Living The Dream

So you want to be a bonsai professional?

- Tony Tickle

I am sure that at some point during a work day our minds have wandered to the trees in our gardens and dreamt that we could leave the mundane job. Be able to work full time with bonsai, to create trees as and when we like, to enjoy the freedom and fulfillment of fashioning a thing of beauty.

More than 20 years ago a couple of Britain’s best known bonsai professionals gave me some advice; I was Managing Director of a successful design company that had been trading for ten years, but my passion was for bonsai. I wanted to work with bonsai full time, to teach, create and travel. I had won the UK Bonsai New Talent competition, I was building a good collection, but I had a young family, a mortgage and commitments.