How Much Does A Fukien Tea Bonsai Tree Cost

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While Ficus and Chinese elm bonsai are typically the most common beginner-friendly species, one bonsai variety that is booming in popularity amongst beginners is Fukien Tea bonsai. Also commonly known as the Carmona bonsai, these trees are becoming widespread due to their easy care for nature. That said, how much does a Fukien tea bonsai tree cost?

Fukien Tea bonsai trees are amongst the cheapest bonsai tree available. The average cost for a Fukien Tea bonsai tree is $40.43 or £32.34. A good price range, however, that most store-bought Fukien Tea bonsai trees will retail for is $20 to $50. 

So what differences can impact the cost of a Fukien Tea bonsai? How much is too much to pay for a Fukien Tea bonsai? Keep reading to find out more!

Just a quick heads up, over the past three years of running Plantpaladin, hundreds of people have asked for product recommendations. As such, You can find my favorite indoor bonsai tree here (link takes you to Bonsaiboy), my favorite outdoor bonsai tree (link takes you to Bonsaiboy), or have a look at all the products I recommend here. 

How much does a Fukien Tea bonsai cost?

Now to get to the bottom of exactly how much a Fukien Tea bonsai tree costs, I compared 20 different Fukien Tea bonsai trees and over 100 bonsai trees of various species. 

I also asked ten plant paladin readers who own Fukien Tea how much they paid for them. 

All to ensure you have the most up-to-date/accurate post on how much a Fukien Tea bonsai costs. 

To summarize: 

• The average price for a Fukien Tea bonsai is $40.43 or £32.34
• Most Fukien Tea bonsai trees are inexpensive and retail between $20 to $50, or £16 to £40. 
• Fukien Tea bonsai trees are among the cheapest ones available due to being mass-produced and coming in various species. It’s common to find these trees at significantly lower prices than Chinese Elm or Ficus bonsai. 
• Premium outdoor bonsai, such as Pine or cedar bonsai, can cost upwards of ten times the price of a Fukien Tea tree. 
• The cheapest Fukien Tea bonsai trees retail for around $20 (£15.99). These bonsai are usually medium-sized, around 30cm tall, under five years old, and are styled in the informal upright style. 
• Premium Fukien Tea bonsai trees are inexpensive, with most retailing for no more than $60.
• However, paying more than $50 for an indoor Fukien Tea bonsai tree will be unnecessary for most beginners. 
• Now while these ranges are accurate, the exact price of your Fukien Tea will depend on the overall quality of the tree. 
• The most significant factors that impact the cost of your Fukien Tea bonsai tree are age and size, and species. 
• Older, more giant bonsai trees will typically cost much more than younger, more miniature bonsai, which tend to be a dime a dozen. 

Now this is quite a lot of information, so let’s break it down in more detail. 

Fukien Tea bonsai costs

As mentioned, I compared well over 100 bonsai trees from 22 well-known suppliers to get this information as accurately as possible.

These suppliers were well-known bonsai nurseries such as Herons to massive multinationals like Amazon. 

I compared many popular bonsai species to ensure we could work out if you overpay for your Fukien Tea bonsai and ensure the averages were accurate. 

I also visited my local botanical gardens to ask if the prices seemed reasonable. 

You can find the complete comparison of Fukien Tea bonsai trees below: 

How much does a small-sized Fukien Tea bonsai cost? 

So first up, how much does a small Fukien Tea bonsai tree cost? 

Usually, smaller bonsai trees cost significantly less than larger ones. 

On top of this, smaller Fukien Tea bonsai trees are much more commonplace, even being able to find them in non-garden/home stores. 

This makes them much easier to find than their larger counterparts, meaning they may also be cheaper due to economies of scale. 

Now bonsai trees classified as small typically fall into the shohin category of 10cm to 15cm or less. 

So how much does a small Fukien Tea bonsai cost? 

A small Fukien Tea bonsai, categorized as Shohin style or 0 to 15cm tall, costs $43.74 or £34.99 on average. These bonsai are amongst the cheapest bonsai trees you can purchase due to being commonplace in almost all garden centers/nurseries. 

That said, the cost of a small Fukien tea bonsai tree seems slightly more than Ficus bonsai. 

The reason? 

Well, ficus bonsai typically live for much longer, meaning that the average age/size of a ficus tree will be significantly larger/older than that of a small-sized Fukien tea tree. 

How much does a medium-sized Fukien Tea bonsai cost? 

Next up, medium-sized Fukien Tea bonsai. 

