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Comment by mbg721 | Hacker News Reader

"Fun and easy" is almost the exact opposite of my perception of bonsai--when I think of it, I think "I can't even keep mint alive in my backyard. This is a meticulous science and if anyone makes the mistake of letting me touch a bonsai tree, I'm inadvertently going to kill something that's older than my grandparents." The article doesn't quite have me convinced, but it does sound like they're having fun.

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> I can't even keep mint alive in my backyard.

I'm jealous- some mint got from my planter into the lawn. The good news it smells nice whenever I mow.

> I can't even keep mint alive in my backyard.

There is something that is killing it in your backyard. Mint should be difficult to get rid of and easy to grow.

There are various plants for bonsai and some of them are super simple. I have had a ficus bonsai for over a year and it has survived all kinds of conditions. Currently it’s sitting on my apartment balcony with no direct sun and strong winds and it seems to be growing strong and healthy. I have done basically nothing but water it. I think I’ll have to re pot it soon but that’s about it.

I've got a brown thumb too, but I've started playing "doctor bonsai" with the seedlings that I uproot while weeding. And to be honest I only 'weed' trees because I don't want big problems in my very small yard. I put them in tapwater, in little cups in my office. One time, I tried to give them plant food and they all died. Should have used the liquid stuff? Oh well. They're just seedlings, I'll have a fresh crop next year. The one I didn't try to feed still has some fine roots, but the cat got its leaves. I figure I should try a drop of liquid food in the spring? Who knows. For now, I change the water every few weeks so it doesn't get manky. I guess all the failure means it isn't 'easy', but I'm sure having fun. Cheap as it gets, too.

Welcome to hydroponics, specifically water culture growing! It’s quite complicated, a whole science itself perhaps, but the idea is simple: grow a plant/plants in a soilless or liquid medium. It’s complicated because plants require certain nutrients in various quantities to be available at their roots to survive, their root system also requires a certain amount of oxygen to be available, and furthermore the whole root environment needs to be within a certain pH range for nutrient uptake to take place. All of this applies no matter the medium one grows plants in, but it’s because of all this that hydroponics is complicated, particularly on a micro scale with a single plant in a cup, where there is little buffering to allow for errors - unlike a medium like soil. But it was experiments like yours that lead to the field of both hydroponics, water culture growing, and aquaponics, and a greater understanding of plant functioning and plant nutrient requirements.

Furthermore, you might find the following four part article to be of interest - there’s plenty of other info easily googled, whether on the background history, or the specifics.

https://gardenculturemagazine.com/history-of-hydroponics-par...

Thanks! I've found other sites for folks doing aqua-bonsai... I'm not taking it too seriously, at this point. It's easier for me than dirt, because I can tell at a glance if my poor plant needs water... oh dear, it does... but the fine roots didn't dry out thanks to capillary force.

Weird thing about bonsai, the goal isn't to maximize... more like, I wanna just fail at killing the thing.

What on earth did you do to the mint?

I think I let the other variegated indigenous vegetation overtake it for a little too long. Whatever spiky leafy things we get here are even more aggressive than mint, apparently.

What kind of climate do you live in? I live in Sweden, I have several types of mint in the garden and it's a constant hassle because they overtake and smother absolutely everything else.

Midwest US, so I guess that's some sort of continental temperate? I'm admittedly not the most diligent gardener, I just bought it to cook with and it came with the dirt attached to plant it.

Mint is very invasive in the Midwest too. You should advertise your mint-killing skills.

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