Many hobbies have a tension between catering to high-effort purists and to more casual people. (And while I think a lot of the Japanophilia in the post is beside the point, Japanese hobby culture does seem to tilt towards pursuing a single hobby to perfection over dabbling in several hobbies). The author mentions polishing an engine past the point that it actually makes a car go faster; I've seen similar things in some cycling cultures where people focus on getting the right bike parts to the point where it overwhelms the original intention of actually going for rides. Or gaming cultures, where serious players want everyone to play optimally so that they can practice their high-level skills, versus casual players who might enjoy it more if they roleplay or goof around a bit.
“ Bonsai is a serious craft, full of rituals and rules, and largely irrelevant for everyday plant lovers who like small trees and a bit of fun”<p>This is basically true for every hobby and I always struggle the most to cut through all the unnecessary stuff when embarking on a new journey.<p>I’m just wonderfully delighted and surprised when I come across a community of experts who “get it” and offer helpful, pragmatic advice.
I thought of bonsai as a fun hobby and chic, slightly exotic decor element. When I went to Japan I was dissappointed that bonsai and ornamental horticulture in general is super serious and regarded as a boring, stuffy hobby by anyone under 60. In retrospect it makes total sense that bonsai is not as special there and the casual import version is actually more fun than the real thing. I think a lot of things are like this cross culturally.
Last year the author of this article had a problem with an e-scooter bandit stealing his bonsai trees!<p><a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/122291004/bonsai-bandit-repeatedly-stole-plants-and-fled-on-scooter-owner-claims" rel="nofollow">https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/122291004/bonsai-band...</a>
Bonsai annuals are fun, easy, and not much investment to lose of you mess up. By July the garden shops' starter plants are often already started miniaturizing their leaves, you can often pickup a bunch of "damaged" plants for free. Leave them in the nursery pots and keep 'em alive and you can get awesome results.<p>Peppers, tomatoes, and hemp all work well that way. Tomatoes can make fruits bigger than the plant, if you torture them right.<p>Cucumbers are lovely as minis but are much harder to keep contained and harder to get to fruit. They grow their fruit too fast and its hard to get enough water into the plant without drowning it.<p>Tobacco was entertaining to grow in a small pot, i got a 6ft plant that flowered in a 1L pot. it never had great leaves and it scavenged nutrients out of lower leaves to grow higher ones so it was all spindly. Never "miniaturized" the way other plants do. I suspect pumpkins and some other families would behave the same way.
I can appreciate bonsai trees. But I always find that they always put my mind in a similar state to thinking about writing my own novel: something that I want to do when I think about it, but realize that I don't actually want to put in the work for it.
Given this is HN I was expecting this to turn into "... and that's why we founded bons.ai, the on-demand bonsai service for the busy person using our unique TaaS technology".<p>(boringly, bons.ai redirects to some desperately enterprise-looking Microsoft AI thing)
I practice an extremely casual version of the hobby to the point it is not even a hobby.<p>I did a bonsai course more than 20 years ago. I practiced in the course on my first tree that died weeks later. Then I bought another plant, created the bonsai using what I remembered from the course and I care to it to this day.<p>It is not a pretty bonsai, most guests don’t even see it as bonsai I think, but it occupies a central place in my living room and I am proud of it.<p>In a daily basis, I take care of it like any other plant. I trim it like once a year and I wired it only three times in those 20 years. To little dedication to call it a hobby, but it is a part of my life that I care.
This article that talks about the obsession with technique kind of reminds me about when developers talk.<p>If someone mentions they made a web app, likely I will spend far more time asking them about the programming language, the architecture, the framework, etc than actually about what it does.
Person who sells bonsai trees says bonsai is a fun and easy hobby. And makes a good case. Yes, they made trees in pots sound cool and whimsical. A Don Draper of shrubbery.
I used to think bonsai was cute but when I learnt it's done by cutting off the young roots of the tree to stunt them and binding the branches with wire, I can't help but feel sad looking at them now.<p>There's an argument that these trees get better care which I don't doubt but I look at the folded over fins of whales in captivity who are also getting the same "better care" and just wonder if humans should let nature do it's thing without getting in the way.
Interesting. I have a bonsai Jaboticaba tree. It keeps forming new leaves, so it's still alive. One issue is it gets leaf burn/browning on the outside edges. Soaking with tap water every few days for about a year. No fertilizer added.<p>My grandmother had cypress and juniper bonsai that were roughly 80 years old.