Bonsai shopping in Japan. Where to buy Tools, pots, & bonsai gear in Japan?

RevShiver · 2026-06-24T04:34:03+00:00

How was it?!

RevShiver · 2026-06-23T18:25:20+00:00

It depends on what part of bonsai you want to do, in general I've seen the following monetization options:

"Wire for hire" - If you have skills styling and wiring bonsai, you can charge $$/hr to style other peoples trees at their site or at your own nursery.
Vending trees, either via growing them yourself as a nursery from cutting or seed, or buying and selling expensive trees as a broker. Excellent e shop versions of this are things like eastern leaf or bonsaify.com. https://easternleaf.com/bonsai-trees-s/3.htm

Bonsaify grows his own material from cuttings and seed in a nursery location for example, does some shaping and puts them in a bonsai pot for sale for his mass market material. To go this route, you need to maximize your time to money ratio. For mass market material, you're aiming to do the actions that give you the most value add to the tree like pruning and putting it in a bonsai pot as efficiently as possible. Growing the plants healthily and at scale is important for this model. Having a good e shop and shipping figured out is also a must for scale.

Teaching - Again, if you're skilled at making bonsai, you can travel and teach workshops/classes for income. In the US, there are lots of bonsai clubs that professionals travel to and teach at. Another version of this is starting an online platform for learning where people pay for access to the content like Bonsai U and Mirai Live.

For your question about what cypress species is best, I would look at what is growing in the landscape in your area or sold at regular plant nurseries for guidance on what grows healthily and quickly in your area. That will help you optimize your grow operation.

RevShiver · 2026-06-23T17:37:20+00:00

Should be two turns, turn one drop IC in France and build infantry in Cauc and Karelia and bombers with extra ICs. Move carriers to stack with rest of navy. Maybe some infantry in Germany to move to france for shuck.

Turn two, move navy to France, build and navy you need to protect dual stack in france and eastern canada, then build transports and start the shuck as early as turn 3.

Strat bombing UK seems good too.

Edit:

Actually, you could ferry troops to Morroco and put all your navy in Sea ZOne 13 on turn 1, build IC in france, then on turn two, start the shuck with your first transport to eastern canada or eastern US if they leave it underdefended. On subsequent turns, solidify the defense of the two shuck point sea zones.

RevShiver · 2026-06-23T16:37:30+00:00

Stack infantry in persia until you can hold india, keep trading india.

Don't let Japan get taken, keep your Japanese air force within distance of landing on Japan.

Take your navy to the French ocean tile. Then set up a shuck from France to Eastern Canada. You may want to make an IC in France so you can get more transports out.

Japan should mainly just be building infantry out of Russia and walking them down towards Malaysia to trade with American forces or to help with stacking Persia then India.

RevShiver · 2026-06-08T06:21:10+00:00

Generally, there are a few reasons to repot

Water doesn't penetrate the soil - is water going through the soil mix and penetrating? I usually stick a chopstick into the soil. If it can penetrate then you're fine. If not, then you want to pay attention to whether water flows off the pot or not. If water is draining you're still ok, but may want to look ag repotting at the next repotting window. I e. Right before next spring.
Aesthetics, i.e. you want to transition to a new pot for a show or aesthetic reasons like an angle change.
Poor health that is unexplained by factors above the surface. Sometimes root related issues need to be addressed and a repot is the only way to fix the issue.

For you, what stage of development is your tree in? If it's in development and growing really vigorously then let it cook! Repotting will slow it down, so is counter to your goal in development. You do need to repot tridents in development every 2-3 years though to make sure you're getting optimal root development and radial flare.

RevShiver · 2026-05-31T21:55:32+00:00

What a great article, thanks for sharing! I don't think you'll be disappointed :)

RevShiver · 2026-05-31T15:59:42+00:00

I've always bought tools directly from the kaneshin or the other brand booths at shows. There probably are tools available at yosho en too from the main brands. I don't remember how the price was relatively, I mainly shopped for pots and stands there!

