Bonsai for Beginners

Rating:
Summary: The nicest book I have read about Bonsai
Review: "Now and again in Bonsai, or indeed any other art form, comes along someone who not only knows how to do this art but also, and more importantly, knows how to teach this art."

Bonsai for Beginners is much more that a simple beginners book. It takes you form the beginners points of reference up to intermediate standard in Bonsai. I am a beginner to intermediate grower and I was astonished at the breadth of information in this truly wonderful book. It is the most lavishly illustrated book on the subject that I have seen and I was riveted to the pages as it is a very easy to follow text. The step by step is practical in every sense and the subject matter made me want to go out and try them immediately.
Now and again in Bonsai, or indeed any other art form, comes along someone who not only knows how to do this art but also, and more importantly, knows how to teach this art. Craig Coussins is such a person and I would heartily recommend his writing to anyone that truly wishes to understand the subject.

Rating:
Summary: A great book to introduce a beginner to Bonsai
Review: I found this book a wonderful read. Excellent information, not too lengthy in detail but concise and intelligent. No information overload. Just the very thing to get a beginner interested in starting Bonsai. Sound techniques and a very friendly read throughout.The sections are well laid out and in my opinion, the book acts like a teacher of Bonsai was just behind me when I am working on my Bonsai. I have been keeping Bonsai for two years now and this was exactly the kind of book I was looking for-a book to take me from the elements to intermediate. I have seen this excellent teacher twice now and I have been inmpressed with his teaching abilities. This is clear in his writing. Succinct, to the point and no faffle! This beautifully illustrated book must obviously make one or two other Bonsai writers very jealous.

Rating:
Summary: Somewhat disappointing at best.
Review: I found this book to be somewhat disappointing at best. The positive reviews that other people wrote were misleading. This book should certainly not receive 5 out of 5 stars! I myself am a beginner to bonsai, and found this book to be quite unacceptable in terms of actually instructing the beginner. In fact, after purchasing this book I was immediately inclined to go purchase another book that had more explicit instructions for different bonsai.

First off, this book contained detailed information on only a few species of trees. In general, the information presented is put out in such away that it implies all deciduous trees and all coniferous trees should be treated the same way. It doesn't even mention tropical trees, which is what I have found beginners should really be focusing on in terms of learning the basic skills required to care for a tree with a dormancy period.

Second, this book contains information that is in no way aimed towards a beginner in bonsai. The different case studies in this book include planting established bonsai in forest-like groups, performing extremely severe pruning on established trees, grafting, etc. None if this stuff is at all basic, and therefore should not be included in a book that is sopposedly geared towards beginners

Finally, this book contains information that is very poorly presented. There are certain sections of parts of the book which don't even explain what they are talking about. Coussins will explain basic procedures to complicated processes of which the reasoning for performing the procedure is not even explained. Basically, I don't even know what he is doing and why; he will explain the process, briefly, despite this. Additionally, he does not even discuss the immersion method of watering, which is the most convenient method of watering indoor plants. This is indicative of his complete lack of thouroughness on writing about bonsai.

This book does contain some great pictures, and SOME basic procedures to basic principles. However, Coussins leaves out a great deal of necessary information, and includes information that is in no way necessary; i found a good deal of this book to be completely useless to me as a beginner in bonsai. I could not recommend this book to anyone who is beginning bonsai.

Rating:
Summary: A very good Bonsai Book
Review: This book is excellent when it comes to giving beginners to Intermediate growers information on basic techniques. I am a Bonsai grower of nearly ten years and I wanted to review this book after reading some of the other reviews. Its clear that Craig Coussins has worked to keep such information at the introduction level and he succeeds extremely well. His section on watering, for example, does not cover bad, old fashioned techniques such as full pot immersion, which, on most trees, disturb the soil and cause damage to the fine feeder roots that need to develop in a Bonsai. He discusses proper soil requirements for most types of Bonsai. And their various needs. In a simple way and not a complicated way, unless you find such things complicated of course. He uses clear and well-tried techniques to explain the best way forward. He can not cover all species in such a book of course, after all who can, but he goes a long way towards this by explaining the general techniques for most popular species in many climates. His understanding of techniques can be applied to both indoor and outdoor trees and he discusses that in some detail. His second book, Totally Bonsai is very much a beginner's book and works well, in addition to Bonsai for Beginners which is designed to take the beginner from start to intermediate standard. Apart from being a reference book it is also a very will planned book and easy to follow and easy to read. I can not wait for his next book, Bonsai School, that he mentions on his web site.