Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Bonsai overload. Why would anyone commit fraud because of bonsai?

I have five bougainvilleas. I starved them until their leaves fell 
off and then watered them with a 1:1 urine-water mixture. Of
 course, the stink permeated inside the house. My daughter 
and wife complained but there's nothing I could do
 about it but to let the stink pass.
Ok. I admit it. I'm starting to have problems with bonsai. It started out as a simple hobby but it got to a point where it is starting to get out of hand and unless I stopped now, I may end up with too many trees for me to handle. Hiring help is out and my wife and daughter are not into the hobby; they just like looking at it.
      
I accumulated around a hundred bonsai materials and almost every nook and cranny of our lot is filled with them in varying stages of training and development.

What happened?
Materials: bluebells and tugas, waiting for signs of life.

Before, I used to go to CP Garcia in Diliman Quezon City to buy materials. The travel and the effort of carrying trees from Quezon City to Taytay limited my purchases to once a month. But since I discovered online bonsai groups, it was only a matter of time before I got into online buying. The affordability as well as the convenience of door to door delivery plus the freebies given by the sellers made online purchasing irresistible.  

My Root-on-rock bonsais. I did not buy these trees. They were
Red Ficuses that I collected from the adobe walls of
St. Joseph Parish Church in Taytay, Rizal and Ficus Microcarpa
cuttings from the school garden.
Aside from the convenience of online purchasing, I was also able to acquire species that are not available here in Rizal Province. I now have Tugas from Mindanao and Blue Bells from Ilocos Norte. The transaction is simple, just surf the posts and if a photo of a materials catches your fancy, just pm the seller then give your address and the mode of payment, the items will be delivered at your doorstep. 

But lately, there are hobbyist who gave in to buying impulsively: they have made purchases beyond their means to pay. It's the hunter-seller that lost here since many of the purchases were done on credit.


Of course I also understand the seemingly irresistible urge to buy because bonsai materials are not identical. Once a photo catches the attention, the idea of not buying that particular item could keep one awake at night. I too, experienced this. I guess everyone does if an item (whatever it is) catches their fancy. It's just matter of controlling the urge. Anyway, this is classic shopping disorder that I thought only ladies  suffer from but I found that bonsai hobbyist do too.

Addiction.

Keep in mind that these materials were once healthy trees pulled out from their habitat and then sold to the bonsai market.

Well, time to stop. I have enough trees to keep me occupied till old age.


No comments:

I got a bikelog?

A year ago, I asked my daughter for a loan so that I could buy a mountain bike. This was in the middle of May 2021 and the pandemic was stil...