Experiences with Essence of the Tree Japanese Maple specialist nursery?

electraus

Mame
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I found them on the Colorado Rocky Mountain Bonsai "Bonsai Vendors" page, and they have a "For bonsai" section on their page where they list cultivars of JMs they sell with growth habits that are generally desired for maple bonsai subjects. Does anyone have experience with them? They seem legitimate, and the fact that they have an entire dedicated section of cultivars they claim can lend themselves to bonsai is promising. I buy a good portion of my trees online, so I'm not too afraid of the online plant buying process, as I've generally had good experiences. But, I do have one very bad experience with a nursery in Oregon, which I will not name, that assured me that their grafts were all "smooth, clean, and perfect for bonsai," and a week later, I received a Japanese white pine with the ugliest, clunkiest, most haphazardly done graft I've seen in my entire life. Then, they made it next to impossible to return it 🤬.

This experience has taught me to not only ask the customer service department for pictures but also to seek actual customer experiences before I purchase from a new non-bonsai-specific nursery. So, has anyone here ever sourced nursery stock from them? The cultivar I'm most interested in purchasing is the A. Palmatum 'Coral Pink.'
 

Paradox

Imperial Masterpiece
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First I have heard about them.
Would also be interested in knowing more about them.

I would love to find a good source of maple cultivar that are not grafted
 

Srt8madness

Omono
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I've seen their site but too expensive. I'll plug Jens Farm maples again. A 7 gal maple will probably only be good for air layers, as it's unlikely it has actually been trained for bonsai.

Dwarf growth habits are often offered as "good for bonsai", but in reality they just make for a super slow growing bonsai.
 

Scorpius

Chumono
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Gonna order from Oregon go with Conifer Kingdom especially for conifers. Heard their 1 gal maples are pretty nice.
 

electraus

Mame
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Gonna order from Oregon go with Conifer Kingdom especially for conifers. Heard their 1 gal maples are pretty nice.
I personally would strongly advise against it, but this is only coming from one TERRIBLE experience with a Japanese white pine graft. The graft union was quite possibly the messiest I’ve ever seen. I cannot possibly overemphasize how bad it was, so I’ve attached a picture instead.
 

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electraus

Mame
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Most will be grafted? Right? Or am I wrong assuming this?

Most of the work in getting a maple ready to begin as pre Bonsai is getting rid of the graft.

Evergreen Gardenworks has about 20 cultivars that are cutting grown for Bonsai.
They are grafted. In all honesty, at this point, I would recommend against purchasing from them to anyone reading this because I’ve been trying to get a picture of the tree they set aside for me for over a week now. Multiple emails, phone calls, and attempts at live chat with no response
 

rockm

Spuds Moyogi
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Most will be grafted? Right? Or am I wrong assuming this?

Most of the work in getting a maple ready to begin as pre Bonsai is getting rid of the graft.

Evergreen Gardenworks has about 20 cultivars that are cutting grown for Bonsai.
This can be a matter of degrees. I've found that low grafted examples of specialty cultivars can work as bonsai. Depends where the graft is done, the higher on the trunk, the worse it is. IF the graft is on the root crown, the differences in growth rate and bark tend to blend better. Seen this with a grafted Arakawa I got a while back that is now a landscape tree.
 
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