False bonsai in Mauritius

Im kind of disgusted with the way some people just try to sell sprouts or small immature plants as bonsai to the gullibles.

There was a "flower fare" during the weekend in the Municipality of QuatreBornes and there were several flower stands by various nurseries.

In two of the stands there were nurseries selling "bonsai", one was selling ginseng ficus at a respectable price. Not bonsai quality, but the price was right at Rs700. Rs200~500 would be a right price for the plants in any nursery any other day but they need to make a profit. Apparently they were ginseng roots grafted with a Ficus Benjamina variety.

Those are the ginseng ficus - not the one in the flower fare, but visually the same

The other stand was selling false cypress [ The plant itself is called "false cypress" ] sprouts, normally rs50~rs100 in a nursery, at  rs300~rs700 each. That's 6x or more its normal price, and the same merchant was changing the price every times I passed by that stand and heard visitors asking for a price.





The darker green ones were ranging between rs1200~rs3500 or more. Again when ever I passed by after some time the prices seemed to increase or decrease. Frankly those trees are worth rs150~rs300, I'd even go as far as rs500~rs700 on a sizable one, but not more than rs700.

I tried to ask some questions to get a feel of what he really knew at first but was quickly disgusted.
The recommendation is simply cut the leaves once in a while to keep it "small" and feed here and there.
No precautions about the watering, no information about the repotting, nothing worthwhile to help the user get a bonsai out of those sprouts and starter trees.

Those false cypress and even normal cypress are quite difficult to handle properly as the roots are easily prone to rotting and any starter will be bound to overwater to "prevent" the plant from drying out.
I know a lot of people who bought them and had them die out on them in a matter of months, even when they have quite a successful plant collection.