LanceMac10
Imperial Masterpiece
Tamarack is about it.
Native Species Only
- Thread starter barguy8194
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Hyn Patty
Shohin
It's also worth remembering ... you might use a book like this for /years/ and really get your value out of it. And it will keep or increase it's value over time to sell or trade for other books you may prefer later. I recently purchased a VERY expensive and rare book for my husband who really wanted it in his academic library. One he couldn't even access on loan. But should he desire to sell it later, it is a sought after book that will only increase in value over time. In North America, this bonsai book on NE natives isn't going to go out of style anytime soon.
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
Here's a Link to a UBC post (University of British Columbia Hort Blog) about Redwoods.
barguy8194
Yamadori
Thanks for the suggestion, the book should be in my hands in a week or so ?
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
I have a prospective forest I collected trees for two years ago from an Aspen grove. I mean a real grove, -they expand the grove by suckering, so I had to snoop around and tug on little ones to find the individuals that had some nominal root in the ground in addition to just the runner. The ground was a mat of interwoven roots of the earlier generations making for an impossible job to get anything larger than a pencil. There were almost no roots and I thought it was just a fools errand, but they all survived the first winter and this spring I expect to assemble them into a forest that the world will recognize as the finest art ever created. I'm hoping one of you will do your part and nominate me for a Nobel or maybe Pulitzer or whatever...
Stormwater
Shohin
Dont write off beech, there is one at the national arboretum that is one of my favorite all time trees!
Are you anti-invasive species? You are helping nature by revoing them. No guilt about the possibility of removing some important genes from the gene pool If you kill it. I’ve been playing with some privet and honeysuckle , kinda fun. Have taught me a lot!
Are you anti-invasive species? You are helping nature by revoing them. No guilt about the possibility of removing some important genes from the gene pool If you kill it. I’ve been playing with some privet and honeysuckle , kinda fun. Have taught me a lot!
GGB
Masterpiece
whoa whoa whoa, Nobody mentioned jack pine yet (pinus banksiana), has small needles like scots pine. And pitch pine will probably be better than red pine but I saw a few folks mentioned that.
GGB
Masterpiece
P.S corny wikipedia maps suggest jack pine aren't native to your area but they're scattered throughout new england. If you do searches by scientific name you can find accurate native range maps. We have them even in northeastern PA. I have a collected one from Massechusetts. I guess left over from 10,000 years ago. Georgia has fossil evidence of Jack pine, I believe. they just keep going North
Orion_metalhead
Masterpiece
I am starting several from seed this year. They are incredibly easy to collect seeds from and germinate so a nice long term project. They literally cant be overwatered either, as they grow in flood plains. Great beginner trees.
I notice they grow in clumps often so would make a nice forest.
Leo in N E Illinois
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Natives, always a good theme. How local do you want to go?
Pinus resinosa - north american red pine, is a single flush pine with fairly long needles, closely related to P. nigra, P. thunbergii, and P. sylvestris. But it is strictly single flush. It also MUST have full sun. It will loose lower branches the first season those branches are shaded compared to the higher branches. The long needles make it best for larger bonsai. Super cold hardy. It also has bright red pollen, which is surprising. (at least the local race near me has red pollen).
Jack pine, P. banksiana, another that requires full sun, sunrise to sunset. Shorter needles, even shorter than sylvatica. Single flush, so far seems easy enough to work with once you have them established in a pot. Extremely difficult to collect from the wild successfully. Seedlings work better, but then you have the ''wait'' for the tree to mature. I'm in zone 5b, and for my conditions, found late summer repotting better than spring repotting. But that is in my ''cooler by the Lake'' conditions.
Amelanchier - I think this is an underrated local native that everyone should try. There are 20+ species in the genus, and 49 states of the USA, and all Canadian provinces have one or more species native. They are in the apple family, the usually white flowers bloom before the leaves appear in spring. The small fruit is ripe as early as June in the south to September in the far north, edible with a nutty flavor mixed with apple flavors. Serviceberry, shadblow, juneberry are a some of the common names. I like Amelanchier x grandiflora, as it is more tree like. Amelanchier stolonifera will produce many runners, like a poplar or aspen. Leaves are MUCH SMALLER than aspen or poplar so will make a more proportional forest or grove bonsai. Bark is smooth gray, much like beech and hornbeam, but again with much smaller leaves. Autumn color is good. Biggest draw back is they are slow to ''trunk up''. Two or 3 inch diameter trunks are near the practical upper limit for trunk diameter. This does make them more ideal for smaller bonsai sizes, Shohin and the next size up are perfect.
There are at least 2 or 3 species of Amelanchier native to the New England states, you should look for them. They bloom at the same time that the wild plums, the early flowering cherry do in spring. A walk in the woods at that time will show you where they are. Before the leaves pop. Look at forest edges, where some sun gets in. Or thickets along streams, but above enough that they are not routinely flooded.