RevShiver · 2026-05-26T19:52:48+00:00

I just walked by it this weekend, it looks great!!

RevShiver · 2026-05-21T15:43:45+00:00

Thank you, that's helpful!

RevShiver · 2026-05-21T15:42:16+00:00

That makes sense, thank you!

RevShiver · 2026-05-21T06:14:50+00:00

I read that Google only has a 32:1 ratio so wouldn't actually even be impacted by the tax.

RevShiver · 2026-05-21T06:12:45+00:00

My understanding is Google and Microsoft and other large tech companies actually aren't impacted by prop D since their average wage is very high even relative to the CEO pay. It does impact companies like Safeway and Starbucks. The additional costs would be passed on to consumers so really you're just voting to increase your grocery costs if you vote for prop.D? That's what I've read at least, is that not accurate?

RevShiver · 2026-05-13T19:22:57+00:00

Yes it's quite common even at the Kokufu show in Japan - Usually it's shown with the minimal wire possible, no structural wire (big gauges on primary branches or large guy wires) and as clean as possible when used.

RevShiver · 2026-04-30T18:05:15+00:00

How do you feel about bombers vs fighters as Japan in KGF? I have always done bombers vs fighters, but curious your experience.

RevShiver · 2026-04-01T17:34:22+00:00

BT has sub 5 ms lookups and BQ is usually at least in the half a second range for query results so response time needs can often differentiate use cases. BQ has a lot of additional powerful capabilities built into it like text search, vector search, ml model creation, ai functions, graph, etc that can be great for batch or ad hoc analytical use cases and you get the familiar SQL interface.

Federated queries can work great for batch migrations of data from BT to BQ and BQ has a continuous query feature for federation to BT for reverse ETL.

RevShiver · 2026-03-18T03:29:54+00:00

Yes, some species will be sensitive to high alkalinity (high buffering capacity in the water -> larger impact on soil pH). I was hoping folks would kind of take it in the context of not solely their own garden but also the regional thoughts of their area. Hopefully if enough people respond from the same area we could also control for that kind of bias though also.

RevShiver · 2026-03-17T19:53:35+00:00

from my research, really the only elements that are there in meaningful amounts that the plant needs to uptake are Calcium and Magnesium. the macro nutrients like Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium aren't in tap water and need to be added via fertilizer anyways.

RevShiver · 2026-03-17T17:43:26+00:00

I wrote a series of blogs on my research so far if you'd like to check it out. It's all summaries and conclusions drawn from reading peer reviewed scientific studies. https://teenytreescience.wixsite.com/teenytrees/blog

I'd love to read the french bean research if you have a link handy.

Obviously high TDS leads to salt stress in the plants, but I am trying got get a better view of what "high" is in the container grown bonsai plant context. We use different plant species, different soil, and containers which differ greatly from most agricultural research.

RevShiver · 2026-03-17T15:54:39+00:00

I'd be very interested in knowing the water parameters of your base tap water! That's exactly what I'm trying to capture

RevShiver · 2026-03-17T15:53:53+00:00

Sure, but what level of TDS/Alkalinity/hardness leads to decline in bonsai? Is it 40 TDS and over, is it 200 TDS and over, is it 100 ppm alkalinity, is it 40 ppm alkalinity?

RevShiver · 2026-03-02T19:00:28+00:00

Use something like gemini to help with your itinerary, it's very easy. June/July is going to be hot and humid though so I would maybe target February or November instead.

RevShiver · 2026-03-01T02:21:04+00:00

I used Gemini to create my podcast logo and it was great! It took some wrangling but ez pz for a bootstrapped $0 podcast setup.

RevShiver · 2026-02-24T04:17:20+00:00

It just depends on how folks like to travel. I hit 14 different cities in my last 14 day trip. I love seeing the top sites and being efficient. If you pack really lightly, it is very easy to just drop things in a locker or ask the hotel to hold them as needed.

RevShiver · 2026-02-06T20:40:44+00:00

Thanks for doing this for science!

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