another live oak thread--holy moly

Bonsai Nut

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Aside from not being able to afford a pot for it down the road, any thoughts on it's suitability for bonsai?

Bonsai is the art of representing nature on a smaller scale. If you just take an adult tree and shove it in a pot, it does not (to me) become a bonsai. However you can see how they are trimming and styling it and how it will look quite striking once they are done. It will be a tree that they could have at the entry to their nursery and many people will take photos :) Kinda like having a giant Paul Bunyan statue out in front of your pancake restaurant :)

I think when finished, this tree may suffer from the sin of "being styled to look like a bonsai" instead of "being styled to look like a tree in nature on a miniature scale". However that is personal aesthetics...
 

rockm

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Bonsai is the art of representing nature on a smaller scale. If you just take an adult tree and shove it in a pot, it does not (to me) become a bonsai. However you can see how they are trimming and styling it and how it will look quite striking once they are done. It will be a tree that they could have at the entry to their nursery and many people will take photos :) Kinda like having a giant Paul Bunyan statue out in front of your pancake restaurant :)

I think when finished, this tree may suffer from the sin of "being styled to look like a bonsai" instead of "being styled to look like a tree in nature on a miniature scale". However that is personal aesthetics...
I think you are onto what this tree was collected for. I have a feeling, though, it will not look "like a bonsai" when it's completed. If you know southern live oaks, it could be the base of a spreading classical southern live oak--if that's the direction they're going, it will be a very large tree...
 

Bonsai Nut

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I think you are onto what this tree was collected for. I have a feeling, though, it will not look "like a bonsai" when it's completed. If you know southern live oaks, it could be the base of a spreading classical southern live oak--if that's the direction they're going, it will be a very large tree...

Time will tell. I was responding to that pointy apex :) If they were going to style it like an old spreading live oak, they'd have a dome shape. But again - it isn't my tree and it is far from done. When they are done perhaps it will become my favorite :) Don't want to badmouth a big tree that is still in early development :)
 

LanceMac10

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.....it's not like Eric is some random lightweight enthusiast....and the tree is far from "done"...


....plenty of sticks-in pots around here, what's the diff?
 
D

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@rockm @Bonsai Nut maybe it's my inexperience, and I wish they would go the route you each of you is suggesting, but wouldn't this ordinarily be accomplished with a larger pot? the pot seems absurdly small if they were planning on gaining any significant growth for developing a trunk line(s) no? i have no experience with this type of thing just asking
 

rockm

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@rockm @Bonsai Nut maybe it's my inexperience, and I wish they would go the route you each of you is suggesting, but wouldn't this ordinarily be accomplished with a larger pot? the pot seems absurdly small if they were planning on gaining any significant growth for developing a trunk line(s) no? i have no experience with this type of thing just asking
I'd guess that is the largest pot they had around. I wouldn't put something like that in its final container for a few years. And big Pots are $$$$. That is going to have to have a bathtub sized final pot. My experience with live oak is that they are hardy growers in containers. Not going to get vast amounts of thickening in smaller pot, but putting that back in the ground only to have to RE-collect it in ten years would make me try to come up with alternatives.

I'd also guess that that trunk if going to get a bit of hard carving to reduce one side and break up the vast expanses of bark...

All of what I'm saying is speculative. I have no idea WTF they're going to do with it, or if it's still alive, so there's that
;)
 

thumblessprimate1

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Some huge bonsai or I should say penjing from China are so well done. In photographs they appear to be large bonsai I'd commonly see in Japan, but with people for scale then you see how huge they really are!
 
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