Like their smaller-sized counterparts, medium-sized Fukien Tea bonsai trees are also incredibly commonplace and, believe it or not, are much easier to source than their smaller counterparts.

So does this commonality impact the price of a medium-priced Fukien Tea? 

A medium-sized Fukien Tea bonsai tree that falls in the Chohin, Kumono, or Katade-Mochi size categories (20 to 46cm) costs $40.06. Most medium-sized Fukien Tea trees fall in the price range of $40 to $60. 

This is about $50 less than the cost of a comparative medium-sized Chinese elm or Ficus bonsai tree. 

So we touched on this earlier, but what are size classifications? 

Well, typically, bonsai trees are grown in various sizes, mainly when being grown for competitions. 

The most miniature-sized bonsai trees fall in the Keshitsubo category, which is 1 to 8cm big or 1 to 3 inches tall. 

The largest category is imperial-sized bonsai which can grow as tall as 200cm. 

Typically, the larger a Fukien Tea bonsai tree becomes, and the higher it moves up a category, the more expensive they become. 

To read more about size classification, check out my post here. 

How much does a large-size Fukien Tea bonsai cost? 

Finally, we come to sizeable Fukien Tea bonsai trees. 

One of the challenges, however, with getting accurate pricing for Carmona/Fukien tea bonsai trees at this size is that almost no reputable bonsai nursery or online retailer sells Carmona bonsai taller than 40cm. 

This is because most of the profit of these trees is made on the smaller-sized trees. 

General rules then must be placed on Fukien tea bonsai to figure out the cost of a large tree, using similar trees as an example. 

As such, both Chinese elm and Ficus bonsai trees both exhibit very similar characteristics to Fukien tea bonsai trees and so having asked my readers, we can assume the following: 

The average price of a large Fukien Tea bonsai tree is $1868 or £1495. The larger Fukien Tea bonsai become, the more expensive they are, with 20-year-old large bonsai retailing for over $1000.  

How much does a 5-year-old Fukien Tea bonsai cost? 

So now that we have considered size, the second central element that can impact the cost of a Fukien Tea bonsai tree is the tree’s age. 

Typically younger bonsai trees are less expensive than older trees, so does this ring true for the Fukien Tea tree?

The average price of a 5-year-old Fukien Tea bonsai tree is $51.87 (£41.50). The cheapest 5-year-old Fukien Tea bonsai will cost $43 for small-sized bonsai. The most expensive 5-year-old Fukien Tea bonsai will cost $60 for trees with an informal upright style.  

How much does a 10-year-old Fukien Tea bonsai cost?

So while 5-year-old bonsai trees are commonplace, do older trees cost more between 5 to ten years? 

The average price for a 10-year-old Fukien tea bonsai is $42.93 (£34.34). Surprisingly, this is slightly less expensive than 5 -year old Fukien tea trees.

As such, my recommendation would be to invest in a fucken tea bonsai that is slightly older, as you may be bagging yourself a bargain. 

How much does a 20-year-old Fukien Tea bonsai tree cost? 

So 10-year-old Fukien Tea bonsai trees cost less than 5-year-old Fukien Tea bonsai, but is this the case with larger 20-year-old Fukien Tea bonsai? 

Similar to the point I raised above, it is scarce to find retailers selling Fukien tea bonsai trees that are more than 12 years old. 

As such, I’ve had to amalgamate some of the data with another tree to make the best estimation of price for 20-year-old Carmona trees: 

The average price for a 20-year-old Fukien Tea bonsai is $612.66 (£490). This is a significant increase of over $500 compared to 5 and 10-year-old bonsai. This extra expense is entirely down to the aesthetic appeal and design of the bonsai. 

On top of this, as mentioned, most Fukien Tea bonsai species are very slow-growing, meaning larger varieties are much more likely to retail for a premium price. 

Does style impact the cost of a Fukien Tea bonsai tree? 

So age and size are the three most significant factors that impact the price of a Fukien Tea bonsai.  

Does the style of a tree impact the cost of a Fukien Tea bonsai? 

After all, bonsai typically fall into multiple style categories for competition, whether broom, cascade, or informal upright. 

Fukien Tea bonsai trees with a cascade or multiple trunk design are more expensive than other bonsai styles. Cascade bonsai typically averages $263, and multiple trunk bonsai have an average price of $513. 

In my post on how much a bonsai tree costs, I found that, regardless of species, bonsai trees with a multiple-trunk design or a cascade are significantly more expensive than other styles. 

The main reason for this is the time it takes to grow a bonsai tree with multiple trunks, most of which take 30 to 50 years. 

