New to Bonsai from NJ

Orion_metalhead

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Good morning everyone. New to the artform, however have been interested for many years. Ive been reading a lot of general information all over the place but the scope of knowledge here from users seems second to none.

I recently started my first few trees but come spring I plan on adding some others collected from a family property in PA.

All my current trees are small little seedlings I dug up from the yard, nothing worth picyures yet. Im just hoping i can get them to live to next year... currently overwintering them in the shed.

It seems I have an affinity for species widely regarded as "not woth the time" but thats ok with me. A list of what I dug up this summer:

Acer Rubrum
Acer Nigurum
Acer Palmatum

Come spring, there are a couple saplings or slightly larger around the yard and in PA I'll pot up:

Acer Saccharum
Prunus Serotina
Quercus Alba (a few of these from seed)
Picea Abies
Picea Rigida
Tsuga Canadensis
Pinus Strobus (Oh no!!)

Im from Central NJ. Spend most of my time listening to Heavy Metal and reading. Plants move at my speed.
 

Orion_metalhead

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Thanks! Ill post regarding my non-bonsai activities in general later on. Looking forward to getting to know everyone.
 
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Fuck yeah metal!
You are right in time to go get yourself one of those nice christmas trees! Many will say they are bad bonsai subjects, but I have found them very good material to practise wiring on as they are hard to break/crack and they will take a lot of abuse. I used to think they are very difficult material too but once I learnt what they like mine does very well!

Oh and tryna put some bends in that young material you dug up! Can't start cranking those bends early enough!

Welcome!
 

j evans

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Welcome, you are right, getting the trees to live is one of the most basic fundamentals.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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Welcome aboard

You like maples, that is good. ''Go Large'' with your maples that are not Acer palmatum, and you will do okay.

Your list for spring is fine. Most of them have potential to become good bonsai.

I recognize the attraction, a mature P. strobus in the landscape is outstanding. And they are well adapted to survive in our backyards, in a pot without much in the way of winter protection. Mine are outside on the ground right where they grew all summer, and my winters are much colder than yours. But in the long run, P. strobus will prove to be a frustration. You might get lucky, or you will end up like myself, owning a P. strobus that after 25 years of work still just doesn't look right. Best use of P. strobus is as grafting understock for Japanese white pine. The strobus roots tolerate wet, eastern winters better than JWP on its own roots and are very cold hardy. Good understock for JWP.
 

Orion_metalhead

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Thanks Leo. The way I see it now, even if I don't get anything worthy in the long run from a strobus, I will at least increase my knowledge working on it and maybe have something in the end that I can still use now I know it's popular grafting material.
 

Orion_metalhead

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I have a large japanese maple in the front yard. I was wondering what the best way to grow a cutting from that would be? When should I cut the branch I want to root? Should I put it straight into water? Should I try air-layering it? Do Japanese Maples grow as cuttings easily? I have to prune some of the branches against the house anyway and figured I would try.

So some pictures finally of what I plan on doing in the spring and some questions regarding the best approaches to take on these before potting:

20181104_111708.jpg20181104_112136.jpg

These are two Eastern Hemlocks to my knowledge. These are up by my vacation house in Northeastern PA. What would be the best time to collect these? I plan on leaving some of the native soil on the roots, as is recommended on conifers, and then mixing 50% of the native soil with a turface/perlite mixture for the first replant, slowly over time eliminating the native soil from the mix. Would a wooden box be best for now for potting on these or are they small enough to go into a regular training pot? The first sapling is smaller, less than 1" diameter trunk. The second one is more of a clump, I think three trees together, and slightly larger.

20181218_165157.jpg20181218_165359.jpg

These two Oaks are in my backyard here. Once again, best time to collect them? I figure spring as the buds appear? The first one I really like the way the trunk is curving and it already has some branches on it as well. It's been growing in the shade by a fence so it's not very large. It's growing in what looks like mostly leaf compost and worm castings. The second one is a bit taller and doesn't have as much character. I'm figuring these can go into regular training pots of some sort until the roots grow out? I'm hoping that there is enough root mass on them that I can cut back the probable tap root. Plain old turface/perlite mixture ok?

