Doc's "recovery trees"

[dr.tenebris]

Figured I'm probably going to attempt to up to a hundred trees that the nursery is giving up on and to condense my posting I'll keep my recovery/misc projects in this thread,

Below you'll see a photo of a maple (variety unknown) top portion of the tree was dead, they think frost damage destroyed the vessels so it might not recover but I cut it back to new buds (with a little space for dieback.)
Could be an okay material later... Graft scar is pretty bad so if it doesn't heal that over it may become a raft later on.

I did go out and plant two trees out in a field, I'll snap a photo later of that cherry and redwood (bark damage and a full snap respectively)

Might wires those two up for practice but I want to let them go a little wild out on the field only going and doing a soft prune in the fall.

 

[dr.tenebris]

Thickness is less the soda can might should get a better photo

 

[Nybonsai12]

ooof that soil looking like a mud pie

 

[Tieball]

ooof that soil looking like a mud pie

It certainly does look muddy. Perhaps the mud had something to do with the die back.

 

[Tieball]

ooof that soil looking like a mud pie

Looks like a moist cow pie.

 

[Gabler]

You might want to slide that out of the pot and check the roots. If all the soil falls away, repot it into perlite or pumice.

 

[dr.tenebris]

ooof that soil looking like a mud pie

It certainly does look muddy. Perhaps the mud had something to do with the die back.

Mud was a result of repot, I used the same methods we use at the nursery when repotin.

Photo was taken shortly after watering.

Was digging through the soil when repotin (downsizing it was in too large of a pot) damage was likely frost as the back budding all looked (and looks) fantastic. Just upper half of the tree didn't bud out, nursery is in a super windy area so high winds and random spring freezes (last one of the year should have hit just last night) result in a lot of damage,

 

[Nybonsai12]

If it didn't like the frost damage, it is really gonna hate the root rot coming to town. It appears to be in potting soil or peat that will stay wet for a year.

Also, trying to "save" trees that are poor bonsai material is a waste 99.9999% of the time. Save your time/money/effort and get something grown for bonsai purposes. This means choosing species that are good for bonsai, rootwork has been done early, no grafts, in good soil etc. The biggest part of making good trees is choosing material with good characteristics.

I'm not trying to be discouraging. I did all the wrong things starting out. Bad choice of material, bad soil, bad watering habits, bad everything...

Eventually i started following advice from people here on bnut and things went from bad to not as bad

 

[Tieball]

If it didn't like the frost damage, it is really gonna hate the root rot coming to town. It appears to be in potting soil or peat that will stay wet for a year.

Also, trying to "save" trees that are poor bonsai material is a waste 99.9999% of the time. Save your time/money/effort and get something grown for bonsai purposes. This means choosing species that are good for bonsai, rootwork has been done early, no grafts, in good soil etc. The biggest part of making good trees is choosing material with good characteristics.

I'm not trying to be discouraging. I did all the wrong things starting out. Bad choice of material, bad soil, bad watering habits, bad everything...

Eventually i started following advice from people here on bnut and things went from bad to not as bad

Most of us, many of us anyway, have done the same and sometimes worse. I just make a face and move one.

 

[dr.tenebris]

I do understand it's poor material however most of the materials to be purchased at local nursery here will be grafted, unless your out collecting yamadori that's something we have to struggle with...

This thread is gonna probably have several trees that start in a sub optimal condition, if the graft remains obvious I can always ground layer the tree and remove the graft and the old roots (or just raft the tree)

Alternatively I could attempt some deadwood ideas I've gotten from my environment later down the line, free trees of lesser quality make fantastic things to play with... Without losing several hundred dollars, I'm in no hurry and have plenty of time to see these projects through.

As for the soil, it's very well draining, the photo was taken less then 5 minutes after watering making it appear very muddy, ill snatch a photo later, the pot spoil (although not bonsai soil) is specially designed to combat the poor soil here in Utah and has been developed for 20 years for optimizing. The tree will be fine it just needs time to grow back a bit before it gets bonsai soil and an official design

 

[rockm]

Mud was a result of repot, I used the same methods we use at the nursery when repotin.

Photo was taken shortly after watering.