That said, Fukien Tea bonsai grown with multiple trunks is likely the most expensive tree style. 

What is the most you should pay for a Fukien Tea bonsai?

So having run through the data quite in-depth, what is the price to pay for a Fukien Tea bonsai tree if you want to pull out all the stops and go for a premium expensive tree? 

The most you should pay for a premium Fukien Tea bonsai tree is $70. This considers that the tree is relatively large, older than ten years, and has a significant bonsai style, such as cascade or multiple trunk styles. You can easily pick up a Fukien Tea bonsai for $20 to $50. 

You should avoid paying over $100 for Fukien Tea bonsai trees as cheaper alternatives are likely available. 

What is a fair price to pay for a Fukien Tea bonsai? 

A fair price for a Fukien Tea bonsai tree will be between $20 and $60. This considers that the tree is under ten years old, is no bigger than 35cm, and has a formal upright, broom, or informal upright style. 

If you are a beginner looking for your first bonsai tree, I recommend staying within the $60 mark. 

Do store-bought or online Fukien Tea bonsai trees cost more? 

Fukien tea bonsai trees from nurseries are slightly less expensive than those bought online. For example, a 30cm Carmona bonsai tree costs $43 from Amazon compared to $20 when purchased from the Cambridge Bee Nursery. 

This is contrary to most bonsai tree species, whereby you will have to pay a premium for a tree from a nursery compared to those purchased online. 

In reality, however, as Fukien tea bonsai trees are so inexpensive, the price will likely fall very close to each other regardless of where it was purchased from. 

What are the other costs associated with a Fukien Tea bonsai? 

So Fukien Tea bonsai are relatively inexpensive, like all bonsai trees, but they have other costs.

These include: 

• Wire – to help shape your tree – typically between $15 to $25
• Fertilizer – to help feed your tree ‘$80 to $100 for a good quality fertilizer 
• Soil – $10 to $20 
• Pots – to repot and ensure your tree’s roots aren’t squished – $166 on average for a good quality pot. 
• Tools – $40 to $100 for a good bonsai tool set to cut, trim and shape your tree. 
• Turntables – to move your tree when trimming $10 to $20
• Pesticides – $30 to $100 on an excellent pesticide
• Grow lights – $30 to $60, depending on the size. 

How much do Fukien Tea Bonsai seeds cost? 

Fukien Tea bonsai tree seeds are inexpensive, costing between $5 and $15. Most seed packs contain multiple seeds, usually between 8 and 50 individual seeds. Bonsai seeds, regardless of species, are relatively inexpensive. 

How expensive is Fukien Tea bonsai when compared with other bonsai trees? 

So now you know how expensive a bonsai tree costs. How does this stack up when compared with other bonsai species? 

Well, luckily, I’ve pulled this information to in the table below, but to summarize: 

Fukien Tea bonsai trees are among the cheapest bonsai tree species, costing an average of $40.43 per tree. Ficus bonsai ($46.37) is also an incredibly cheap bonsai tree option. 

Fukien Tea bonsai are significantly cheaper than hardy outdoor bonsai, such as Scots Pine, which can retail for over $1000 per tree. 

How much does a bonsai tree cost – Survey results 

Finally, I asked 20 plant paladin readers how much they bought their Fukien Tea bonsai for. 

To summarise: 

My top picks for the gear you will need!

So like I mentioned earlier, over the past three years of running PlantPaladin, hundreds of people have asked me for my recommendations on the best bonsai gear on the market. 

Having spent thousands of dollars on bonsai items these past few years and tested at least 100 bonsai-specific products, I’ve listed my favorite products below – All of which I highly recommend and think you can get great value. 

They can purchase directly by clicking the link to take them to Amazon. 

Bonsai Tool Set: One of the significant challenges I’ve had is finding a toolset that was not only durable but didn’t break the bank. SOLIGT has recently developed a fantastic bonsai tool set that covers all the tools you need to trim, prune, and repot your trees. – You can grab it here. 

Complete Bonsai Set: Many of you will want to grow your bonsai trees entirely from scratch, but finding the varicose seeds, pots, and other items in one place can be challenging. Leaves and Sole then have created a complete bonsai set that I’ve personally used that ticks all the boxes. You can grab it here. 

Bonsai wire: The number of times I’ve run out of wire for my bonsai or purchased cheap bonsai wire that doesn’t do the job is embarrassing for me to admit. After a lot of trial and error, I found that using Hotop’s aluminum bonsai wire is one of the best options on the market. This can easily be used for both indoor and outdoor bonsai. You can grab it here.