Our local club is a having juniper bonsai workshop this weekend. My wife is likely going to participate and I am the not-so-official club photographer. It is a fun hobby. Soon you will be looking at every plant differently. You will be looking at roots and soil in a whole new light too. Your three bonsai are looking good.

Any recommendations for decent bonsai tools online that are fairly priced ?

Nick, Love the JM! I got my tools from Tian Bonsai and am very happy with them. They are inexpensive but they seem to be of decent quality. They are on ebay and their feedback from the last year was 366 positive, 0 neutral, 0 negative... so they must be doing something right. I don't make a living with mine, I don't use them a lot, so I wasn't about to spend top $$$.

Over the years I have bought from several places. Tian bonsai pretty good. I would say never buy the beginner grade from anywhere. It is waste of money in my opinion. Intermediate and above is far better. I have a few Master grade stainless steel ones from Tian bonsai and they are a pleasure to use. They are my go to tools. I also have others for very specific purpose. To me a basic set of tools will be: 8 inch shear, concave cutter, and a root rake. For wiring you can use regular pliers and snippers to begin with. A smaller shear/scissor is also handy at times when working with tight and small foliage/twigs. Since my wife also dabbles in bonsai we two of almost every tool. She prefers the smaller versions (the 6-7 inch versions) - they are quite handy especially if you have smaller hands and working on small plants.

You may also want to look at these mid-range brands, may be just for fun: Koyo, Ryuga, Kiku, Joshua Roth, American bonsai (they have 5 yr warranty).

If you want wires, Dallas bonsai is having a 25% off sales and their wires are very decently priced. They carry a bit higher end Fujiyama tools. They also have nice collection of plastic bonsai pots if you want to go the cheap route. Eventually it is the bonsai pots that will empty your bank :(( if you get very serious.

I did another one :)