Buying podocarpus bonsai

Start at the base

Nebari — the spread of surface roots — is the hardest feature to fix once a tree is mature. Look for roots radiating evenly and flaring smoothly into the trunk. A root crossing in front of the trunk will bother you forever.

Trunk: taper and movement

A good trunk narrows steadily from base to apex. Reverse taper — thicker above than below — is nearly unfixable and is often hidden behind foliage or under raised soil.

Push the soil back and look at the real base of the trunk before you negotiate.

Inspecting the graft

Blue Ice is almost always grafted. A good union sits low and has healed into a subtle change of bark texture. A poor one shows as a bulge or an obvious diameter mismatch, and it never goes away.

• Check foliage colour is uniform throughout — shoots from the rootstock come through a different colour.
• Run a finger over the union; a ridge you can feel now is a ridge you will feel in ten years.

Age is not size

A metre-tall tree grown fast in the ground may be six years old. A twenty-centimetre tree with fissured bark and tight ramification may be twenty. The second costs far more, and should.

What drives price

• Nebari quality and trunk taper — the largest single factor.
• Ramification density and maturity of the foliage pads.
• Bark age and texture.
• Variety: costalis commands the most because it grows the slowest.
• Pot: a good pot adds value, but do not pay tree prices for ceramics.

Red flags

• The seller cannot account for the tree’s origin. For costalis this is a legal matter, not just an ethical one.
• Loose soil and a recent potting — the roots may not be there at all.
• Yellowing or shedding interior foliage, often the first sign of root rot.
• Wire left long enough to bite into the bark.
• A price well under market for the size offered.

The most useful question you can ask any seller: “What year was this propagated, and where did it come from?” A serious grower answers immediately.