Was digging through the soil when repotin (downsizing it was in too large of a pot) damage was likely frost as the back budding all looked (and looks) fantastic. Just upper half of the tree didn't bud out, nursery is in a super windy area so high winds and random spring freezes (last one of the year should have hit just last night) result in a lot of damage,

You're going to kill the maple in that crappy soil...FWIW, nurseries DON'T use great potting soil. What they use is temporary until the tree is planted in the ground. They use the cheapest stuff that can sustain a tree temporarily for a year or two, not a mix that encourages growth they have to manage. That muddy mess is likely part of the tree's initial problem. The nursery soil collapsed and no longer drained properly, leading to wet overwintering and root death... Putting back into the same stuff isn't really a great thing to do.

I do understand it's poor material however most of the materials to be purchased at local nursery here will be grafted, unless your out collecting yamadori that's something we have to struggle with...

This thread is gonna probably have several trees that start in a sub optimal condition, if the graft remains obvious I can always ground layer the tree and remove the graft and the old roots (or just raft the tree)

Alternatively I could attempt some deadwood ideas I've gotten from my environment later down the line, free trees of lesser quality make fantastic things to play with... Without losing several hundred dollars, I'm in no hurry and have plenty of time to see these projects through.

As for the soil, it's very well draining, the photo was taken less then 5 minutes after watering making it appear very muddy, ill snatch a photo later, the pot spoil (although not bonsai soil) is specially designed to combat the poor soil here in Utah and has been developed for 20 years for optimizing. The tree will be fine it just needs time to grow back a bit before it gets bonsai soil and an official design

The logic that it doesn't matter because of some graft is misguided. You will have nothing after a few months in that crap.

Yeah, sure free trees of lesser quality are worth experimenting with, but if you waste them on what is an obvious avoidable approaching disaster, you will learn only one thing--Japanese maples don't like growing in swamps.

 

[dr.tenebris]

You're going to kill the maple in that crappy soil...FWIW, nurseries DON'T use great potting soil. What they use is temporary until the tree is planted in the ground. They use the cheapest stuff that can sustain a tree temporarily for a year or two, not a mix that encourages growth they have to manage. That muddy mess is likely part of the tree's initial problem. The nursery soil collapsed and no longer drained properly, leading to wet overwintering and root death... Putting back into the same stuff isn't really a great thing to do.


The logic that it doesn't matter because of some graft is misguided. You will have nothing after a few months in that crap.

Yeah, sure free trees of lesser quality are worth experimenting with, but if you waste them on what is an obvious avoidable approaching disaster, you will learn only one thing--Japanese maples don't like growing in swamps.

Ill purchase better soil when i can, I don't know the variety of maple but I do know it isn't Japanese, we don't carry them in that size.

Thank you I'm certain your right now after getting home from work and taking a look at the soil, drainage on it is far worse than anything I'd seen from our plants before.

 

[19Mateo83]

If it didn't like the frost damage, it is really gonna hate the root rot coming to town. It appears to be in potting soil or peat that will stay wet for a year.

Also, trying to "save" trees that are poor bonsai material is a waste 99.9999% of the time. Save your time/money/effort and get something grown for bonsai purposes. This means choosing species that are good for bonsai, rootwork has been done early, no grafts, in good soil etc. The biggest part of making good trees is choosing material with good characteristics.

I'm not trying to be discouraging. I did all the wrong things starting out. Bad choice of material, bad soil, bad watering habits, bad everything...

Eventually i started following advice from people here on bnut and things went from bad to not as bad

Free trees like that are great to practice techniques on and if they croak oh well, nothing lost.

 

[dr.tenebris]

Oh nearly forgot!

For added context a photo from the nursery... The "dead" pile, trees we can't sell (sometimes it's minor flaws sometimes it's disease ) or have died.

It is this area that most of the trees from this thread will originate. There are far better choices of material then the mystery maple I took however... It was the best of the "safe material" aside from the cherry I put out in the field, unfortunately my phone died at work today so I couldn't get a photo of the cherry and redbud I have in the field from this pile...
(Cherry had trunk scaring from falling over regularly) And had a regular cherry branch growing below it's graft, these flaws made it unsellable... Still a gorgeous tree I can air layer the top of later (only flaw is some reverse taper at the graft site an air layer should be a wonderful fix after giving it time to grow, as for the red bud poor thing snapped midway up through the foliage, it has two decent branches still so I'll leave it out in the field to see if it will recover. I'll have a hands off approach for the redbud as I believe it will only be valuable if it can thrive on its own.

The cherry on the other hand is a lovely tree that I'll likely do regular checks on and baby, if I can use the main trunk as a mother trunk for valuable grafting material I'll be very pleased, I'd like to play around with grafting and get good enough at it to create unique materials without any noticable flaws... But if I fail to accomplish that... Nothing ventured, nothing gained

 

[Nybonsai12]

Free trees like that are great to practice techniques on and if they croak oh well, nothing lost.

