Roots. horrible yet adorable

[Eckhoffw]

I’m sure that along the way of finding terrific nebari, or in work producing wonderfully radial roots,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
You come across the:

NAsty -GNarly -TAngled ASs ROOTs
that are like, “shut up I’ve got Character!!!!!!!

When nature is soo ugly that it becomes beautiful, I think you gotta roll with it. Right?

Please share your gnarliest, most grotesque Roots that you’ve come to adore!

I’ll start with this thuja-hetz midget
I just picked up for 8$ out of a parking lot. Some shari and mushrooms as well!

My other example: Strobus.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Thuja occ. 'Hetzi's Dwarf' is an excellent Thuja cultivar for bonsai. If you bury that ugly nebari, Thuja will make new surface roots, in a few years you can have a nice, radial nebari that won't make bonsai judges vomit.

Strobus, well there's no fixing that kind of ugly, and it's strobus, which means it will never be anything but ugly.

Partly teasing, partly being brutally honest.

Good news on the Thuja, you can root cuttings from it too. In case you don't want to fix ugly. The cuttings will be good for bonsai.

 

[HorseloverFat]

If you bury that ugly nebari, Thuja will make new surface roots

Agreed! I’ve run across thuja branches which “self-layered” within overgrowth... lots of growth.. JUST how one would “want it”...

I like this thread.. and hope to contribute.

 

[Mike Corazzi]

 

[CWTurner]

From the Tree Thread.

CW

 

[jaco94]

Here is a new challenger, my little octopus which has tangled its tentacles ...



In addition to the spaghetti-shaped nebari, the trunk line is crank-shaped with two angles at 90 ° C ...

It was a little too many weak points, so I looked for a new position

Today

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Strobus, well there's no fixing that kind of ugly, and it's strobus, which means it will never be anything but ugly.

And they smell bad too. Every time I work on my strobus, I smell pine trees.. but mixed with aged cheese.
I'm still keeping it though! Needle reduction is going pretty well: already at 50% the length of last year.

 

[penumbra]

This post has got to be making some of the Lords of Bonsai really cringe.
Funny. I will post one later that will further the cause.

 

[Eckhoffw]

Here is a new challenger, my little octopus which has tangled its tentacles ...

View attachment 322035

In addition to the spaghetti-shaped nebari, the trunk line is crank-shaped with two angles at 90 ° C ...

It was a little too many weak points, so I looked for a new position

Today

View attachment 322042

Noooo!!!! You hid all that beautiful!
But wait, how did you do that?
Did you reduce the roots? Where they all go?
Very nice.

 

[jaco94]

Noooo!!!! You hid all that beautiful!
But wait, how did you do that?
Did you reduce the roots? Where they all go?
Very nice.

Thank you, not complicated, I rotated the tree to hide one of the two ugly curves of the trunk (90 ° angles are to be avoided), and the shape of the pot allowed me to replace the tree differently and hide part of the ugly roots .
A little drawing

 

[Clicio]

From the Tree Thread.
View attachment 321999
CW

This neagari jbp is mine, and I just love those roots! I don't find them ugly at all, but...adorable!

 

[Mike Corazzi]

View attachment 321992

This tree is now dead. Victim of heat and wrong climate for Scots.

 

[Clicio]

This tree is now dead. Victim of heat and wrong climate for Scots.

Really a pity, it was a great tree!

 

[penumbra]

It is a pity.
I need 4 seasons as do my plants.

 

[Clicio]

It is a pity.
I need 4 seasons as do my plants.

Scots Pines, as Japanese White Pines, don't survive without at least 40 days with temperatures below 40f.
That's the only reason I don't even try them here.

 

[Mike Corazzi]

Really a pity, it was a great tree!

It endured 20 years of the "wrong" place. I too am sad about it.
Had I been smart enough to shelter it THIS year from the incredible "oven of 2020" it may have made it.

 

[Mayank]

Here's my ugly one. His name is Gandalf. He's in a Linda Ippel pot.

 

[jaco94]

I like the originality of these roots, they bring stability.

 

[penumbra]

As promised, here are some uuuugly roots............

Variegated Ginkgo, slow growing, ugly roots and uglier graft. Was never to be intended as a bonsai, will go in ground next spring, possible sooner.

 

[penumbra]

American Elm, ugly to the point of nausea. Collect in spring and just growing out. Next year I will train it over a rock and see what I can salvage. I am a sucker for the low man on the totem pole.