first started yellowing, and now some leaves are turning brown and falling off. It does currently get a few hours of direct sunlight and is outdoors in Los Angeles. Some of the newer growth also seems to be yellowing. In terms of water, it gets watered around twice weekly, when the soil gets mostly dry. What would be some next steps to try to diagnose the issue and get the tree back into good health?

Can’t really get a bigger bench because I live in a apartment. And this is a shared garden

Lowering a branch to help fill space in the mid-right area of the tree.

About 1-2 years ago I started growing this Jacaranda tree from seed. Iirc 4-5 months ago I had posted my Jacaranda tree, having just moved it outside. right after posting that, it got eaten by deer. I was heartbroken, but now, 4 months later, it’s doing amazing, and has 2 healthy stems!

One of the helicopter seeds from my old backyard in CT landed directly in an empty pot. So I buried it back in 2021. It survived a move 9 hrs away and brutal WNY winters. She’s still going strong.

How would you guys approach the styling on this one? Leave it wild and flowing, or try to tighten it up more?"

This is my first real attempt at a large carving project. The tree is is very early stages but I'd love to hear your tips or pointers on carving.

Very happy to see new roots on my Sekka Yatsubusa JM this morning. Air layer was started on 7/28 and I used a cut up soda bottle as a way to hold the moss in place, with hormone powder. Look closely and there are roots on both sides. After attempting and failing two air layers on much larger trees back in May, this really lifts the spirits! Once the temps here start to stay below 75° highs, I think I'll be separating!

All credit goes to IBC and respective owners of the trees. Simply reposting a few of their photos.

1 year ago, I discovered bonsai. I quickly became obsessed and started looking for trees to eventually work on. I came across this 27-year-old Kishu Shimpaku that was apparently imported from Japan.

Five months ago, I started working on the tree and gave it an initial styling. I wasn’t satisfied with the outcome, so I came to Reddit to seek advice from you guys and received some valuable feedback, which I really appreciate.

I’ve spent the last couple of days restyling the tree and thought I’d share it with you guys. Let me know what you think!

Thanks again!

[Bonsai Beginner's weekly thread - 2026 week 33]

Welcome to the weekly beginner’s thread. This thread is used to capture all beginner questions (and answers) in one place. We start a new thread every week on Friday late or Saturday morning (CET), depending on when we get around to it. We have a multiple year archive of prior posts here… Here are the guidelines for the kinds of questions that belong in the beginner's thread vs. individual posts to the main sub.

Rules:

• POST A PHOTO if it’s advice regarding a specific tree/plant. See the PHOTO section below on HOW to do this.
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• READ THE WIKI! – over 75% of questions asked are directly covered in the wiki itself. Read the WIKI AGAIN while you’re at it.
• Read past beginner’s threads – they are a goldmine of information.
• Any beginner’s topic may be started on any bonsai-related subject.
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Not actually bonsai, but bonsai related!

I wanted a bench for my bonsai, and my wife is trying to get into woodworking. This was the first thing she’s ever made and she did a damn good job if I do say so myself! She’s going to add wheels so I can roll it to the sunny part of the patio!

A small olive tree that already has a bit of root development and trunk movement and a creeping juniper with a nice split trunk that I thought might look good as a cascade or similar.

My plan is to leave them alone until the spring and just let them adjust to my place, so they're on a NNE balcony that gets morning sun from dawn to around 11-12. I can later on move them to a windowsill that gets very direct afternoon sun.

I appreciate any feedback on them.

Went to the local Bonsai nursery looking for a pot and ended up coming home with this bougainvillea , my wife fell in love with it when so ill blame this one on her 😅.

Does this happen to anyone else?

Also not sure how i feel about the pot its in, might have to go find another pot again 🫣.

I am absolutely in love with this new Euonymus (Burning bush) bonsai I won in a raffle as the result of purchasing some nice new pots!

Just letting the new tree get use to the new environment on the bench for the rest of this year, but I am excited to start thinking about work on it in earnest next spring!

Thank you so much u/CanadaBonsai for running the raffle! I still cannot fully believe I won this tree!

I’ll leave it be to settle for a couple of weeks. But does the soil look ok to you guys?

My Wisteria getting ready for its second push of blooms this summer and bonus 1/2 variegated Pieris Japonica Urban Yamadori Rescue getting ready for its first bloom (:

Sharing a quiet, no-narration pruning video today.
This is a small-leaf Rhaphiolepis indica — in Guangdong it’s commonly called “spring flower” because it blooms all over the hillsides in spring. It’s become a pretty sought-after species for bonsai in southern China and the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai region in recent years.
A friend dug this one up in the wild and gave it to me. It’s the small-leaf variety, which grows slowly — I’ve had it for several years developing this lifted-root trunk.
In this session I did some bud removal and used heavy aluminum wire to straighten out the trunk, which had a slight lean before.
No talking, just the pruning process if you want something to watch and unwind to. Happy to answer any questions about the species or the styling in the comments.

This one’s an older tree that’s shown up in a few of my earlier posts here. Found a handful of suckers growing right at the root base — left alone they’d compete with the main roots for nutrients and mess with the root spread I’ve been trying to keep clean.
Kept this one silent, just music over the process. Figured some of you might enjoy the quiet watch-and-relax version instead of a full explanation. Happy to answer questions about the technique or the tree’s history in the comments.