The longer someone who has a desire to make good trees does bonsai, they realize they need to abandon this approach. A yard full of 100 free shitty trees is still a yard full of 100 shitty trees.

 

[Gabler]

The longer someone who has a desire to make good trees does bonsai, they realize they need to abandon this approach. A yard full of 100 free shitty trees is still a yard full of 100 shitty trees.

Yeah, but a yard full of 100 dead free trees is better than a yard full of 100 dead expensive trees. It's best to make your mistakes on poor material. The good doctor anticipated that he would screw something up, and he did, but there's no risk of any real loss, because the tree was free. If it dies, so be it. That was a smart move.

Once he has a few shitty trees that are healthy and flourishing, he knows he's ready to pick up some better material.

 

[Nybonsai12]

Yeah, but a yard full of 100 dead free trees is better than a yard full of 100 dead expensive trees. It's best to make your mistakes on poor material. The good doctor anticipated that he would screw something up, and he did, but there's no risk of any real loss, because the tree was free. If it dies, so be it. That was a smart move.

Once he has a few shitty trees that are healthy and flourishing, he knows he's ready to pick up some better material.

I'm not suggesting buying expensive material. I"m suggesting starting with something grown with bonsai in mind based off my experiences of making similar mistakes when i started out. Oh well... good luck to all and happy growing.

 

[dr.tenebris]

The longer someone who has a desire to make good trees does bonsai, they realize they need to abandon this approach. A yard full of 100 free shitty trees is still a yard full of 100 shitty trees.

I know at some point I'll want better material, but I have plenty of time to hone my skills and save my money for a piece of material that will truly be a work of art, I know the material is sub-optimal but I'm 21 almost 22 and I plan on doing bonsai until I drop dead, I have plenty of time to hone my craft and work towards trees that may someday be revered... I'm not wealthy by any means and I'm doing my best to get by and improve in very poor conditions as Utah truly isn't a great growing environment with high alkali soil, clay, and extreme weather (at my house we regularly get hurricane force winds funneled through the canyon.) Spring remains freezing and we can't get any massive pushes of growth here...

I know it's not perfect but I'm learning the foundations of our practice and these trees if they survive will go on to be used to practice other risky practices later if they thrive. Could I go and purchase one of the best pieces of material in the nursery? Absolutely however it will set me back 500 dollars for the plant alone, not including proper soil, fertilizer, pesticide/fungicide.

I know to become a master there's a significant financial hurdle to jump. . . I'm not there yet and rather use that money to stabilize my life so I can purchase the materials I crave in the future...


So for now, I'll work with trees that have a few flaws, maybe learn to work with flaws to accent the natural beauty of the materials... And in the future I will be better because of it.

 

[dr.tenebris]

I'm not suggesting buying expensive material. I"m suggesting starting with something grown with bonsai in mind based off my experiences of making similar mistakes when i started out. Oh well... good luck to all and happy growing.

We don't have bonsai nurseries within 100 miles of my location. Yes I could start small and slowly age it making mistakes causing material to be ruined... Or I can learn the stupid lessons on material that has a head start and I have to massive commitment to

 

[Gabler]

I'm not suggesting buying expensive material. I"m suggesting starting with something grown with bonsai in mind based off my experiences of making similar mistakes when i started out. Oh well... good luck to all and happy growing.

Expensive is a relative term, and some of us didn't have the good fortune of a birthday between 1945 and 1965. As far as I'm concerned, anything grown with bonsai in mind is expensive. I'm supposedly paid more than the median income, but between rent (a small place in a bad neighborhood), health insurance (high deductible), car insurance (the legal minimum), gas, and groceries (store brand), there's very little left over at the end of the month, and that's mostly going to my retirement account (since my social security savings are being stolen by the Boomers who cashed out their own savings in the 80's). Frankly, I have no idea how anyone earning minimum wage is alive. I don't mean that as a political statement. I mean that as a genuine question. If a "cheap" apartment is more than a thousand dollars a month in most places, how do you afford that on a $30k income? That's half your money for the year. In any case, let's not pretend it's easy to get good material for bonsai. I'm growing my own from seed, and I'm lucky enough that my parents own some swamp land where I can collect more mature trees. @dr.tenebris found a job where he gets material for free. We do the best we can with what we have.

Edit: I'm only able to earn more than the median income because I have over $100k in student loan debt. Time will tell if that was a wise investment.