Dear Spoonplayer; I hope you have not left for your trip to see your sister yet, or given up on your idea of bringing plant material during travels. I am far from an "expert" at bonsai, but I have been messing with it for about 20 years and have around 30 trees now. I offer the following info for you: In year 2000 I moved with my family, and belongings (including bonsai) from Connecticut to Texas. This is a little bit different event than the one you descibe in your note. However, I think maybe some items will apply to both situations. Firstly, I was told by my moving company that anytime live plant materials are shipped across state lines, the applicable state Department of Agriculture must inspect them for disease and pests. I had to arrange to have my trees inspected. Your state may be less strict I suppose. I did not have them inspected in Texas when we moved back to Connecticut in year 2001. Our movers carefully packed my trees and shipped them with all the other household goods by truck to Texas in February of 2000. Since they were all dormant in Winter sleep mode, they made the trip fine and nothing at all was damaged. The return trip to Connecticut one year later went smoothly also - again packed and shipped by movers in a truck. No Dept. of Ag. inspection was done in Texas - the moving company was not hip to the requirement I think. Understanding your situation is very different, I only offer my experience as food for thought. Things could get very complicated at the airport if your baggage or carry-on is scanned and un-inspected plant material is found. You may wish to consider shipping by UPS or US Postal Service next day service. Not sure if they would require you to have your items inspected though.

Katsura is great for bonsai, but only if you plant it in the ground for a couple of years to thicken the trunk (no root pruning please). It has to live outside and will be fine where you live. Don't let it get dried out in summer though (don't turn it's 'bed' into a marsh or anything, but if you get a few days-week of hot sun, water it sooner than later. Plums are great also, but you can't go digging anything now - very bad timing. Definitely get hold of some bks (videos won't do much and there are very few). Your best learning of all will be a local bonsai club, but you'll have to find it - you didn't say where you live. Otherwise look for recent bks by Colin Lewis, Paul Lesniewicz (for indoor tropicals), H. Tomlinson's 'The Complete Bk. of Bonsai", even the Sunset bk of bonsai (any garden ctre) to start you off will help. Amazon.com has a great 'Used" bonsai bk section with really inexpensive stuff (the condition of each bk is given) and it's a very good place to start looking. Suggestion - don't spend money on anything (trees) yet til you've done some reading, don't buy little trees in little pots at Wal-Mart, H-Depot, etc. and whatever you do don't follow the info. on their 'care tags'.

I am new to bonsai myself but i had good luck with www.weetree.com, www.evergreengardenworks and bonsai of Brooklyn. Orlando bonsai has good prices on tools as well. Hope this helps, Dave

=====Rootbound or Compacted Roots Do Cause Bonsai======= Oxmyx, I'm so glad you asked that, I had to check another article out to have that cleared up. http://www.mellobonsai.com/care/Bonsai_Care_Repotting.aspx Yes, It is also a part of the bonsai'ing process. In the effort to balance upper plant growth with roots. It will cause stunting/dwarfism/bonsai'ing and you will get symptoms of it being 'too long rootbound' because of a lack of water and food deficiencies which will make the plant wilt and ill. It'll wilt very easily or constantly because there aren't enough roots to feed the growing plant the water into it's system to help it cool down (transpiration) and stay 'pumped up'. Also, other signs of deficiencies are, the leaves will start growing smaller and there will be shorter internodes between new branch buds - unfortunately this is what new growth on a normal growing plant looks like, but time will tell more, especially prolonged or easy wilting. Compacted roots will also give signs of chlorosis, yellowing leaves with green veins remaining. Our winter here is (6 months Nov-Apr15-21 in pocket zone 6/5) I keep mine potted in 2 ltr carbonated pop bottles all winter, but maybe not this year as I won't be pinching my branches. =================================================== They also could of had them in bigger pots and then removed them, flushed most of the dirt, kept at least one fat root and stuck the remaining smaller mass into the 3" smaller pots. Maybe hydro grown. Maybe they really kept them in the 3" pot and forced the available roots to get fat through the leaves and a great light system. \=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\= And my CG did way better with 2 nice flushes, than the overwintered bonsai'ed cuttings (no flowers on 2 and a few flowers on the Frosty, twice) of which I had 10 times more of a rootball that same spring, but none of my 3 cuttings developed a single thick root before spring such as was with the CG spring bought brug. My lighting is not so great so I'll probably be cutting off over\-winter growth come spring anyway, once the new spring shoots come out and prove to me that they will grow faster. I still need the branches and leaves from the over\-winter growth until the new branches have some good leaves on them anyway. And I'll have a much healthier and fatter stalk/stem to grow them from complete with a more thatn sufficient root system. Old school taught that most plants don't need repotting until it is at least 3 times bigger than the dirt ball is high. These days they have all sorts of signs to look for but I hardly think 1 or 2 roots curling around the bottom and coming out is a sign of a rootbound pot \- that's more like a sign to check. I'm sticking with old school but I'll stretch it to as much as 4x's but not much more because of how narrow my pots are. I'll look for symptoms. \- Sandy