Hello from Panama

Heidilly Ho Bonsai Neighbours

Im a Brit living in Panama

I dabbled with Bonsai a while back, killed a few supermarket Elms.

I find myself living in a place where if I drop a seed on the floor it will grow, and then we have some space to do indoor/outdoor Bonsai and even outside Bonsai.

Recently we had a tiny problem snake so the guy who looks after our garden chopped our palm trees back.

Just recently some shoots started growing from the base of The tress and I thought about using them as a start for Bonsai.

Do you think these type of things are viable?

I've attached photos.

Awww Shit!

Welcome to Crazy!

http://www.bonsainut.com/threads/panama-red-pot-challenge-unstyled-entries.25806/

Sorce

guycross said:

Heidilly Ho Bonsai Neighbours

Im a Brit living in Panama

I dabbled with Bonsai a while back, killed a few supermarket Elms.

I find myself living in a place where if I drop a seed on the floor it will grow, and then we have some space to do indoor/outdoor Bonsai and even outside Bonsai.

Recently we had a tiny problem snake so the guy who looks after our garden chopped our palm trees back.

Just recently some shoots started growing from the base of The tress and I thought about using them as a start for Bonsai.

Do you think these type of things are viable?

I've attached photos.

View attachment 130590 View attachment 130591

Click to expand...

Ideal...not really in the traditional sense.....however there are plenty of tropicals that can make really good bonsai....keep posting pics and we will let you know

Welcome! Get some Bougainvillea they should really do great and like has been said any number of tropicals.

My problem is shopping. There isn't really a place to buy pre-potted tress near me.

And I have all these palm shoots just beyond my doorstep.

I looked at "tropical" and it's a bit Latin for me (pun intentional).

I may try and transfer one of these shoots to a pot, or try a fruit tree of some sort.

Guy,

Greetings from your neighbour [ Trinidad / W.I. ] ------ If I am correct those are the same types of palms we have
in the back yard. I suggest -- seeds and I suggest you find a club or call the local University and ask about
where they have all the tree and shrub information.

By the way all of this is only relevant if your are permanently living in Panama. Venezuela also has very
active bonsai clubs. I hope you speekah dah language.
Welcome to the NUT!!
Good Day
Anthony

Welcome - Look around and see if you can find a nut trying to grow a tree in a pot. They'll have information that will be of help as to what is available and what will grow there. Glad to have you on board!

Hey we really are neighbors, I live in Costa Rica, right on the border with Panama' near Paso Canoas and about 10 minutes from Cañas Gordas.
I can totally relate to what you are saying as far as how stuff grows here. Btw, I am more or less an American expat. So I bet I can help you, and I am very happy to do so. I'm not allowed to leave because of child support laws. I pay every month but to leave I have to pay 13 months ahead, which right now I can't do. I've been here 8 years and speak Spanish like a local. I've been pretty seriously learning bonsai for almost 2 years, all on the internet. I am too far from San Jose to join the only clubs. I dont know how much you will find for bonsai there, and I'm sure where you are will matter. I mean for bonsai pots and supplies. I have found very little here as far as that goes, but two agriculture stores in San Vito ordered me a few ceramic pots and there are a couple plastic designs that are the "terra cotta" color. The selection is limited but I can get them for you at least, if you want or need to work it out. Also I can find decent bonsai soil now, but it took a while to find a source. But a nursery near the border reopened recently and they have several types of gravel that work and look nicer than the construction gravel I used before. I have no idea how much of that stuff you can find where you are. If you want to meet at the border I will be happy to get you what I can or take you to the places where I get stuff.
As far as bonsai stock goes, you can find some species of strangler figs growing in other trees and generally survive being collected. Ive gotten lucky and found some that are years old and come in a lot of cool shapes. Some can even go right into a bonsai pot or I use cheap plastic colanders to start training them down. You can probably find ficus benjamina in nurseries, tho some of the wild ones are better for bonsai. Generally speaking, any ficus you like will make an ok bonsai and they are tough as nails. Also you can probably get lots of kinds of bougainvillea that come in a lot of different colors, leaf sizes and flower shapes. Some are very cool for bonsai. I must have 20 different types for the yard as a natural fence and some on there way to being bonsai. I have several types of jades that some folks use as bonsai and are easy to care for.
I could go on and on with what I've learned about keeping trees in pots down here. So please pm me or ask here if you have questions or want to meet up. Like I said, I've been here long enough to help you with lots of things. It is my nature to help people when I can. So there you go, now you have an English and Spanish speaking friend that is into bonsai and not 1000's of miles away. I'm sure you are not more than a day away and maybe pretty close. My name is Eric, btw.
Welcome to the bnut and to Central America, a nutty place to live.
Oh, one important piece of advice- do your yamadory hunting during rainy season and it's best to collect or transplant during the full moon and the fallowing five days. I'm not joking, I learned it from the locals and it does matter.
Those look like manilla palms, aka arreca palms to me and they are common from here to Florida. There are cooler palms for bonsai down here but you may as well start with what you have..

