If I had any choice in the matter I would just surround myself with beautiful bonsai masterpieces steeped in history and nothing else. I guess we all would right? Foolishly, I allowed my hobby to become a full time business and that changes the rules of the game entirely. I now have to meet the needs of customers and supply a fickle market at keen prices whilst being ‘competitive’. On top of that I have the government’s cold bony hand in my pocket and bleeding my ingenuity and entrepreneurial endeavours by adding a fifth to the cost of everything I do. Having turned over something like seven and a half million to date it’s become very obvious to me how you make a million quid in bonsai, you start with three million.

In order to keep ourselves afloat we have to work seven days a week and meet the needs of EVERY customer as best we can. That necessitates holding an impossibly wide range of goods including a lot of plants that are not yet the revered specimens I would own from preference. I do still love the creation process in bonsai but considering we have a large six figure sum invested in bonsai tree stock it really would be nice to have a few little treats of my own on the benches but the numbers really don’t work for the business. Therefore I buy material we can add value to and that our talented customers buy to work and develop into something special (often before selling them back to us for double the price). Not that I am complaining but I have now realised my expectations were a little rose tinted at the outset. However there are worse ways to make a living though they may be a lot less stressful.

Having got that lot of my mind it’s time to introduce our first delivery of 2019. There are two more deliveries due this week. This is a lot of (currently) scabby raw material I have bought in for working next winter along with a few better bits I hope to sort out over the next few months. Obviously everything is for sale but it may take a bit of enhanced imagination to really see the bonsai within.

More soon 😉

G.