20181218_165309.jpg

This is a quite thick either Sugar Maple or Norway Maple. It's quite thick but healthy. I cut back the top of it planning on simply removing it last spring and it shot out a bunch of shoots. It's about 18" tall now sticking in the ground. Figure spring as the buds appear would be best to collect this so it can work all summer to push out new shoots. I was planning on putting it directly into turface/perlite mixture. It's the largest of the collected specimens trunk wise I want to collect next spring.

20181218_165242.jpg

This is also in the yard. I believe it's a black cherry. I also have at least seven or eight small saplings. This one is quite larger. The trunk is approaching 1" diameter. It has healthy shoots off the top as well. Have no idea what the best time/procedure is for this. I was going to prune it back in the spring low but maybe doing that now would be better? I don't know. It's too tall. I'd like to get it down to about 12" but it's a good 4' right now to the top. Thoughts on going about this? Should I prune it back hard low and then collect it not next spring, but the following fall?

20181104_112429.jpg20181104_112438.jpg

Last are these EWP. What is the best chance to keep them alive. I figure follow the same rules as the Hemlocks soil wise? They are also up in PA. If they die, it's not a huge deal.. there are millions of these things there. I like the one with the shoot growing to the right though, I feel it could lead to a nice structure ultimately.
 
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Leo in N E Illinois

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For all of them, spring, after the ground thaws enough to dig, right up until the buds start to open.

There's a second collecting season, late summer, until the middle of autumn. Success is not as high, but is not too bad.

All the trees you imaged are small in my book, I would look for taller trees with trunk diameters over 3 inches to about 5 inches. Yes, you will often be looking at 12 foot tall trees. You just chop 'em down to 3 to 6 inches tall the day you collect them.
 

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It seems I have an affinity for species widely regarded as "not woth the time" but thats ok with me.

Rather than "not worth the time" let's use the friendlier term "more advanced material - for one reason or other".

For example, I would consider wisteria extremely difficult material due to: large compound leaves that don't reduce, viney growth, difficulty balancing foliage constraint with flower production. However, if you happen to have one that looks just right, that blooms just when you want, it is high on the list of the most beautiful bonsai out there :) But for me - not worth the time :)

One of the trees on your list, Sugar Maple, is a personal favorite of mine. Hard to get the leaves to reduce, but as long as you plan for larger scale bonsai, the leaves become less of an issue. I wish you good luck growing a nice tree, because if I could grow them here in southern California, I'd have 100 of them :)
 
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Orion_metalhead

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For all of them, spring, after the ground thaws enough to dig, right up until the buds start to open.

Perfect! Thank you for that info. I'll probably shoot for end of march/first week in april then... right after ski season!

There's a second collecting season, late summer, until the middle of autumn. Success is not as high, but is not too bad.

So, this period would from mid september through late october roughly? Basically, right as foliage is dropping from the tree?

All the trees you imaged are small in my book, I would look for taller trees with trunk diameters over 3 inches to about 5 inches. Yes, you will often be looking at 12 foot tall trees. You just chop 'em down to 3 to 6 inches tall the day you collect them.

The Sugar maple in the yard is about 2.5" maybe 3". I understand the appeal of collecting the larger ones for more immediate trunk width but I want to start fairly small for now and just learn the basics of keeping them alive... working with a few different trees. I have another couple trees in my backyard that have that size trunk which I may try and do the chop on in a couple years.

Thanks for the advice Leo.

Rather than "not worth the time" let's use the friendlier term "more advanced material - for one reason or other".... For example, I would consider wisteria extremely difficult material due to: large compound leaves that don't reduce, viney growth, difficulty balancing foliage constaint with flower production. However, if you happen to have one that looks just right, that blooms just when you want, it is high on the list of the most beautiful bonsai out there :) But for me - not worth the time :)"

Understood. I can see the clarification being useful. No species should be off limits, just differing amounts of difficulty.

One of the trees on your list, Sugar Maple, is a personal favorite of mine. Hard to get the leaves to reduce, but as long as you plan for larger scale bonsai, the leaves become less of an issue. I wish you good luck growing a nice tree, because if I could grow them here in southern California, I'd have 100 of them :)

We have tons of them here in NJ. I had actually grabbed a bunch of seeds from a tree in the park to plan on growing this coming spring but they got moldy in my basement... I didn't think that out well at all. It's cool to know that the species is a favorite of someone with as much experience as yourself. Gives me more incentive to work on it. It has a nice curve at the base of the trunk which isn't visible in the picture.

