So what month is this? Lol - I'm just poking you in the ribs like a friend would before he weighs in. ;-) I just helped Kris on another thread, so I hope she sees yours and is listening in here, too. Small trees are a high% of dynamic mass (100%?). The % of dynamic mass determines in part the tree's ability to resist stress & strain. Another way to put it that's easy to put into perspective is young plants have a greater will to live and will tolerate more indignities than older plants. That you have a good light set-up sort of extends your window of opportunity. While it's still probably not the best option, I think you could repot now. If Kris is listening in, and what I said seems to possibly bear on what I said in the other thread, feel free to reopen the conversation and we'll look at your options again. Where to begin to produce a bonsai from a young plant ................. that requires more than one book. Bonsai is a 4-dimensional art form, with "life' being the 4th dimension. The purpose varies by person, but I suppose I'd settle on personal satisfaction as its true purpose. The goal is different than purpose. The goal is to, through the use of a wide and ever expanding variety of techniques, to manipulate a tree (or plant) into something we might find that has been living in nature for a very long time. IOW - we want to build an old-looking tree that looks natural. I think we grow into the goal as we progress in the art. I don't think it's unrealistic to assume that the beginner's goals vary significantly from the goals of the more experienced growers. If you were experienced, we'd understand already that you need to let the plant grow unencumbered until the trunk is thick enough to look natural supporting a tree of the ht you have envisioned. There are 'rules' in bonsai that help you learn how to break them. ;-) Some of the rules involve proportions. For example, a perfect bonsai will have a trunk base thickness about 1/6 of the o/a ht of the tree above the soil line. That would mean if you want a 12" high bonsai, you should wait until you have a 2" thick trunk and then start building it. This is unrealistic for beginners for a number of reasons. Beginners just want to get a tree into a bonsai pot and enjoy admiring and taking care of it a. I applaud any who make the effort to build a relationship with their plants, and bonsai can be particularly rewarding in that regard. You'll have as much fun & satisfaction from your new commitments as I from mine. How about if we take a look at it before we plot a course that gets you to what you have envisioned for the plant in the shortest time while still safeguarding the trees vitality. Remember always that when you're working with bonsai, you're on tree time, which can be much more enjoyable (and considerably different) than people time while you're immersed in it. If you don't already know what I mean, I hope some day you get to find out; but while you're on tree time, you'll find that patience is part of the equation. You'll work & wait, work on the tree, then wait for it to recover so you can take the next step that brings it along on the journey to the destination you've selected for it. Al

Very pretty mymanga! I do not have trumpets or nymphs but I love the way they look! I will have to add them to the ever growing list! Thanks for sharing them! -Frank

How cute! Big Daddy is playing the part. Those are seedlings. It must have dropped some seeds last fall. They aren't attached to the main plant. You can gently lift them out and pot them or move them to another location if you want them to continue grow. Pam

Could it be that you feel by her calling her dad "daddy" vs. "my daddy" you feel that she is leaving you no room to fill a dad role? In other words, if SD called her dad "my dad", she could still call you dad too (ie. Thanks for the new shoes dad, the old ones my daddy bought me were getting too small."). My soon-to-be SD calls her dad and mom "my dad" and "my mom" which I find a little strange compared to my upbringing, but then again my parents have been together for over 40 years so I never dealt with step-family issues. I always called my mom and dad "mom & dad" around them, my sister and other relatives but called them "my mom & my dad" around friends and strangers. In my siutuation the strangest thing to me is when we are sitting around in the living room and SD will say something like "help, my daddy is tickling me" which seems odd to me since #1 - I can see what he is doing, and #2 - I know that he is her dad... Oh well, kids learn all types of communication and her parents refer to each other as "your mom" and "your dad" so I would imagine that is where she picked it up from.