Large Yamadori Hawthorn

[Lee Brindley]

Last weekend I was collecting yamadori hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) and blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) in Northern England. I am particularly happy with this large hawthorn. More images on my blog; http://yamadoriartuk.blogspot.co.uk/

Lee.

The tree as found on the hill.

Photo taken the next day - pruned, lifted, back home and straight into a bonsai pot!

 

[red]

Wow! Nice find.

 

[Cypress]

Holy hell, that's a wild looking tree! Just as a hawthorn should. Nice find.

 

[plant_dr]

Wow! I love it!

 

[edprocoat]

Very nice find, hope to see it when its all flushed out with growth.

ed

 

[raydomz]

Very nice find! I wish our hawthorns here grew into forms like that.
I'm sure some here may disagree but the age and character found in these UK hawthorns rivals any of our collected pine material we have here.

Looking forward to seeing this in the future.

 

[Beng]

Very nice find! I wish our hawthorns here grew into forms like that.
I'm sure some here may disagree but the age and character found in these UK hawthorns rivals any of our collected pine material we have here.

Looking forward to seeing this in the future.

Maybe not on the east coast but the trees Randy Knight collects are deinitely on par with this type of material.

 

[JudyB]

I've long been a fan of the haws you guys develop over there, and the blackthorns as well. I would love to get my hands on a blackthorn!! This will be nice in time, do you think it will give you any problems putting it into a pot so quickly? I find my collected haws sulk after rootwork for some time. Would love to see any blackthorns you have too!
Thanks Lee.

 

[Poink88]

Thant is a wicked tree. My heart would have skipped a beat (or two) if I found that one. LOL

You did an excellent job pruning the top too. Please keep us posted how this tree recovers. Thanks!

 

[daygan]

What an exciting find! Thanks for sharing such a wonderful image with us. Do post updates when you have them!

 

[fore]

Really killer tree! What a great find!

 

[Lee Brindley]

Thanks all for the replies. We have literally hundreds of hawthorn of similar size and quality to this one still on the hill - not to mention the countless smaller trees.

Very nice find! I wish our hawthorns here grew into forms like that.
I'm sure some here may disagree but the age and character found in these UK hawthorns rivals any of our collected pine material we have here.

Looking forward to seeing this in the future.

I am personally quite a pine fan myself and would happily trade hawthorns for most of the American yamadori I see on here, which always have me drooling. I guess the grass is always greener.

 

[Lee Brindley]

I've long been a fan of the haws you guys develop over there, and the blackthorns as well. I would love to get my hands on a blackthorn!! This will be nice in time, do you think it will give you any problems putting it into a pot so quickly? I find my collected haws sulk after rootwork for some time. Would love to see any blackthorns you have too!
Thanks Lee.

I am confident there will be no problems with this hawthorn. The pot is packed with fibrous roots. We have found hawthorns to be very resilient and I have not lost any yet. Unfortunately blackthorn are a different story and many people here find them difficult to collect successfully. I will get some photos up when I can but mine are all under cover now. We are experimenting with a new technique whereby the collected blackthorn are tied up in black bags, packed with lots of sphagnum moss until they begin to grow.

 

[Lee Brindley]

Here are few smaller hawthorns I have collected from the same site, and one more pic of the big fella with my son for scale. The trees from this area have great, aged bark - even on shohin size material. View some close-ups of the bark texture on my latest blog entry: http://yamadoriartuk.blogspot.co.uk/

 

[JudyB]

Nice. I love the little guys.

 

[discusmike]

Wow, mother nature made the perfect hawthorn bonsai.

 

[youngsai]

That is one powerful fella, and the tree is great too

 

[discusmike]

I wish I had that good of material growing in my neck of the woods.

 

[edprocoat]

Thats a handsome lad, you must be proud of him. I assume he gets the good looks from the wife ?

ed

 

[Cypress]

Very nice! One question: I notice your generous use of live sphagnum moss with the collected tree. As I am planning to collect a number of Hawthorn yamadori pretty soon over on this side of the pond, and I have really been looking into the use of sphagnum with newly collected trees... do you mix the live sphagnum into your soil as well, wrap it around the roots, or do you just put a thick layer of it on top of your soil?

PS. I have to say, the real big hawthorn you've collected there looks... very sinister. Almost like a tree in some ancient forest from a dark folktale that you would rather not enter. Like Hansel and Gretel got lost in there. Haha! There's far too many graceful Bonsai out there, let's have some more sinister trees, love it!