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What is the Internet Bonsai Club?
The Internet Bonsai Club (IBC) is a long-running international discussion forum for bonsai growers, built on a free phpBB-style platform at Internet Bonsai Club. It is a place to talk about trees and related display arts rather than a shop or a structured course: the page highlights bonsai alongside suiseki (viewing stones), pots and kusamono/accent plants. Its scale is substantial for a hobby forum — the portal reports roughly 6,500 registered users and over 180,000 posts across about 17,500 subjects.
What you'll find there
- Cultivation threads — pruning, species-specific care and progress updates, e.g. topics on ginseng pruning, black spruce and a Brazilian rain tree forest planting.
- Bench and collection sharing — "show us your bench" style threads where members post photos of their setups.
- Club news and remembrance — announcements such as member passings and new e-books.
- House rules up front — a prominent welcome asks newcomers to read the Acceptable Use Policy and image-posting advice, with emphasis on copyright and asking permission before copying others' work.
Who it suits
A hobbyist with a specific tree — say a nursery-purchased hemlock or a tropical species overwintered indoors — can search existing threads and likely find someone who has grown it. Someone wanting structured lessons, a buying guide or local hands-on workshops will find a forum format less direct. The trade-off is typical of forums: deep, searchable experience from many growers, but information spread across years of threads and mixed in quality. Note the visible post dates, since older advice may reflect outdated practice.
Practical next step
Before posting, read the Acceptable Use Policy and the image-posting guidance, then use the search function for your species and climate. When asking for help, include your location, growing conditions and clear photos — that context is what makes forum advice usable. For comparison, other established communities include Bonsai Nut and Bonsai4me.
How do I get started growing my first bonsai tree?
For a first bonsai, start with a resilient, widely grown species and focus on keeping it healthy rather than styling it. A ficus, Chinese elm or juniper is a common beginner choice because it tolerates ordinary indoor or sheltered conditions and forgives occasional mistakes. Buy a young nursery plant or pre-bonsai rather than an expensive finished tree: you will learn pruning, watering and repotting on something that can recover.
The Internet Bonsai Club portal, Internet Bonsai Club, is a discussion forum where members post progress threads, species questions and bench photos. Its visible activity includes topics such as pruning, black spruce and a Brazilian rain tree forest, which shows the kind of practical, experience-based material you can read before buying. Treat forum posts as other growers' observations; climate, soil and watering habits vary, so adapt advice to your own conditions.
A practical first year
- Choose one species suited to where the tree will actually live—a bright windowsill for tropicals, or an outdoor spot for hardy conifers.
- Use a pot with drainage holes and a free-draining soil mix; learn to water thoroughly when the surface begins to dry.
- Keep the tree in one stable position for a few weeks and watch new growth before pruning.
- Join a local club or read beginner threads to compare notes; a hands-on workshop shortens the learning curve.
As a next step, decide where the tree will sit and how much light that spot receives, then pick a species to match. If you want broader reference material, Bonsai Empire and the American Bonsai Society at American Bonsai Society publish beginner guides and care calendars.
What is the difference between bonsai, suiseki, and kusamono?
Bonsai, suiseki and kusamono are three distinct Japanese display arts that often appear together but are judged by different standards: bonsai is a living tree shaped over years, suiseki is an unworked stone valued for its natural form, and kusamono is a small planting of grasses, mosses or accent plants used to complement a bonsai display. The Internet Bonsai Club forum at Internet Bonsai Club covers all three, along with pots and accent plants, so its threads are a practical place to see how practitioners treat them.
How they differ
| Aspect | Bonsai | Suiseki | Kusamono |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A tree or shrub cultivated in a container and trained into a designed form | A naturally formed stone, displayed without carving or shaping | A small planting of grasses, moss, ferns or small flowering plants, often seasonal |
| Living? | Yes, requires ongoing watering, feeding and pruning | No, inert; care is mainly about display and protection | Yes, but usually shorter-lived and replaced or divided |
| What is valued | Trunk line, branch structure, taper, proportion, health | Shape, surface texture, colour and suggestiveness of a landscape or object | Naturalness, seasonal character, harmony of scale with the companion tree |
| Typical role | The main subject of a display | Often a companion or a stand-alone object of contemplation | Usually an accent, not the centrepiece |
| Container | A shallow bonsai pot chosen to suit the tree | A wooden stand or a shallow water basin (suiban), sometimes with sand | A small pot or shallow dish, often rustic or unglazed |
What this means in practice
A beginner deciding where to start should pick bonsai if they want to grow and shape something over years, since it demands the most routine horticultural work. Suiseki suits someone with an eye for landscape and no interest in daily plant care, but finding a good stone takes patience and travel. Kusamono is the most forgiving entry point: a small grass or moss planting can be assembled in a season and gives immediate experience with potting, scale and seasonal display.
Collectors rarely stop at one. A finished bonsai display often pairs a tree with a kusamono accent and, at shows, a suiseki on a stand, so understanding all three improves how you compose a display even if you only grow trees.