My Tree's and I listen to Metal Core

I really like the one with the wicked looking nebari middle row to the left in the brown pot. The one in the white pot bottom row also caught my eye. Very nice trees!

I'm not huge into metalcore... the closest I've gotten to Metalcore are some of the Gothenburg bands from the late 90's early 00's like Dark Tranquility, Soilwork, early In Flames, At The Gates... but some of those aren't even really what most would consider metalcore.

My genres of interest mostly are US Power Metal like Fates Warning, Queensryche, Liege Lord, Manilla Road, Omen, and that ilk. Also really into Old School Death and Black Metal like Bathory, Venom, Slaughter, Death.... I would consider myself, if not a scholar, a connoisseur of New Jersey metal... Whiplash, Attacker, Morbid Sin, Ripping Corpse, The Beast, Evoken, Abazagorath... that ilk. I cover a lot of stuff on my website: https://contaminatedtones.blogspot.com/

I also do occasionally post nature photos and whatnot there, but it's mostly metal. I've been doing that blog since 2008. Have a fairly decent readership. I am fairly entrenched in the local music scene here since I have been attending shows for many years as well as playing shows continuously for the past 10 years or so. There is a picture of the small Acer Negundo I grew this summer there though.

So I took the advice @Shibui and @Leo in N E Illinois posted in the seed thread. that I trim the root that one of my acorns had been growing... I didn't realize it had gotten so long! It was actually about 5" long. I cut it back to what appeared to be the first sign of a new root tip branching off the longer taproot. My thought is that at least clipping it there it would have another root tip to divert energy to and maybe grow a few more from the cutting spot. It has not yet pushed out cotyledon. I'm hoping it does ok with this clipping:

20181219_213605.jpg Before cutting

20181219_213722.jpg After cutting. The little white line is the root I saw growing off the side so I cut back to there.

20181219_214022.jpg The cut off segment. I had no idea it had grown so long.
 

Bonsai Nut

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It's cool to know that the species is a favorite of someone with as much experience as yourself.

My love of sugar maples is an emotional, versus bonsai, one. Growing up in rural northern Illinois, I know what it is to tap maple trees for sap, and how to boil it down for syrup. My neighbors were farmers who had had their land in their families since the late 1800's. One of the farmers in our area had a field that was nothing more than sugar maples and apple trees. They had been planted 100 years prior, and were quite large. As kids, we used to climb the apple trees in the late summer and eat the apples because they were never picked. The sugar maples had the most amazing colors in the fall... I actually went to the field my senior year in high school to take portraits with my girlfriend... sugar maples and duck blinds :)

I love all species of bonsai. But to me, certain species resonate with my soul :)

And on that note.. I expect some excellent sugar maple bonsai from you!!!
 

J P

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My genres of interest mostly are US Power Metal like Fates Warning, Queensryche, Liege Lord, Manilla Road, Omen, and that ilk. Also really into Old School Death and Black Metal like Bathory, Venom, Slaughter, Death.... I would consider myself, if not a scholar, a connoisseur of New Jersey metal... Whiplash, Attacker, Morbid Sin, Ripping Corpse, The Beast, Evoken, Abazagorath... that ilk. I cover a lot of stuff on my website:
 

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Fates Warning opening for Queensryche this spring. Tour starts on March 2nd.
 

Orion_metalhead

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Fates Warning opening for Queensryche this spring. Tour starts on March 2nd.

Was planning on going to the NYC show but I may be skipping now to catch Dokken a lot closer. Ive seen Queensryche 3 times with both Tate and LaTorre and Fates Warning 3 times with Alder. Ive never seen Dokken.

Id change plans for a set heavy on material from The Warning and the s/t EP and/or John Arch singing for FW in place of Alder... simply couldnt make it to Prog Power or Keep It True a few years ago when they were celebrating the 30th anniversary of Awaken the Guardian, one of my favorite albums.
 

eryk2kartman

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Nice,
So many Metal Heads doing bonsai, awesome.
And your trees also, i just got a lot of new bare root trees, im potting them for a week now :)
Best of luck in spring! i cant wait for it :) Tomorrow is the shortest day, so from saturday its on! :)
 

Orion_metalhead

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There is a running theme of individuality and nature in a lot of metal; its not surprising that Bonsai would appeal to us.

My indoor plants will love the extra sunlight.
 
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