Thanks for the input, this definitely makes alot of sense. Especially for Hemlock. I notice you're in upstate NY as well, so you must be referring to Eastern Hemlock then, not western?? Eastern Hemlock is quite possibly my favorite tree and when I started getting into bonsai this past spring I thought I was really excited about the prospect of working with Eastern Hemlock... but then I came to find out that they are apparently not suited for bonsai at all. Which now makes sense based off of what I see in the woods, which I'm sure you know what I'm talking about: (When a specimen does have a thick enough trunk it has virtually no living branches for maybe 10 feet up the tree and is very spindly). So I was pretty disappointed about that being off the table.
But apparently you've been able to find stunted specimens? Have you developed any into mature bonsai already? I would really love to see any pictures you may have! I may have to go on a stunted hemlock quest next spring if it is possible to find specimens suitable to bonsai!
Ah, yes I mean Eastern, and they are really Shohin styles, and immature. One is a broom style, naturally, which grew on a rock covered in moss by a lakeside, which would have easily died in a short amount of time for lack of soil, and is about 6 inches or so tall. The second is a smaller twin trunk which splits off into maybe five smaller trunks, which I plan on making into semi- to full-cascade, and is currently 6 or 8 inches tall. The last is another multiple trunk style, and I have few plans on what to do with it, and is maybe 11 or 12 inches tall. Those last two were collected from said quarry in the Adirondacks. There are three others I that are staged at our cabin in the Adirondacks that vary in size, shape and so on, but specifics escape me.
If any bonsai artist would look at them, they would immediately think they were sick. However, after months of shade and watering, the nice green color is returning. I do have one that I collected from a forest, which was rather un-remarkable, and lacked compact growth, like most forest-grown Hemlocks.
My next season will see their being wired and pruned, as they are young and hemlocks are very rigorous (one at the cabin I mentioned had all but 2 inches of what was once perhaps a 12 inch trunk removed by natural circumstances, which still confuses me as to what to how to style it, but it is unique). In the next season, I will also collect several other conifers, including tamaracks and Balsam Firs (if you think that finding stunted Hemlocks and Yew would be hard, imagine what the DEC would do if I were ever to try to remove the Fir and Spruce trees from artic-alpine summits), but probably not Yew. Back to the subject, I will share some pictures soon.
As to this belief that Eastern Hemlocks do not make bonsai, sure they take a long amount of time to develop attractive trunks. But:
In bonsai, you must take from your surroundings, and make of it something better.