AusBonsai

Where do you get the large rock displays for bonsai. The one with sections to put trees and ciff face hanging over, is there a specific type of rock??

Coastal sandstone sometimes makes suitable shapes but it is illegal to collect rocks from public land.
Rocks are often available from aquarium supply shops. Fish collectors use them to decorate the fish tanks.

Many of the 'rocks' you see use for bonsai now are made.

• Various cement mixtures can be used to mould shapes. Can be quite heavy unless you make the shape hollow.

• Rocks can be carved to specifications from hebel aerated cement blocks then given a coating of oxides to colour it to look like natural rock. Lighter than real rock but still weighty.

• One of our club members carved rocks from polystyrene then coated with a cement render and oxide colourings. Hard to pick from real rock until you pick one up. Much easier to work and move around after planting.

• Rocks can be made to order from smaller pieces of suitable rock. Glued together with epoxy glues or outdoor building adhesive. If the grain of the rocks and rock type is matched well that can look great too. You get the choice of shape, size, ledges and planting spots by choosing suitable pieces and how you put them together. Still quite heavy as it's made from rock!

You can also 3D print them.

You can even get AI to generate the file for you.

Re the polystyrene method. I’ve tried it, but it is much harder than it looks!

The aquarium path seems the easiest to me!

thankyou for the knowledge

Here's an interesting little tidbit... I'm the original author of the faux rock/polystyrene tutorial. I posted it to Aussie Pythons and Snakes back in 2005 using the standard method for making artificial landscape rocks.

https://www.aussiepythons.com/threads/o ... 050/page-1

Today you can find 100's of tutorials based on that technique but in 2005 it was almost a trade secret. I was even approached for permission to publish it in a reptile magazine.

It really is a small world hey. Pics are on page 2 if you want to follow the tutorial.