Gambel Oak ( Quercus gambelii)?

[JPhillips]

I went hiking in Colorado this July and was struck by the sheer number of gorgeously dwarfed and contorted Gambel Oak on the slopes of the canyon. It's relatively small leaves and apparent profusion in the landscape made me wonder as why I haven't yet found one being used in my searches.

I certainly don't believe I'm the first to notice this so what is it? Is it horribly unsuited for bonsai culture? Difficult to collect? Or am I just bad at surfing the interwebs and it is at least used even if infrequently?

I know it's a slow grower but what gives?

-Jake Phillips

 

[yenling83]

In general it takes at least one person, if not a group of people to start working with that specific type of tree to make it popular within the Bonsai community if it's not one of the traditional species in Japan. For example I see alot more redwoods being used recently, which is at least somewhat the result of Bob and Zach Shimon and the REBS club collecting several and championing coastal red woods. We also saw this along while ago with California Junipers. There are tons of trees that we could be using in the U.s. but have not started working with yet. I'm sure this type of oak would work great for Bonsai. You should start working with them and then maybe more people will start working with them.