There is a lot more bonsai happening in New Zealand than you would guess from a quick search.
Nineteen clubs meet regularly from Whangārei to Invercargill. There are growers here with forty years behind them, potters and woodworkers making beautiful things, nurseries raising stock you cannot import, and a national expo bringing it all together. Plenty of it is genuinely world class.
It is simply spread out. Clubs, sellers, shows and good advice each live in their own corner of the internet, which is exactly what you would expect from something built and run by volunteers who would rather be working on their trees than maintaining a website. The knowledge is all there. It just takes some digging to find, and if you are new you may not know what you are digging for.
Aotearoa Bonsai is an attempt to gather it into one place, so that finding a club, a tree, a pot or an answer takes a minute rather than an evening.
What is here
- A directory of every bonsai club in the country, with meeting times, venues and a way to get in touch.
- A single events calendar, covering club meetings, shows, workshops and demonstrations, filterable by region.
- Guides and tools, written for New Zealand conditions rather than borrowed from somewhere colder.
- A directory of New Zealand sellers, for trees, pots, tools, stands and tuition.
- Everything about the NZ Bonsai Expo 2026, in one place.
Keeping it right
A directory is only as good as its last update, and this one covers nineteen clubs, a national calendar and a growing list of suppliers. Some of it will go out of date. Some of it is probably already wrong.
So corrections are genuinely welcome, and they get acted on. If your club has changed its meeting night, if you run a business that should be listed, if there is a show coming up that deserves an audience, or if something in a guide is simply incorrect, send it through.
The single most useful thing a new grower can do is join a club. Everything else on this site is a distant second.