A concrete example
Imagine you have a modest trident maple in development. Adding a kusamono of autumn grasses in a low unglazed dish gives seasonal context and trains your eye for proportion. A suiseki on a small stand placed beside the display adds a landscape reference without competing with the tree. The tree remains the subject; the other two support it.
Next step
Before buying anything, read the forum's acceptable use and image-posting guidance, then browse threads such as "Show us your bench(es)" to see how members arrange trees, accents and stones together. Comparing real displays is the fastest way to learn which of the three arts you actually want to pursue.
How should I care for a tropical bonsai like a Brazilian rain tree indoors?
For a Brazilian rain tree indoors, prioritize light, steady warmth and careful watering rather than a fixed schedule. The Internet Bonsai Club - Portal includes a thread titled "Brazilian Rain Tree Forest," which signals that the species is discussed there, but the page evidence does not give care instructions, so the guidance below is general horticultural advice.
Practical indoor routine
- Light: Give the tree the brightest spot you have, ideally several hours of direct sun through a window, and rotate the pot weekly so growth stays even. If winter light is weak, a full-spectrum grow light close to the canopy is a sensible supplement.
- Water: Water thoroughly when the top of the soil begins to dry, letting excess drain away. Rain trees dislike both bone-dry roots and soggy soil, so check moisture with a finger or bamboo skewer rather than watering by calendar.
- Humidity and warmth: Keep it away from cold drafts and hot radiators. A pebble tray or grouping plants can raise local humidity; misting is optional and less effective than good airflow and consistent moisture.
- Pruning and wiring: Rain trees grow vigorously indoors when warm. Pinch or prune back shoots to encourage branching, and wire young, flexible branches, checking regularly for bark marking.
- Seasonal caution: Reduce watering in cooler, lower-light months and avoid repotting into cold conditions. If the tree drops leaves after a move or cold snap, stabilize light and temperature before making further changes.
A useful next step
Before adjusting anything, spend a week recording light levels, soil dryness and any leaf drop. Then compare notes with growers in your climate: the forum's "Brazilian Rain Tree Forest" thread is a starting point on Internet Bonsai Club - Portal, and broader species care references can be checked against Bonsai Empire. If you want a second opinion on tropical indoor culture, Bonsai4me covers species-specific guidance. Match advice to your own light and humidity rather than copying another grower's watering interval.
Where can I find advice on choosing the right pot for my bonsai?
The Internet Bonsai Club forum, Internet Bonsai Club - Portal, is a reasonable place to read and ask about pot selection, but it works best as a discussion venue rather than a structured guide. Its topic list mixes species care, pruning, display and club news, so pot advice tends to appear inside threads on repotting, styling or showing trees rather than in a single reference page. The forum does steer newcomers to an Acceptable Use Policy and an image-posting guide, which matters if you plan to upload photos of your tree and pot for comment.
How to use it for a pot decision
- Search existing threads for your species and pot style before starting a new topic; with thousands of registered users and a large message archive, many common questions have already been discussed.
- Post clear photos of the tree from the front and side, plus the nebari and the current pot, and state your goal (display, development, or root recovery). Pot advice depends heavily on root mass, trunk taper and the intended viewing angle.
- Treat replies as opinions from hobbyists of varying experience; ask posters to explain why a pot suits the tree rather than only whether they like it.
Practical criteria to apply while reading
Pot choice usually balances proportion (pot width against canopy spread), depth (shallower for mature, well-established trees; deeper for young or recovering roots), colour harmony with trunk and foliage, and drainage. A forum is strongest on the first three, where photos help; for drainage and soil volume, local growers and your own repotting observations are more reliable.
As a next step, photograph your tree against a plain background and compare two or three candidate pots in the same shot before posting, so readers can respond to a concrete choice rather than an abstract question.
How can I share photos of my bonsai bench and get feedback from other growers?
Post your bench photos in the Internet Bonsai Club's forum thread "Show us your bench(s)," a running topic where members display their setups and comment on each other's work. The portal's recent-topics list shows it as an active discussion, so a reply there reaches growers already interested in bench design and display.
Before you post
- Read the Acceptable Use Policy in Announcements and the "Posting Images Advice" sticky in Top Threads, FAQ's and Tutorials; both are flagged on the welcome page.
- Post only your own photos. The welcome notice asks members to respect copyright, not to post other people's work, and to request permission before copying anything from the site.
- For useful feedback, include your climate or growing zone, species, how long each tree has been in training, and what you want critiqued (display, health, wiring, pot choice). A plain caption like "my bench" tends to draw general praise rather than specific advice.
How the community works
With thousands of registered users and a large message archive, the forum is broad and international, so you can expect a range of approaches rather than one house style. Threads move at a forum pace—recent topics span months—so replies may take time. If you want a faster, more conversational exchange, a general-interest community such as Reddit (for example its bonsai communities) or a specialist board like Bonsai Nut can supplement the IBC thread; the trade-off is that large general platforms can be noisier and less consistent in expertise than a long-standing club forum.
As a practical next step, photograph the bench in even light from a couple of angles, resize images to sensible web sizes, and post them as a reply in the existing bench thread with your growing details and specific questions.
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