chinese elm evaluation

[BigBill]

I was thinking of buying this elm and I was wondering what everyone thought of it. Please be honest as I havent bought it yet.
6-8 inches tall. Trunk about 1" thick. Sorry the pic is so big I did a direct link to the website for it.

Use the pic in smoke's response. its much easier to look at so I nuked the attached pic in this post

 

[Smoke]

I resized it so I could see the whole thing on my browser.

 

[Smoke]

With the smaller image I can evaluate the tree better. The largest branch is a very bad pocket branch. Though there are times when a pocket branch can be used to good effect, it is usually much higher on the tree being less significant. Being that it is the first branch I would think that it would probably have to be removed. The branching after that is very sparse and all new branching would have to be regrown.

The trunk is large, but the Chinese style is very evident in the line. The distracting "S" curve looks contrived and will always look that way. The apex is strong, but that allows it to dominate that portion of the view making the tree look disproportionate.

I think there are much better trees to spend your money on, but then again I have no idea how easy it is to find stock in your neck of the woods so this might be all you can find. There is always something to learn on anything purchased and it needn't be a masterpiece tree to learn on. Fun is where you find it and no doubt one could have fun trying different things just to see what happens.

In any event have fun and good luck, Al

 

[Bonsaiforlife]

I would not buy this tree for there are lots of problems (see Smokes reply above) which would take much longer to rectify than buying a tree of better quality.

 

[Bill S]

Hey if it's cheap enough, you could layer off the top, use the pocket branch as a cutting, and restyle, with the first right branch as a new leader. I agree with the others otherwise.

 

[BigBill]

thats funny.... I was actually thinking of layering off the top and the pocket branch. Then making the right branch the new leader... Great minds and all.

And the tree isnt very expensive at all that why I was thinking about getting it to play with.

Bill