Do you have a picture? I am unfamiliar with this plant as a bonsai but many small leafed shrubs can be made into bonsai. According to my gardening encyclopedia cuttings start easily if planted in a well draining soil.

I, too, love Polyscias! The last ones I bought were just the other night, in fact. I was browsing around Wal-Mart and went into the garden section (outside) as I always do just to look. Its now November and it was about 60 degrees but has been getting down into the 40's at night recently. Anyway, outside there were an assortment of tropical plants, the usuals. Then I look down and see 3 beautiful little variegated Balfour Aralias. I couldnt believe that I would find these at Wal-Mart, but they were outside and I couldnt stand to think they would spend another night in the cold so I bought them all at a whopping $5.88 a piece. They are about 5-6 inches tall and in nice little autumn tin containers. I found that to be a very pleasant score! Back on the topic of Aralias or Polyscias, I have several others, all of which are in a set of 3 large north facing windows. They get bright afternoon sun and they love it. I have 2 small fountains set up beside them for humidity and have all of them on wet pebble trays. I also mist them in the morning a few times a week. I allow all of them to dry out considerably before watering again. When I water, I drench and let all excess drain out. I keep all of mine in lightweight plastic greenhouse pots so that I can pull the rootball out and examine it every so often. I'm giving all of this advice because I have never had one complaint from any of my aralias, so I guess they are loving their environment. I keep the heat on 67 in the fall and winter and a/c on 76 in summer. I prune them usually late winter-early spring. As for the ones I currently have, I have 2 Mings (one scraggly looking one I purchased at Home Depot recently, now 4 variegated balfours, 1 4 foot parsley, and 2 small variegated parsleys. Can you tell I like Aralias? Hope some of this information helps. -Chris South Carolina

planto, if I saw your aralia, I would buy it too. it's really a beauty. I have to say, once I figured out what they like and put them on water-wicks to prevent them from drying out (am an underwaterer, keep forgetting... my duties!) - they are pretty much care free. but I did keep the baby fern-leaf bagged for the whole year! white it was establishing itself. they need very bright light. mine get sev hours of morning light and then western thru sheers : fl to ceil gigantic windows. and they were still dropping leaves in winter! it was because I set nite temps to 65F and near windows gets to 62F - they hated it. once I figured out to bag them - no more drops. by the way, you say you have hi humidity and very warm - that's optimal. 85-95F + above 80% humidity that's just heaven for them. I have 60% in winter and 80% in summer and 70-74 indoors - but that's not enough for ultra growth.

Hi markbudde, I don't know where you are located but I often see 2-3 different varieties of ming (fine fern-like leaf and larger leaved) at my local Meijer's store ($5-$20...5" to 2.5') in Ohio. The ming in the photo I'm posting was purchased thru Amazon.com from Hirt's gardens also in Ohio. I got it(3 plants in the pot shown) a year ago at about 6" tall and now it's 14" and still sprouting new growth. Hope this helps. As a side note can anyone tell me exactly what variety it is? Here is a link that might be useful: