Conifer/evergreens

[Bonsaihead]

Gonna have to wait until tomorrow. It's incredibly low and close to the rootball. Wanna do some research and find out how much hacking it can handle. It's gonna need it before I we can see anything, roots and branches.

 

[Lazylightningny]

Gonna have to wait until tomorrow. It's incredibly low and close to the rootball. Wanna do some research and find out how much hacking it can handle. It's gonna need it before I we can see anything, roots and branches.

Be careful with the hacking. My yard was a boneyard the first couple of years due to my overzealiousness. Start slow and keep it alive. If you're patient, you will take years to develop this plant. Now that you have it, turn your research to its care. Good luck!

 

[Victorim]

I like to see what I'm getting into. You can explore the base, trunk and branches with enough poking and peeking. This is key for garden center / nursary hunting, and finding bones your happy with to build on. If I've been looking at junipers in a nursary my hands are filthy, covered in cuts and nails black. Pick your trunks

 

[Bonsaihead]

Be careful with the hacking. My yard was a boneyard the first couple of years due to my overzealiousness. Start slow and keep it alive. If you're patient, you will take years to develop this plant. Now that you have it, turn your research to its care. Good luck!

heard! thanks for the good words of wisdom!

 

[Bonsaihead]

I like to see what I'm getting into. You can explore the base, trunk and branches with enough poking and peeking. This is key for garden center / nursary hunting, and finding bones your happy with to build on. If I've been looking at junipers in a nursary my hands are filthy, covered in cuts and nails black. Pick your trunks

Duly noted! thanks for the advice and will. Will do next time lol

 

[Bonsai Nut]

I was about to add...

If you have to ask, stay away from pines Actually stay away from anything with needles and stick with junipers till you can keep junipers alive... which isn't always as easy as it appears.

 

[BillsBayou]

I would go for JBP and bald cypress. ...

I have such a difficult time recommending bald cypress as a nursery purchase. You have got to look at the roots and know what you're getting. Nurseries up-pot trees by burying the previous root ball. As the roots grow to fill the pot, they of course, grow upwards. Bald cypress roots will harden off and be difficult/impossible to move. Further, if you bury a bald cypress trunk, it will grow roots on the face of the buried trunk. Trying to develop a flared base and radial roots is made all the more difficult by all of this.

Then again, I dig bald cypress and have friends who propagate seedlings. So a nursery purchase is a waste of money.

 

[Bonsaihead]

I was about to add...

If you have to ask, stay away from pines Actually stay away from anything with needles and stick with junipers till you can keep junipers alive... which isn't always as easy as it appears.

Does that statement go for bald cypress as well? It's one of the trees I'm most interested in getting

 

[twisted trees]

I have looked at pics like, a gazillion lol after a while it all starts to just bend together. I do like deciduous and tropicals I actually already have 4 tropicals but only one deciduous. I am currently kicking the tires on buying two more. Another Chinese elm and a loropetulum prebonsai. Thing is that when it comes to those I already have a decent idea of what and what not to buy. With the evergreens it's a harder for me to know cuz there's so many different varietys of species with the slightest variations that can make one good marital and another very similar not. So instead of spending days trying to learn which are good and which aren't I figured I would just ask the pros for they're opinion that way I could just wip out my phone and look at a message with a list of what's good to get.

Shop at A bonsai nursery. Landscape stock sucks mostly. Look at the throw away pile for you best bet at a commercial landscape nursery.

 

[twisted trees]

So I picked up a procumbens. Very healthy. Not really the upright shape I wanted but it'll workView attachment 167857 View attachment 167858

Stake it upright. It's done all the time.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Does that statement go for bald cypress as well? It's one of the trees I'm most interested in getting

I'm not trying to convince you not to experiment. But if you try difficult material before you master the basics you may find yourself getting depressed because you kill a lot of trees and don't have a lot of success. Particularly - don't spend a lot of money on something unless you know you can keep it alive. There is no faster way to get depressed than to kill an expensive tree that, in retrospect, you know you had no experience with.

 

[Bonsaihead]

I'm not trying to convince you not to experiment. But if you try difficult material before you master the basics you may find yourself getting depressed because you kill a lot of trees and don't have a lot of success. Particularly - don't spend a lot of money on something unless you know you can keep it alive. There is no faster way to get depressed than to kill an expensive tree that, in retrospect, you know you had no experience with.

Understood. Are you saying that in terms of bonsai training or just in terms of keeping alive? I was thinking about buying a couple small ones from a grower to just let grow for a few years

 

[Bonsaihead]

I'm not trying to convince you not to experiment. But if you try difficult material before you master the basics you may find yourself getting depressed because you kill a lot of trees and don't have a lot of success. Particularly - don't spend a lot of money on something unless you know you can keep it alive. There is no faster way to get depressed than to kill an expensive tree that, in retrospect, you know you had no experience with.

But if you are saying to stay clear of even that I'll take your advice. Definitely don't wanna be killing a bunch of stuff lol

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Understood. Are you saying that in terms of bonsai training or just in terms of keeping alive? I was thinking about buying a couple small ones from a grower to just let grow for a few years

Keeping alive Start out by assuming that anything you buy is going to be dead in a year. Then you won't overbuy material... and you'll be pleasantly surprised if it is still alive 5 years down the road

 

[Bonsaihead]

Haha point taken. Wait... You mean all my plants are gonna die??? Noooooo!!!! I gonna go buy a bunch more then! Jkjk

 

[gallina1594]

Shop at A bonsai nursery. Landscape stock sucks mostly. Look at the throw away pile for you best bet at a commercial landscape nursery.

Only place I shop!

 

[twisted trees]

This is Don Quixote speaking. Stop practicing on crap. Maybe you find potential to hack up and kill because of lack of experience in heavy pruning of trunks and roots. Survivability is increased by obtaining younger pretrained for bonsai material. And then go slowly. Don't trim more than a third of the green off of evergreens. Do a little the first year. It gives you a chance to learn for a year. Then repeat. In 5 years you will have an acceptable tree.

Otherwise the landscape tree will have one or two fatal flaws for its design. In 5 years, if your lucky, you may wind up with a healthy piece of crap.

 

[sorce]

Walk one of the billion old people across the street and chat them up about their landscaping...

Find out what is trending...
And buy them ....

Then trade those for old yard shrubs.

Win Win

Sorce

 

[Melospiza]

Bald-cypresses all the way!

 

[Lazylightningny]

There is someone on ebay that sells a lot of bald cypress pre-bonsai.