My yard...secondary focus

herzausstahl

Chumono
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Blue point juniper next. In oil dri by looks. Trunk is too thin, so probably in ground in garden even though just repotted last spring. Anything going in the ground will have the roots disturbed as little as possible & hole dug big enough for it to be placed right in.
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herzausstahl

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Colorado blue spruce. Repotted in napa last spring. Think pot got knocked over So soil thrown back in. Not sure what I want to do with it.
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Most likely leave it alone & see if yellowing greens up. Or plant in ground to recover. I forget, do these back bud well? If so best course might be in ground/grow bed to thicken trunk a little and start chasing back foliage on it.
 

herzausstahl

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Thuja of some kind in perlite, haydite, oil,dri, & gravel. Repotted last spring. Might try some wiring later on in summer with this one, if it greens up nice. Or would late summer/fall be more appropriate time to wire? Or might let it grow freely, kinda digging the dead top on it.

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Next is a long neglected juniper in an unknown early, probably semi horrible mix that will go in the ground in the garden. Or be wiring fodder. Not sure yet.
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Unknown juniper in oil dri, might thin out dense foliage a bit, then leave as is or put in ground.
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herzausstahl

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Wanna say tag said ground cover or something. Given I've just cut down the nursery container a bit I'll probably practice wiring on this.

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herzausstahl

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Eastern white pine former seedling. Know these don't make good bonsai but might still play with it cus I like roots on it & still a lot of branches lower down.

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IMG_0747.JPGLooks like it's in l perlite, haydite, oil dri, & gravel.
 

herzausstahl

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3 trunk thuja in perlite, haydite, oil dri, gravel. Possible wire later on.
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Clean up for this one
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Same for this one, maybe some wire.
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This one is going back in the ground, been like this for a year or so. It's a nana.
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sorce

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The new thing I can't get out of my head while fishing....
Yes...fished all 70F weekend!

"Headbangers Bonsai Ball, or what's Herz jamming to now?"

Brother....

You have no time for jamming!

Sorce
 

herzausstahl

Chumono
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The new thing I can't get out of my head while fishing....
Yes...fished all 70F weekend!

"Headbangers Bonsai Ball, or what's Herz jamming to now?"

Brother....

You have no time for jamming!

Sorce
actually we're a lot ice fishing over the weekend on the bay while it was 50-60 here. Lol with putting all my music on my phone makes it easier than you think! That & the blue tooth CD player I put in my truck
 

herzausstahl

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So as I'm out in a state park by the Bay of Green Bay looking at a lot of great white cedars growing on top of part of the Niagra Escarpment it's led me to think again how a lot of the trees I've shown her that have been potted are mostly junk. In the grow beds, ground growing section I have & to an extent stuff I planted in my garden to create ground cover might offer more. I have pics of them but I took them with a camera not my phone so will share those in the appropriate species threads looking for advice this spring, my question goes back to what I have shown here so far. What does everyone else do with material collected under a very inexperienced eye after you've learned more? Do you hold onto it, work it to learn the horticultural aspects of bonsai? Or do you thin the herd so to speak a little bit to allow yourself to progress by getting better species more suited to bonsai to practice with, learn on, even though there is a decent chance you might still kill it all the same? In the end I've only posted about a dozen trees & some have some interesting features from neglect that could be fun but has anyone else kind of tossed them on the burn pile like @sorce 's thread?
 

herzausstahl

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I should also add over the past month I've been scouring the old threads & taking screen shots of conversations & pictures of trees to go over & take notes on to increase my knowledge base & look at work of others to get an idea. Also @Adair M is there any thread on here that outlines what most look at as the excepted style rules or would the ones outlined in the dozen or so books I own (Colin Lewis, herb gustafason, bonsai4me, Brent's articles on his site) be a good start to work off of. I don't want you to mistake my willingness to avoid them in an earlier discussion as my not wanting to understand them it's more as @Bonsai Nut said I want to know them & consciously understand why I'm deviating from them. And as of now I have 4K screenshots to go through I'm gonna be busy for awhile. I might rarely relook at the notes I take but I learned in college I learn better by reading & taking notes to build my knowledge base.
 

sorce

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Do you hold onto it, work it to learn the horticultural aspects of bonsai?

This is one of my favorite ideas that became a thread.

https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/top-and-bottom-trees-stack-ranking.20277/

There's a limit. Everyone's is different, but the worst thing you can do is not identify yours and waste time on dumb shit.

I got rid of a bunch of stuff I was more or less just wasting water on last year...and I felt great!

It allows you time to focus focus.

