A bonsai you designed on your own

[Dav4]

JBP started from seed

 

[Maros]

Funny, I walk past some red twig DW almost every day and think how beautiful the stems are in winter. Guess I will take my pruners and a bag on my next walk.

I wonder if ours (C. sericea) will show nice leaf size reduction. There are so many colorful stemmed cultivars available

Both coruns species grown in my garden (mas and sanquinea) are reducing leaves quite significantly. Pictures are at least a month old, the color change was even stronger later.

 

[JRidge]

This piece, https://crataegus.com/2013/01/03/the-difference-between-yamadori-and-pot-grown-part-iii/
by one of the greats, might fit into this thread nicely for discussion.
I for one think that despite being able to create masterpieces from field, pot, or a wild mountain tree, there are nuances that are unique to each method of creation. A seed or cutting created tree with only one master will never have the wild intricacies of a gnarled mountain juniper, while a wild tree will never have the perfection of a clip and grow tree cultivated in a pot its whole life.

 

[leatherback]

person

is that a casuarina I spot there?

I managed to find some casuarina seed when I was last in Oz, and germinated them over winter. I now have 2 small trees. LOVE this species, yet hard to find much info on them. They are strictly non frost hardi right?
Do cuttings root? When I was a member of an Melbournee bonsai club, I have seen that they can be pruned back to a stump and thus are very different from actual pines.

 

[Shibui]

is that a casuarina I spot there?

Yes (but names have changed. Most now in genus Allocasuarina) That one grown from seed. Probably Allocasuarina littoralis as seed was collected NSW south coast.
Most Casuarina and Allocas should be hardy to light frost. We get temps down to -3C most winters and occasionally to -5C and no problem to that tree on my bench. Not sure how much colder they will tolerate.

Most are quite hardy to pruning and can be chopped hard, even back to bare wood and still produce new shoots. Some species sucker readily and can form dense thickets of clonal stems which gives an indication of hardiness to pruning.
Most cope with root pruning and transplant without problem. We repot in WARMER weather - usually late Spring through to mid Summer. Traditional early Spring repot is likely to result in dead tree except in frost free climate when repot can be all year round.

Can be grown from cuttings but can be hit and miss. I can grow Allocasuarina glauca 'cousin it' easily from cuttings but not a great success rate with A. torulosa or A. humilus so far but that may just be my technique. Have not tried other species as cuttings.

I assume you realise leaves are reduced to minute scales at stem junctions. What appear to be 'needles' in this genus are actually modified stems.

What species are the 2 you managed to grow?

 

[Cadillactaste]

The one that's been with me the longest... my Ryusen maple. Decimated winter 2013-14. Chopped and collected spring 2014. The line shows where the chop took place.

 

[Cadillactaste]

Polar opposite ... my true "Stick in a pot" Paul's Scarlett Hawthorn. A cutting on it's own roots. A cultivar harder to find within Bonsai across the pond here in the USA. I know more...in the UK with them. Truth be told.

I believe there is a thread on this one somewhere... possibly.

Arrived on my bench in 2019 from Brent at Evergreen Gardenworks.

 

[Tycoss]

Most of mine are collected from the wild and all in development, but here's a larch from a seedling
And here's mame cotoneasters from seed:

 

[PaulH]

Cork oak I started from an acorn in the mid 1980s.


Kishu shimpaku root over rock from a cutting.




Ume from a cutting,



Catlin elms from cuttings

 

[PaulH]

Trident maple root over rock grown from seed.

 

[leatherback]

grown from seed.

 

[leatherback]

Grown from seed. Died during a longer period of travelling a few years ago

 

[leatherback]

Been developing this for a bit from an airlayer

 

[Ryceman3]

Melaleuca I just gave a trim today. It was created from seed sown in December 2019… so almost 6 years since it was planted. It’s a great way to grow a lot of Australian native as bonsai, particularly because there are a lot of laws/restrictions that relate to collection here that hinders the opportunity for yamadori. Regardless, even if more opportunities to collect were around, there is a lot of satisfaction to be gained from creating something from literally a speck of “dust”, and that only comes with starting at the beginning. I’d be doing it regardless!

 

[Tycoss]

Something of a side note to this conversation, I had collected/designed all my trees for years, as there was no one else with interest or skill in bonsai near me. I live in rural Alberta where self reliance is pretty much the cardinal virtue for many, but I've come to really value the collaborative potential of bonsai. Now I often work on trees with fellow member @HENDO and my two oldest kids. Now most of my better trees bear the marks of their work as well, which I'm more than happy about.