Bald cypress nursery stock

Lobaeux

Shohin
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Whats important to you guys when selecting a Bald Cypress from a nursery? I'm looking now and it's a fairly hefty investment, just looking for some thoughts.
 

Dav4

Drop Branch Murphy
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Whats important to you guys when selecting a Bald Cypress from a nursery? I'm looking now and it's a fairly hefty investment, just looking for some thoughts.
Imo, and assuming you're wanting to create either a flat top or informal upright, good basal flare is by far and away the most important element with a decent tapering trunk second.
 

GrimLore

Bonsai Nut alumnus... we miss you
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Whats important to you guys when selecting a Bald Cypress from a nursery? I'm looking now and it's a fairly hefty investment, just looking for some thoughts.

Skip the nursery and set something up with @johng - you will get a far better tree and the trip is not a bad one for you.

Grimmy
 

GGB

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Since they grow fast and you can cut them back hard, I'd just focus on the first few inches of the base of the tree like Dav4 said. And just my 2 cents (I don't know how old you are) but these trees grow so fast I think it may be worth it to grow out a smaller one to save some money. Up here in PA they grow like weeds, I imagine that in Florida they'd grow like ... super weeds
 

Cadillactaste

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I second the motion of passing on nursery...I have a Bald Cypress that was bought on Bonsai Auctions off of Facebook. Scott Lee has I think an amazing Bald Cypress grafted knee up now if not mistaken. Up...it's there ending tonight.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/bonsai.sales/search/?query=Bald cypress

image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg
 
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choppychoppy

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Whats important to you guys when selecting a Bald Cypress from a nursery? I'm looking now and it's a fairly hefty investment, just looking for some thoughts.

What is a hefty investment - large landscape nurseries will sell 30g bald cypress for around $100-$125 - thats about a 15ft tree that an be cut down pretty well. If you are paying a lot more than that back away slowly. Even a piece of 'pre' material from a Bonsai nursery in Fl should only be max $200 or so. Shop around man you can find em pretty cheap or better yet if you know of someone with some property they are all over the place for digging.
 

c54fun

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Whats important to you guys when selecting a Bald Cypress from a nursery? I'm looking now and it's a fairly hefty investment, just looking for some thoughts.
Good or bad this gives you something to compare to when looking around. I bought this for $115 this year for a project.
s-l1600 (41).jpg
 

Zach Smith

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The challenge when seeking BC stock lies in a few areas: one, you want a buttressed trunk which means the specimen needs to have a trunk diameter of 4" or greater 4-6" above the soil surface. They sometimes produce buttressing at a 3" diameter, but very infrequently. Two, you want some trunk movement. It's important to remember that the commercial nursery industry produces landscape trees with arrow-straight trunks as these are the desirable ones for their market. There's certainly nothing wrong with a dead-straight trunk on a BC, but I can tell you from personal experience that that subtle to not-so-subtle trunk movement is best for bonsai purposes. And finally, you want the trunk to taper to one-half its basal trunk diameter (measured at that point about 4-6" above the soil) by the time it reaches your chop point of 24-30". If you don't have taper, then you've got to make it but no matter what you do it's hard to make it look right.

For what it's worth.

Zach
 

Lobaeux

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Thanks guys for all the replies. I'm looking at a nursery purchase that comes with a class with Guy Guidry, something I'm very excited about.
A couple of the ones I've seen in the nursery have some respectable fluting and one has a bit of movement in the trunk.
 

Lobaeux

Shohin
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Good deal. Sounds like you have something Guy can help you guide in the right direction.

Thanks! Super excited about this. While I'm more inclined to go with a flat top style, some of the more formal and informal BC uprights I have seen are mighty impressive. I'll let the tree dictate the style and of course Guy will help guide me to understand what the tree wants to become.
 
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