I think we all should have a goal to keep stuff as clean as Mach5!
I have to get down to about 2 trees before I could stay that pristine.

But seriously, that is a good bar to set, Damn near impossible to reach! But a good goal!

Sorce
 

Leo in N E Illinois

The Professor
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@herzausstahl - man, you have a lot of trees to work with. How do you find the time?

about ground growing - personally I am not a fan of ground growing. But then again, I'm more than 75 pounds over weight and over 60 years old. Getting down on my belly and pruning trees in the ground growing bed is not an option for me. LOL - suggestion, trees in pond baskets, grow boxes, etc. Just plunge the pot and all into the grow bed. Lift them every year or two to work on. This will keep roots pruned to the edges of the container.

A lot of the material you mentioned as being junk, I did not think was junk, just young. Developing pre-bonsai from nursery material is an art unto itself. Most of your young stuff just needs a pruning to direct future growth. Almost all young material needs to be looked at once or twice a year, and pruned, or a main branch wired, or something. If nursery stock is stuck in a grow bed, without yearly attention to its future as bonsai, it will simply become landscape material. You do need to look at it and selectively cut back when or where appropriate. I have grown out some young nursery stock, left it alone several years and suddenly realized I had missed the window of opportunity to create ''good'' bonsai. One case, was a Japanese white pine I wanted to become shohin. Left it alone to thicken the trunk. Looked at it a couple years later, and realized because I had not pruned, I had no needles with viable buds close enough to the trunk to create a shohin. Had to go for a larger size. If I had kept a couple strategic branches pruned short, to become the tree, I would have been able to remove the bulk of the top to get my shohin. It is the attention paid in the growing out phase that separates landscape nursery stock from stock raised as pre-bonsai. Make sure you take the time to assess and prune all the stuff in your ground growing bed every year, or they will get away from you and revert to landscape stock.

Thuja does not back bud on old wood, once bark develops, that area will never reliably back bud. All your young Thuja, you need to identify some branching to keep short, so you have green close to the trunk, while others can be left to grow out and do the trunk thickening. Similar with the Hinoki other false cypress (Chamaecyparis). Junipers back bud some on older wood, but not real reliably, they too would benefit to some degree with this line of care.

But I like the wide variety you have. I'll look for your posting of them in their appropriate species sub-forums.
Nice spacious yard, lots of room to play.
 

my nellie

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With some hard work you are going to enjoy a nice yard and bonsai activities!
I see you are using pond baskets a lot. Is your climate that humid, may I ask?
 

Cattwooduk

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I envy how much space you guys over the pond have around your houses, in the UK it's really pot luck finding somewhere with a decent sized garden. We knew ours was too small when we got the house but prices were starting to rocket so jumped in while we could. Hoping to find somewhere with 5x the space we got now when we move (hopefully 2-3 years time). I REALLY need to find some dedicated storage/growing space!
 

Underdog

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So here's what happens when bonsai is mainly a secondary focus occasionally tossed in the forefront. I plan to make a main focus going forward (maybe I'll finally relax next to a pond but doubt it...).
Great yard and space. I'm in the middle of upgrading my little pond to a bigger one. Looking forward to tree stands and shelves surrounding it. You you have a great start!
 

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herzausstahl

Chumono
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With some hard work you are going to enjoy a nice yard and bonsai activities!
I see you are using pond baskets a lot. Is your climate that humid, may I ask?

It can a bit in the summer but not horribly, that was more reading about them aiding in growth I read earlier while still learning. Still going back through a bunch of threads on here I've seen mixed reviews on them, some swear by them, others say they don't notice much of a difference. For the point of a nice sized pot that isn't as tall as a regular nursery pot the price of them is nice, can usually get for $2 to $2.50 each.
 

herzausstahl

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Great yard and space. I'm in the middle of upgrading my little pond to a bigger one. Looking forward to tree stands and shelves surrounding it. You you have a great start!

Is that all one piece for the liner? Epdm, correct? Don't trim anymore excess on it either! Will come in handy if any of it is lower than the rest and you need to mound up the edges to get the water level. If you do that, mound the edges to get the water level, then hide it with landscaping. If you need a pond forum that is essentially a Bnut equivalent, check out this one, https://www.gardenpondforum.com/, my handle is the same there as here.
 

herzausstahl

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@herzausstahl - man, you have a lot of trees to work with. How do you find the time?

about ground growing - personally I am not a fan of ground growing. But then again, I'm more than 75 pounds over weight and over 60 years old. Getting down on my belly and pruning trees in the ground growing bed is not an option for me. LOL - suggestion, trees in pond baskets, grow boxes, etc. Just plunge the pot and all into the grow bed. Lift them every year or two to work on. This will keep roots pruned to the edges of the container.