Pinus resinosa - north american red pine, is a single flush pine with fairly long needles, closely related to P. nigra, P. thunbergii, and P. sylvestris. But it is strictly single flush. It also MUST have full sun. It will loose lower branches the first season those branches are shaded compared to the higher branches. The long needles make it best for larger bonsai. Super cold hardy. It also has bright red pollen, which is surprising. (at least the local race near me has red pollen).
Jack pine, P. banksiana, another that requires full sun, sunrise to sunset. Shorter needles, even shorter than sylvatica. Single flush, so far seems easy enough to work with once you have them established in a pot. Extremely difficult to collect from the wild successfully. Seedlings work better, but then you have the ''wait'' for the tree to mature. I'm in zone 5b, and for my conditions, found late summer repotting better than spring repotting. But that is in my ''cooler by the Lake'' conditions.
Amelanchier - I think this is an underrated local native that everyone should try. There are 20+ species in the genus, and 49 states of the USA, and all Canadian provinces have one or more species native. They are in the apple family, the usually white flowers bloom before the leaves appear in spring. The small fruit is ripe as early as June in the south to September in the far north, edible with a nutty flavor mixed with apple flavors. Serviceberry, shadblow, juneberry are a some of the common names. I like Amelanchier x grandiflora, as it is more tree like. Amelanchier stolonifera will produce many runners, like a poplar or aspen. Leaves are MUCH SMALLER than aspen or poplar so will make a more proportional forest or grove bonsai. Bark is smooth gray, much like beech and hornbeam, but again with much smaller leaves. Autumn color is good. Biggest draw back is they are slow to ''trunk up''. Two or 3 inch diameter trunks are near the practical upper limit for trunk diameter. This does make them more ideal for smaller bonsai sizes, Shohin and the next size up are perfect.
There are at least 2 or 3 species of Amelanchier native to the New England states, you should look for them. They bloom at the same time that the wild plums, the early flowering cherry do in spring. A walk in the woods at that time will show you where they are. Before the leaves pop. Look at forest edges, where some sun gets in. Or thickets along streams, but above enough that they are not routinely flooded.
barguy8194
Yamadori
Ok, so I found a pagoda dogwood (cornus alternifolia) behind my business today. Nice double trunk, about 3” wide at the base, one trunk arrow-straight and one with a nice curve to it.
Has anyone ever played with this species? I only see it mentioned a couple times in a search on the forum.
Has anyone ever played with this species? I only see it mentioned a couple times in a search on the forum.
Leo in N E Illinois
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Dogwoods are nice, genus Cornus. There are many species, most are shrubs. There are reasons that you don't see a lot of them as bonsai.
Most are shrubby, for bonsai the goal is a tree image. Trees the branches are significantly smaller in diameter than the trunk. In a shrub, the branches are largely indistinguishable from the trunk, all the branches head upward. So The red twig dogwoods, grey dogwood, and other shrubby dogwoods are very seldom seen as bonsai. Once in a while, but not often. Sometimes the red twig dogwood shows up in mixed kusamono plantings. They tend to spread by stolons, ''suckers'' coming up off the roots. This is often annoying if one is trying to do a single trunk tree.
All the dogwoods have leaves that do not reduce very well. They reduce some, but the leaves are always on the large side of what is acceptable. Usually they don't get much smaller than 2 inches length, down from their normal 4 inch length. (5 cm down from normal 10 cm) With age and multiple levels of branch ramification, it may be possible to get smaller leaves than 2 inches, especially in Cornus mas. The more tree like dogwoods like Cornus alternifolia, Cornus mas, Cornus florida, C. nuttallii, C. kousa all have either abundant flowers, large flowers or beautiful berries that make the somewhat large leaves a non-issue.
Cornus nuttallii is the Pacific dogwood, it is a large deciduous tree sometimes over 50 feet tall. Flowers similar to flowering dogwood, C. florida, which is a small tree, seldom much over 10 feet tall. Cornus florida is lovely because it flowers just before or as the leaves begin to unfold. Both the native North American dogwoods are susceptible to dogwood blight, a disease introduced from China. Nurseries are only recently finding disease resistant flowering dogwood type hybrids. The asiatic Cornus kousa is native to Japan and China, similar to C. florida, but with somewhat smaller flowers and the flowers open a few weeks after the leaves are fully expanded. They stay in flower later into late spring, or early summer. C. kousa is immune to the blight. The newer nursery hybrids that are disease resistant are hybrids between kousa and florida and have been selected to bloom early like florida.
The flowering dogwoods are a more tree like, but in particular C. florida tends to be very sparse with branching, so as bonsai tends to be a mere wisp of a tree, which only has presence when in bloom. I've never seen C. nuttallii in person, so have no idea how it would be as bonsai. From photos C. mas and C. kousa seem to be the 2 best of the flowers and fruit species for bonsai.
I suspect Cornus alternifolia will be a bit more tree like than C. florida. It may be ''pretty okay'' as bonsai. I believe alternifolia will have better branching than C. florida. and I believe the fruit is attractive and edible too.
