What is at a nursery?

I'm not gonna try and sugar coat the point that there is a reason to be skeptable about finding a large maple at a nursery. I thought gee, what if I were given this challenge and did not have the material laying around that I have. What if I had to go out and find a tree to work, and it had to meet a certain dimension? What if I didn't have a thousand dollars to throw at a large tree ( I don't BTW)

I decided to go to a nursery and look around a little and see what might be found. The nursery I went to is the one I went to buy the juniper I used in the fall contest. Way back when I did come here often and could buy 15 gallon san jose junipers here for 45.00 with 4 inch trunks. Not anymore. Almost no one stock junipers in any great lots or size. You find some gallons here and there but thats about it.

When I came here it was for looking at maples. I buy my stuff from conventions, nurseries like Muranaka, or Murayama and people that grow stuff in the ground. I havn't bought a tree from a retail nursery for bonsai for over 15 years.

I looked at the maples and this is what I found. Maples with three inch trunks are pretty sparse. There are many there in big wooden boxes for landscape trees that are around 700.00 range. To get a tree in the 200.00 and lower range one will have to scout srond to find things in that price bracket. I did and I found some.

These tree were from 139.00 to 269.00.

I looked some more and found these. They are big yard trees. Acer rubrum on green stock. $69.95. Almost 4 inches across, a good chop candidate. The trees are about ten feet tall.

I wonder something.... If one was to chop above the graft say an inch above, would the lower half of the tree be green and the upper part be red? Could be a cool experiment.

I started looking around at other stuff and found these..contorted dwarf locust, kinda cool looking. Looking at these for future projects. Four inch trunks, $225.00. Looks like Harry Lauders walking stick only better.

Had some quince


Had these small dwarf crape myrtles, I always wanted one.

I bought one. The one I purchased is called cherry razzle. I suppose its red. I will see this summer when it blooms.



Tomorrow I will give it a prune as there are some heavy spots in the top which need to go. I will repot it into a colander right away to start reducing the root ball for a pot. Trunk is about 1.25 across. $23.95

Craigslist excerpt.

All trees are 8-16' height depending on variety. All are priced $30-35.00
Oak Maple Flowering Crab
Burr Autumn Flame Burgundy Belle Brandywine Candy Mint
Pin Autumn Blaze Red Sunset Donald Wyman David
Red Sugar Maple Fairview Harvest Gold Golden Raindrops
Swamp White Crimson King Red Rocket Prairie Fire Guinevere
Scarlet Drummondi Royal Red Sugar Tyme Hamlet
Sargent Indian Summer
Zumi
Weeping Misc.
Snow Fountain Cherry Clump River Birch Red Bud
Louisa Weeping Crab Copper Beech Kentucky Coffee Tree
Pink Snow Showers Newport Flowering Plum China Snow Lilac
Charral Mulberry American Hornbeam Washington Hawthorn
Quaking Aspen Triumph Elm
Silver Sterling Linden

www.sustainablewildlifehabitats.com

Sorce

I have seen signs on stores saying, "We Wire Money."
Perhaps this is a new form of bonsai and you can just take a bunch of money and train it to look nice by wiring.

OR.... Get a new mortgage and buy a big maple at a nursery.

Smoke said:

I bought one. The one I purchased is called cherry razzle. I suppose its red. I will see this summer when it blooms.

View attachment 68791 View attachment 68792 View attachment 68793 View attachment 68796

Tomorrow I will give it a prune as there are some heavy spots in the top which need to go. I will repot it into a colander right away to start reducing the root ball for a pot. Trunk is about 1.25 across. $23.95

Click to expand...

Nice looking structure! I picked this dwarf up for $18. It's 2.5"at the bottom. I cleaned it up and repotted 3 weeks ago. ..already throwing buds everywhere.