A lot of the material you mentioned as being junk, I did not think was junk, just young. Developing pre-bonsai from nursery material is an art unto itself. Most of your young stuff just needs a pruning to direct future growth. Almost all young material needs to be looked at once or twice a year, and pruned, or a main branch wired, or something. If nursery stock is stuck in a grow bed, without yearly attention to its future as bonsai, it will simply become landscape material. You do need to look at it and selectively cut back when or where appropriate. I have grown out some young nursery stock, left it alone several years and suddenly realized I had missed the window of opportunity to create ''good'' bonsai. One case, was a Japanese white pine I wanted to become shohin. Left it alone to thicken the trunk. Looked at it a couple years later, and realized because I had not pruned, I had no needles with viable buds close enough to the trunk to create a shohin. Had to go for a larger size. If I had kept a couple strategic branches pruned short, to become the tree, I would have been able to remove the bulk of the top to get my shohin. It is the attention paid in the growing out phase that separates landscape nursery stock from stock raised as pre-bonsai. Make sure you take the time to assess and prune all the stuff in your ground growing bed every year, or they will get away from you and revert to landscape stock.

Thuja does not back bud on old wood, once bark develops, that area will never reliably back bud. All your young Thuja, you need to identify some branching to keep short, so you have green close to the trunk, while others can be left to grow out and do the trunk thickening. Similar with the Hinoki other false cypress (Chamaecyparis). Junipers back bud some on older wood, but not real reliably, they too would benefit to some degree with this line of care.

But I like the wide variety you have. I'll look for your posting of them in their appropriate species sub-forums.
Nice spacious yard, lots of room to play.


Thanks for all the great advice Leo! LOL partially the junk label was that it lacked interesting character or that the variety might be poor for bonsai or more difficult for someone not yet well versed in the ways. I like your grow bed idea. I wanted grow beds to control the growing media to get better results than my native clay soil and to raise the trees up off the ground. Why I think I might use my garden to ground grow. If I keep it in line, can serve a dual purpose as being part of the landscape while in training, or if I neglect it too much I don't have to move it! But my garden designs are more a conversation for my garden pond forum, or check out my pond thread here in the tea house forum. I was wondering about the the thuja and back budding, I'll have to post pics of some mature ones around here that have nebari to die for. Aren't there different varieties of Juniper that back bud better than others? I've gone back and forth on if I should post the pics in their respective threads or just keep posting them here. I need to redo my display benches (old ones made of scrap wood and too small) to simple cinder block and boards. Luckily I think in my grow bed wild overgrown neglected stock the larchs still have a lot of low branches and the dawn redwoods should back bud like crazy if I'm not mistaken.

Mostly what I need to do is reorganize my storage area next to the garage (at some point I have to put a shed there to store lawnmower etc over winter). Then I need to reorganize my grow beds and mostly decide what needs to be dug out and transplanted/potted in my current ground growing area. Luckily in my grow beds the only things that need to be dug up would possibly be a couple mugos if they will thicken/grow better in pond baskets (have to reread Vance's notes on them). Otherwise its stuff left to grow or in need of a trunk chop. I also was able to meet up with Rita this past Wed after she was done working and I was able to sneak away after the dinner rush. Got about 2 1/2 bags dry stall from her. Would've got more but the rest of her remaining 3 pallets require a bit of work to reach, so I told her let me know when she got to them and I'd take more. Rita was very sweet and said the same about you when I explained how I knew you.

As for acquiring new trees this spring/summer I plan to look for shimpaku's at the one garden center I know carries them, possibly go crawling at 1-2 that might keep their stock year round and therefor have something interesting. Might try to research mom and pop nurseries within an hour drive for the same reason. But besides the shimpaku's I'll be checking out mugos and keeping my eyes open for anything interesting (one year Walmart had a bunch of Scot's pine in 1 gallon pots) or a crazy sale of larger material for me to practice cutting down with.
 

herzausstahl

Chumono
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Here are my American Larch's, purchased from here: http://hickorygrovenursery.com/ a few years back as 18-24" whips/seedlings

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yes notice the rabbit droppings, the bastard has been ignoring my live trap with lettuce, carrots, broccoli, bird seed all winter. even the dog doesn't deter it, my wife says its nice and fat so hopefully it hasn't filled up too much on my trees! I also need to get plant stake labels so i can name every tree for reference purposes

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Looks like a few of these I might have missed the perfect taper point and will have to work at recreating it with chops/growing out.
 
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