Most are shrubby, for bonsai the goal is a tree image. Trees the branches are significantly smaller in diameter than the trunk. In a shrub, the branches are largely indistinguishable from the trunk, all the branches head upward. So The red twig dogwoods, grey dogwood, and other shrubby dogwoods are very seldom seen as bonsai. Once in a while, but not often. Sometimes the red twig dogwood shows up in mixed kusamono plantings. They tend to spread by stolons, ''suckers'' coming up off the roots. This is often annoying if one is trying to do a single trunk tree.
All the dogwoods have leaves that do not reduce very well. They reduce some, but the leaves are always on the large side of what is acceptable. Usually they don't get much smaller than 2 inches length, down from their normal 4 inch length. (5 cm down from normal 10 cm) With age and multiple levels of branch ramification, it may be possible to get smaller leaves than 2 inches, especially in Cornus mas. The more tree like dogwoods like Cornus alternifolia, Cornus mas, Cornus florida, C. nuttallii, C. kousa all have either abundant flowers, large flowers or beautiful berries that make the somewhat large leaves a non-issue.
Cornus nuttallii is the Pacific dogwood, it is a large deciduous tree sometimes over 50 feet tall. Flowers similar to flowering dogwood, C. florida, which is a small tree, seldom much over 10 feet tall. Cornus florida is lovely because it flowers just before or as the leaves begin to unfold. Both the native North American dogwoods are susceptible to dogwood blight, a disease introduced from China. Nurseries are only recently finding disease resistant flowering dogwood type hybrids. The asiatic Cornus kousa is native to Japan and China, similar to C. florida, but with somewhat smaller flowers and the flowers open a few weeks after the leaves are fully expanded. They stay in flower later into late spring, or early summer. C. kousa is immune to the blight. The newer nursery hybrids that are disease resistant are hybrids between kousa and florida and have been selected to bloom early like florida.
The flowering dogwoods are a more tree like, but in particular C. florida tends to be very sparse with branching, so as bonsai tends to be a mere wisp of a tree, which only has presence when in bloom. I've never seen C. nuttallii in person, so have no idea how it would be as bonsai. From photos C. mas and C. kousa seem to be the 2 best of the flowers and fruit species for bonsai.
I suspect Cornus alternifolia will be a bit more tree like than C. florida. It may be ''pretty okay'' as bonsai. I believe alternifolia will have better branching than C. florida. and I believe the fruit is attractive and edible too.
Hyn Patty
Shohin
Yum, Serviceberry is a favorite of mine. Very pretty form. I have one in the ground that I hope will shape up to be a good bonsai later. It is about to bloom it's brains out with a gazillion flowers again. Fruit looks and tastes a lot like blueberry but subtly different. Glad you mentioned this one. They are cheap to mail order and I really should order a few more.
Hyn Patty
Shohin
http://arborartscollective.blogspot.com/2016/05/amelanchier-also-known-as-service-berry.html
A nice article about service berry (Amelanchier) that I booked mark a while back. Might be helpful if anyone here ever wants to try one.
A nice article about service berry (Amelanchier) that I booked mark a while back. Might be helpful if anyone here ever wants to try one.
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
All tree type Dogwoods have a propensity to a yearly single, long, straight internode trunk extension and wagon wheel spokes branching from those trunk internodes, that's one problem. That makes for the nice tiered branching that looks nice in lanscaping. Pagoda is a larger variety and has similar growth habits. I tried to bonsai a variegated one 10 years ago and it responded to heading back with a balloon type growth where I trimmed it instead of branching or back-budding. Perfect little balls about twice the diameter of the branch would form at the internode I trimmed back to. Like there was a marble inside. It looked silly and convinced me to put it in the landscape where it is now a nice tree. I don't have anything more intelligent to say about it other than it won and I walked away in shame. Cornus mas may be different, but I wouldn't know about that, I don't think I've seen one in the flesh.
Leo in N E Illinois
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Hyn Patty
Shohin
Haha, I had no idea. It's a good article!
M. Frary
Bonsai Godzilla
It's nice to say I'm only going to use species native to my area but it limits your choices.
Why not plants that are zoned to your area instead?
The only trees from your list that are good for bonsai are the spruces and tamarack. At least those are the only ones I would consider.
The white pine and red pine aren't the best. Long needles that don't readily reduce. The white pine bark stays smooth forever too.
The birches would be okay but they tend to drop branches as they age.
The cedar is used in bonsai but for me the fronds are too big and out of scale.
The ash and walnut have large compound leaves that are hard to get to look right.
The oaks. Don't bother. Neither are good for bonsai.
Why not plants that are zoned to your area instead?
The only trees from your list that are good for bonsai are the spruces and tamarack. At least those are the only ones I would consider.
The white pine and red pine aren't the best. Long needles that don't readily reduce. The white pine bark stays smooth forever too.
The birches would be okay but they tend to drop branches as they age.
The cedar is used in bonsai but for me the fronds are too big and out of scale.
The ash and walnut have large compound leaves that are hard to get to look right.
The oaks. Don't bother. Neither are good for bonsai.
Leo in N E Illinois
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I agree with Mike Frary, I try to stick with species from my climate zone or colder zones. Except for Satsuki azalea, can't resist those, oh and cork bark Japanese black pine. Actually I make many exceptions. Too many.
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