Hi, guycross. I live in Chicago, but my wife was born and raised in Panama City, Panama. Most of her family still live there, and I was actually visiting there last week. Trees grow like weeds down there!

I would eco the thoughts about. Ficus and Bougainvillea would be my first thoughts.

For inspiration, check out Wigert's Bonsai's website, facebook etc. The have a huge, impressive, world-class operation based in Fort Myers, Florida, (which I know is somewhat different than PTY). I would think those trees would grow well in Panama.

Link: http://wigertsbonsai.com/

Good luck!

Best,
Adam

Bougainvillea would be my first thought. You can propagate right from cuttings...found somewhere on someone's tree nearby. In your climate it will grow well.

Look for local native species. You won't find a lot written. Do spend some time reading either on the net or in books about the local flora. Latin names are useful. I can think of 4 species commonly called " rain tree" from 3 different genera. Learning the local common name helps, you can then enlist the locals in finding what species you are looking for.

In general, just because a tree species is not listed on a bonsai website doesn't mean it won't work for bonsai. BUT, not all trees will make good bonsai.

In general trees with simple leaves work better than species with compound leaves. Look for species with leaves less than 10 cm, or 4 inches long. (exceptions for a few genera, Ficus & a few others are capable of dramatic leaf size reduction). Smaller leaf plants will be easier to get sense of scale right.

Look for trees with short internodes. Avacado are bad because the leaves are large and internodes are long.

There are many species in the guava family, often used as dooryard garden fruit trees. Eugenia, Jaboticaba, cattley guava, and other guavas all can make decent bonsai. The guava relatives with small fruit, like brush cherry, Eugenia, tend to have smaller leaves.
Bougainvillea and ficus both are good.

There are many species that most will have never heard of that can work well and should be free to collect, or can be grown from seed picked up at the local fruit and produce stand.

Have fun, experiment.

Collect trunks, you see an interesting trunk, say about the diameter of a beer can, look at the rest of the tree, maybe it can be used. Bark, look for interesting bark.

Flowers, fruit, nuts and or or seed pods all can be a focal point for a bonsai.

Any tree you collect should have one or more interesting points, otherwise pass it by.

Welcome to Bonsai Nut!

Palms are pretty impossible to use for bonsai, because there is no way to effectively keep them small and make them look like large trees in miniature. Palms are actually very old tree forms and not very sophisticated from an evolutionary perspective. They only have a single bud - and that bud is it. No back-budding, and if you damage/injure the bud the whole tree will die. No branches, so nothing really to "style", just a single columnar growth habit. So I'd skip the palms.

However the good news is that there are a TON of tropicals that will yield great results very quickly, and which will (in my personal opinion) look better than a dwarfed palm tree. I agree that you should start your search with natives, if possible. Check out what they sell in the nurseries, and what you see that is thriving in landscape in your area.

So on a whim I bought a little bit of a monstrosity in a pot from the supermarket... there are actually lots of little trees in pots in the same store that would make for good bonsai... but I wanted to get back into the game... new thread for ideas.

guycross said:

So on a whim I bought a little bit of a monstrosity in a pot from the supermarket... there are actually lots of little trees in pots in the same store that would make for good bonsai... but I wanted to get back into the game... new thread for ideas.

Click to expand...

Photos?