The Beginner's Species Handbook — 20 Trees, Month by Month

Every other guide in this shop teaches a technique. This one answers the question those guides cannot: but what does my tree need? Twenty species, two pages each, with the year laid out month by month for every one of them.

The twenty species

Indoor and tropical: ficus retusa, ficus benjamina, Chinese elm, jade, dwarf jade, fukien tea, sweet plum, schefflera, serissa, bougainvillea.

Outdoor: juniper procumbens, Japanese maple, trident maple, Japanese black pine, Scots pine, cotoneaster, boxwood, hornbeam, larch, satsuki azalea.

What each species gets

• Light and position, stated as a requirement rather than a preference
• Watering behaviour — which species sulk when wet, which will not forgive drying out once
• Soil mix and ratio, and the repotting window for that species
• Pruning and wiring calendar — the weeks when cutting helps and the weeks when it costs you a year
• Feeding schedule, including the species that need it stopped early
• Cold hardiness in °C, and what winter protection it actually needs
• The one mistake that kills this species most often

Also inside

• A twelve-month master calendar covering tropical, deciduous and conifer groups side by side
• Northern and southern hemisphere versions throughout
• Six printable one-page reference sheets to pin above the bench
• A species-choice decision tree for buying your next tree
• A first-year checklist that works whatever month you bought the tree

At 48 pages this is the longest guide in the shop and the one written to stay in use for years rather than be read once.

Format & delivery

1 PDF, 48 pages, A4, printable. Instant download on the order confirmation page and by email. Written in plain language for people who have never kept a bonsai before — no Japanese terminology used without explaining it first.