(bright music) - I have about 25.

I wouldn't call myself a hardcore bonsai artist.

I have elm and tried maple, white pine, cypress, dogwood, so it's a bunch of different trees.

I just do it for fun, and I do it more for relaxation.

The Chinese started bonsai.

It might be as far back as 1500 years ago.

700 to 800 years ago, the Japanese started picking up on it, and they turned it into a real art form.

It's fundamentally a tree growing in a pot.

- Any tree can technically be a bonsai.

Some are a lot harder.

A lot of people like the stylized, what you see in a lot of like Japanese culture of bonsai where it's got a specific shape to it, and you kind of stick with those shapes.

I like things that are gonna look a little more realistic in nature.

- Part of the idea of bonsai is to make a tree look like it's not young.

So you might have a tree that's eight years, 10 years old, but it looks like it's a lot older than that.

And the way you create the age look is to one, create taper in the trunk so it's wider at the base than at the top.

It has roots spreading out from it, so it makes it look older.

The branches at the bottom tend to lean down as opposed to lean up.

- This is gonna be a work in progress.

If it was going to be show ready, it's gonna be five, 10 years down the road.

In the winter, once they lose their leaves, as you can see this one, the leaves are all starting to fall off, it gives you a good time to go in and view the structure of the tree.

You can see the branches a lot easier, and you can start making some decisions of how you want the tree to look.

- It's actually a pretty inexpensive hobby, but you can scale it up as much as you want.

The tools are designed to address specific situations where you're trying to do a specific thing with a tree.

- You can selectively prune trees, directionally prune them.

Like, I want a branch to grow this way, so I'm gonna cut it here.

Another way of doing that is with wire, where you can wrap wire around the branch and actually bend that branch to the shape that you want it to go.

- It's a lot more satisfying than taking care of a lawn, (laughs) because you can actually control every weed in the pot.

I mean, I've always enjoyed looking at trees grow, but until you actually grow a tree in a pot, you don't start to realize, I can tell you exactly where every branch has come from and what it's gonna do next, that kind of thing.

And you never notice that unless you get real close to 'em like this.

- Yeah, I've been working on bonsai trees for about two and a half years.

Saw a few videos on YouTube and said, "I wanna try that."

Failed numerous times before I got into the club.

The Bonsai Society of the Carolinas, I am actually the president of the club.

- [John] And that group has been around since 1964.

- [Sam] The amount that I've learned since becoming a member of the club has just grown enormously, learned so much more than any book or video on YouTube's gonna teach you.

- The biggest risk to a bonsai tree is you're killing it.

(laughs) And so, and everybody that's grown bonsai has killed trees, I killed a bunch.

I'm not necessarily trying to get nice trees, I'm trying to enjoy taking care of trees.

So, it's been more for me about the route than the end point.

Others are very much interested in creating beautiful artistic trees.

- For me, I get a loss satisfaction of knowing I'm maintaining this tree.

When I bought this tree in particular, it was on the clearance rack at Lowe's, and I'm gonna hopefully keep it alive, keep it growing, and give it a new life.

- If someone feels they have a bit of a green thumb, it's a fun hobby.