Dip "your" toe in the Bonsai Exhibit World.

The parameters.
They are pretty easy but will be difficult for some since they are poor picture recorders. This thread is for pictures of your best efforts at bonsai from non bonsai material all on your own. The YOUR is in quotes in the title. These are the trees that you make in the backyard and put into pots but maybe not show them to people because they have flaws or things maybe you have not dealt with. You know self depricating bonsai. If you are taking this tree you post to your teacher, Don't post it here.

Required
A before picture, I don't care if the picture is thirty years old. (If you don't take pictures of your material before you start, don't post a current picture of it now. You didn't make it)
Either collected material or non bonsai nursery material. No material from a bonsai nursery, unless its un-worked, because bonsai nurseries like Chikugu En has plenty of un-worked material for sale. That's why the before picture is critical.
A picture of the tree as it looks today (today being 2015 or thereabouts.)
Collected can be either mountain or urban.
Tree can have wire but must exhibit a more finished state and contain all the parameters of what a bonsai is, meaning that it should contain some age as a bonsai and contain the branch structure of what a typical bonsai looks like.
It should also be in a bonsai pot and been there since at least last year so as to be stable in the pot and growing.
Try to keep comments out of the thread and lets post them someplace else.
I think it best to keep it to one tree per post, that way there is no confusion on mixed up pictures.

Urban collection of Pyracantha

Al, in regards to the What is Bonsai: It's not a question of what "you" are capable of. It's a question of What Is Bonsai. When does it start? With whom does it start?

I just showed you everything in my heart. I just poured it out and its all mine. Thats when it starts for me, right now. I don't really care what anyone else thinks. It's personal. I will cut and paste your question to the other thread. I think its important for people to post the trees and "their" work.

Newer JWP project. Discounted Home Depot nursery stock.

Hawthorn, chopped in '99, dug in 2000, and just planted in the ground:


At the USNBE nearly 15 years later. All my work:

Pyracantha. Dug in 2005:

One year later, recovering in a 5-gal. can:

All my work. 2015:

Japanese black pine, as un-worked as it gets from Brussel's. 2007:

2015. All my work:

This one might get a flag thrown, but goes to Gary's question...when does it become your work? The line gets blurred when you start working on trees with some history.
Zelkova; originally a bonsai worked with Ben Oki in the 1980s. Owned by a guy, John H., who gave it to my buddy Ron, who gave it to me when I convinced him it sucked and needed to be started over. 2006:

So we unpotted it:


I sawed it down and started it over:


2015:

I think it still sucks. Anyone want to make an offer (pot not included)?

Unworked Chishio Japanese Maple, received in 2002. Planted in the ground until 2005. Here it is in 2004:


Photographed in preparation for USNBE in 2012:

2015. With the exception of a few failed root grafts, all my work:

Here's another blurred line. When you work for half a day with a "master", but the other 4745 days represents your work. Is this not an "honest" bonsai?
Azalea, I dug in 2002:

Took it to a Ben Oki workshop where we reduced the tree to a trunk line and primary branches:


And now, 10 years later. One could see how I feel this decade and result is all my work:

Privet before and after, nursery stock/raw material

Another shopping center pyracantha

Last shopping center pyracantha

Mojave California Juniper

BVF your trees just blow me away.

Another Cal juniper

More Mojave Cal Junipers



This juniper is due for a massive restyle this next Fall.

The Three Little Pigs

A field elm
Still very young in development