Good-quality bonsai are all too expensive. Buying one means eating dirt. Should I buy one or not?

The bonsai that catch your eye are truly expensive. Buy one and you will be eating dirt to get by. To buy or not to buy?

Some people say the more you grow bonsai, the more you like them, and the more you end up with. But others say, "I think all bonsai look the same!" I wonder if you have ever thought about why a single bonsai deserves to be so expensive? Though they are beautiful and attractive, they always come back to just those few shapes. Why is it that some bonsai with small trunks and ordinary-looking shapes cost tens of thousands of yuan so easily?

Outsiders watching the show will think the smaller the bonsai, the cheaper it is, but those in the know understand exactly where a bonsai's value lies. Take a small bonsai display stand set, for example: a relatively fine set is estimated to cost four or five ten-thousand yuan to buy, and if some have a longer pot age, they will not go for less than five ten-thousand yuan.

I myself am a super bonsai fanatic. At home I have several dozen bonsai, big and small. In the past I would always buy the cheap ones, but once you have grown bonsai for a long time, you discover that those from famous masters, or those of slightly higher grade, are simply pleasing to look at for a long time. So growing bonsai is not about quantity but about quality.

Just like these bonsai that catch your eye, without three to five thousand yuan apiece you can only look at them, and from their appearance alone you cannot tell their pot age. On the road of growing bonsai, I once met an old man who said: the most crucial reason for growing bonsai lies in the care of the bonsai, and in the feelings produced during the process of caring for them. That is exactly where the value of an expensive bonsai lies. I wonder, what is the most expensive bonsai you have ever grown?

Many good bonsai are expensive but you do not necessarily have to buy them. Just like those exhibition-grade bonsai, their image is the mainstay of the bonsai world. They are the weather vane of bonsai, and their value is beyond words.

Things into which people pour effort, time and heart have immeasurable value. Value is the foundation of price. The reason bonsai are so expensive is that they have reasons to be expensive; it is just that outsiders do not understand. Having said all this and seen so many beautiful bonsai, I still really want to get one!