1. Buy trees from a bonsai nursery and buy only trained material already in a bonsai pot. By doing this, you get to practice bonsai training techniques on material that is already established in a shallow pot and you are not relegated to "growing a trunk" or "reducing the rootball" as necessary with lesser-developed material. This way, you can jump into what most understand as "bonsai training."

2. Start with material that is very well suited to your climate. Beginners should not hamper their success by initially trying to work with trees that are weakened by zone deprivation.

3. Grow bonsai outdoors only. Growing bonsai indoors brings with it a host of difficulties and expenses and it is far more difficult for beginners to achieve success. Indoor cultivation should be left to experts. There's no such thing as an indoor tree.

4. Learn the care requirements for a tree BEFORE you buy it. Don't just buy a tree that looks neat, only later to find out that you cannot provide the care that it needs.

5. After you've achieved some success growing trained trees (a couple of years), go to your local landscape nursery and try your hand at beginning the training of a tree that you need to cut down for bonsai. The process of cutting back foliage and reducing the rootball is instructive, but not best suited to rank beginners. Read how to do this with a specific species BEFORE you buy it.

6. Good beginner plant material for temperate climates includes Chinese elm (the best choice), Japanese maple (both palmatum and buergerianum), Zelkova serrata, and for warmer climates or indoors: Ficus (benjamina, nerifolia, retusa, etc...). I don't suggest that junipers be used by rank beginners.