Acres and acres of evergreen bonsai

[jomawa]

So, I'm driving I-5 the other day. "man, look at all those bonsai, no, that's just acres and acres of christmas trees. Just happened to be a bunch of noble firs out in plain sight. Have been on some christmas tree farms where they'll have a bunch of pines, and doug firs, and... (Isn't this an old cowboy song? "I've got bonsai on my mind ---- got bonsai on my mind.") Then my brain really got going. So many of the trees people tend to pass up are the ones with a crimp in their get along and it's a bit oversize to the rest of the trunk, ya know down low on the trunk so it's hard to cram it into the retail base with the thumbscrews, but cramming that same tree into a bonsai pot, it'll fit right in to that, and look good too. And lots of those tree farms have a back hoe handy for eventually jerking out overgrown stumps, because that's the easiest way to get what you don't want in the way, out of the way. For a case of beer, or dinner for a week, or a gold ingot, or a fishing boat, or whatever they might be interested in, the driver of that backhoe could probably be persuaded to set that bucket edge right down behind that tree and "ooops, I, uuuh, bumped that bucket lever toward me. Hey, would you happen to have need of a tree like this, because once they're out of the ground we have no use for them?" On the other hand, maybe you could just chum up to the tree farm owner(s), let them know you're after a bonsai potential, and you'll pay four times the christmas tree worth, but he's gotta scoop it out with the backhoe. "I've got bonsai on my mind......"

 

[M. Frary]

A lot of times Christmas tree farms leave cut the tree with the first whorl being left on purpose. After a couple of years the limbs stand up to become trees. They cut the worst ones out and leave one to grow as another Christmas tree.

 

[GrimLore]

I bought a 3 -4 foot potted blue spruce from Agway a couple of days after Christmas. It is trimmed like a Christmas tree but live and healthy. At 75 percent off it was 8.75USD. The Wife already picked a spot in her garden... *sigh*. After that I figured no point in getting another for me to butcher

Grimmy

 

[rockm]

I actually bought a 4 1/2 foot Scots pine dug from a Christmas tree farm one year at the National Arb show and sale a decade ago. I've also worked at a Christmas tree farm cutting them down for the holidays.

Despite the small size and constant pruning potential Christmas trees get in the field begin grown out, they really aren't all that great as bonsai material. The problem is, pruning for Christmas trees is all about silhouette, not interior branching. Christmas trees are "sheared" to get a conical shape while they're being grown out in the field. As a result, interior branching tends to be long straight and bare all but for the last two inches. The wheel-spoke configuration of branch tiers doesn't help things much either--breaking that up that can lead to a stiff looking, weird looking stair-step branch arrangement on a bonsai.

The biggest challenge, however, is chasing back budding or introducing any character or movement into branches, short of grafting on all new foliage. Grafting isn't really worthwhile either, since the trunks are mostly run-of-the-mill in overall character.

Of course, there are probably better-ish bonsai candidates growing in those fields, but you'd have to get out an look in detail at a lot of trees to find one that's not so vanilla.

 

[PaulH]

This Deodar Cedar began as my Christmas tree.

 

[Adair M]

Jomawa, if it were really as easy as digging a Chtistmas Tree, everyone could do bonsai!

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.

Christmas Trees are more topiary than bonsai. As mentioned by another poster, they're pruned to have a nice Sihlouette. Little attention (none, actually) is given to keeping interior growth alive, or developing a trunk without reverse taper, minimization if whorles of branches, etc.

Not to say there's not the occasional gem waiting to be discovered. Vance found one. But, it's hardly "acres and acres of bonsai".