Haha one of my favorite comparisons when folks talk about bad shrubs for bonsai material but you ain't Graham Potter. I can pretty much guarantee this specific tree will never look remotely good as a bonsai.
I'm genuinely unsure whether the tone of this is more intended as a dig at working tough material in-general or a dig at my skills in-particular, if the former then "agree to disagree" there's many ways of approaching the "dwarfed tree game" and maybe our tastes couldn't be more opposite, in fact I'd love to see a gallery or any media you may have available online? My album is a mess, though I'm in the middle of organizing "my launch" of a facebook & youtube of some of my stuff. If the latter, and you're just taking a dig at my skills in-particular, it's pointless for me to argue with you - I don't even have 3yrs in the hobby, though I've got >100hrs grinding-time for sure and can basically sculpt at this point (even large rocks for custom containers, I've got a recent thread in Pots or Containers of one) but point being that G.Potter didn't start out as talented as he currently is (and, yes, he can make something aesthetically appealing to me and seemingly to many others,
fact, and this is frequently with material you'd absolutely have said precisely the same thing about had I posted it here)
choppychoppy said:
Again,
subjective. My first collection was a terrible piece of bougie stock, well over a foot wide (above the nebari), it's since been separated into multiple specimen and I continue to enjoy it, the quality of my favorite piece continues to improve etc. One of my favorite trees, my "cerberus bougie", was a section torn-off a larger stand of bougies, it's half deadwood and I'm expecting you'd turn your nose up at it,
but I love it so that's really all that matters in the end
I hope my tone didn't come across confrontational as I'm not intending to be, I dislike your negative tone because no matter the reason I can think of for it, it's a reason I consider negative, but you've clearly thought this out and, to you, this is legitimately "wasted time" and, w/ that as a premise, then yeah for sure opportunity cost is a(the) primary consideration in what to give time to, hell I'm nearing 150 trees (just added 3 benches lol, actually screwing-in the tops right now, backyard is 100% bench-ringed and more than 50% is double-tiered
) so it's always choosing "do I wire this guy or re-pot him?" and I fully understand that with just 50 trees I'd have "a better average" but I consider myself new to this and am still feeling-out "my tastes", hell the currently-popular asian styling of Umes is of incredible appeal to me, and "indian bonsai" (I hate national grouping but unsure how else to convey it...let's just say "stuff like Bonsai Namaste") does as well, I grow in semi-tropical FL and own very few conifers (almost none if my BC's can't count), I also collect or propagate 100% of my material (I could count the insignificant, poor-quality exceptions on my fingers) and
I like doing it that way ie even if something were 95% as good, but I collected it myself,
it's of higher value to me and I'm not doing this commercially I'm doing it for myself!
Would be very interested in seeing some of your work (or your trees, I get a feeling you have a smaller, high-quality collection, also guessing few were purchased as raw stock - just guesses obviously), it's very interesting to see the ways different people approach things but I very much like the fact that I drove by this ugly beast (and, yeah, this will always be a shitty specimen - it will become a heavy-carving project eventually, for sure, and never be in my top 1/3 trees), I like that I got a batch of schefflera shrubs a few weeks ago (going to chop them all and make a group-planting), the very transformation is really enjoyable to me and working with things I acquire my way is absolutely my preference (although to be clear I do hope to find someone to do some trades with, just so I can get some mature species I don't have, but the idea of that being a primary means of acquisition, or nursery shopping, don't remotely have any appeal to me. This ugly stump will be in a corner taking up ~4sq ft, it may get grinded into an abstract specimen or it may be grown-out as a "planted niwaki" whatever that would be called, it's certainly not something that's unworthy of the pittance of overhead it adds to my garden or the couple hours, total, it took me to get it into place in my garden - IMO of course!)
Will have to take a recent picture of my most 'abstract' bonsai, am very curious if you'd like it or if you'd be disgusted (and again am curious to see what you're into / have!), tastes vary so widely I guess I like all categories lol I have small stuff root over rock I have batches of pine-seedlings I could go on and on my garden has everything lol
