Hello all! Today I got my first bonsai pots and I'm looking forward planting my first bonchi soon. As I am a complete newbie on this, there are a couple of questions on my mind, I hope somebody could answer these.

1) On the Fatalii's bonchi guide, he seems to cut down the full sized plant to bonchi size and then put the plant on hydro system. What is this for? Is it possible to put the plant directly to the bonsai pot? If one wants to grow hardened tree-like roots, would it be best just cut down the stems and leave roots intact so the plant can recover more quickly?

2) Some of my chiles seem to have very Y-shaped structure, is it genetics or can I encourage the plant to grow lower stems somehow? If I made a bonchi of these plants, only the main trunk would be left and that would look bad.

3) What is good substitute for akadama soil? So far I have not found any shop that sells it.

4) Is the stone under the plant mandatory or just for decorating purposes?

That's all (for now), hopefully I didn't make too much of a fool of myself.

Thanks for the answers. I guess this is a thing one learns best by doing.

I'm considering cutting my beloved Bird's Eye Baby to bonchi size. It has been under my hps-lights for 7 months and with very nice structure for bonchi but the trunk or the stems are not yet woody. Do you think I should wait more or does the cutting the plant to smaller make the trunk harden?

I have tried to make a few cuttings, but everytime the cuttings will grow to bush-like structure. It seems they like to grow horizontally than vertically. So not a very good bonchi material there. Maybe the cuttings should be made from the main trunk of a young plant rather than the stems. I hope that in the future I'm able to make some bonchis from the rare wild chiles, some of them seem to grow a wooden trunk very quickly.

This bonchi stuff sure is very addictive!

Hmm... hard to tell how the stem portion looks from those pics but I'm sure that one will make a great bonchi.

Just remember to "dig up" the root system to make it look more dramatic.
Just cut off the smallest roots which are below the surface.

About this fusing thing:
Is it possible to fuse different kinds of chilies together?
I had this crazy idea to put all of my plants that would otherwise be thrown away due to lack of space on one big pot and strap them tight with zipties or metal wire(after i cut them down of course). I would put one little bigger stem at the middle and some smaller around that. Will there be problems with stems choking if the stem is not "free" for the first 20cm from the ground.

Will it be neccesery to expose cambium layer to ensure fusion?

I was thinking to put a Starfish (C. Baccatum) on the middle due to its faster growth. Other chilis would be Baccatums like Aji cristal and Lemon Drop and Chinenses like few kins of Habanero and Naga Morich. Or should i just stay with Baccatums or Chinenses to avoid complications or "incompatibilities"?

If anyone has any experience with this kind of thing any tips or warnings are warmly welcome.

I know its crazy and i apologise for messy, hugely questonized post.