The most amazing nursery catalog...

Nigel Black

Yamadori
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Iseli has a great selection of plants, but unfortunately they are wholesale only.
Best thing to do is to decide what you want and order from a retail specialist nursery.
There are plenty of small conifer specialists who will sell to the rest of us, and often have things
Iseli doesn't.

Brent Walston of Evergreen Gardenworks is worth checking out.
And there are many others.

Nigel
 

Bonsai Nut

Nuttier than your average Nut
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8a
unfortunately they are wholesale only.

Yes, I spoke with them earlier this summer. Years ago I had an Iseli japanese maple that died when I moved from Chicago to Southern California. I would love to get another Iseli ornamental. They apparently ship once per year to the big retailers down here - Armstrong Garden Centers, etc. I asked why they don't list their retailers on their web site and they said it was something that had been discussed but they had decided not to so they could maintain closer one-on-one contact with their retailers (I didn't understand what that meant). I will bother them again in the Spring and hopefully they will let me know when they are shipping.
 

Brent

Mame
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The problem with places like Iseli is that they graft for landscape, not bonsai use. Just about anything that is grafted is going to be perfectly useless for bonsai. Of course, the cutting grown material is fine. This is very frustrating, the problem is particularly bad for conifers because there is usually a distinct bark difference between understock and graft, and give that they are invariably grafted high, you are left with airlayering off the graft as your only solution. On most conifers this is timely and risky.

I was just reminded of this problem this week when I repotted some Gan Seki Sho nishiki black pines grafts I got from Stanley and Sons, another catalog to drool over. This is a cork bark cultivar grafted about 4inches above the nebari with a 2 inch long very ugly side veneer graft. Now that the scion is corking you get a really good idea of how hideous this is going to look for years to come. And these little guys were sold as prebonsai material. I didn't care, I just wanted them as stock plants so I could get some scion wood to do proper grafts. By the way, I think this cv is going to be terrific for small bonsai. Steve Pilacik speaks highly of it, too.

So, yeah, go ahead and drool, but you are better off with professionally prepared bonsai material even if your choices are limited. Great species info though.

Brent
EvergreenGardenworks.com
see our blog at http://BonsaiNurseryman.typepad.com
 

Graydon

Chumono
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I was just reminded of this problem this week when I repotted some Gan Seki Sho nishiki black pines grafts I got from Stanley and Sons, another catalog to drool over.

Brent - do Stanley and Sons get their pines from Dave Dewire? I purchased a couple of pines in the past few years from a little nursery called Riverbend Gardens (www.riverbendgardens.com) and I think there were Stanley and Sons tags on them. I did comment to the owner about the useless high grafts for bonsai. Somehow Dave Dewire's name came up in the conversation of the plant source.

Either way both the Iseli and Stanley and Sons catalogs are great stuff.
 

Brent

Mame
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Graydon

I think Stanley and Sons gets their grafts from all over Oregon. I get the impression they are brokers more than growers, although they do pot up the liners to larger sizes before offing them. Although Stanley has a great catalog and some rare material, I haven't been very much impressed with the quality overall of their stock.

Brent
 
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