Species snobbery

Woocash

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"Snobbery" is an attention getter sure, but likely attracting attention that doesn't suit your soul. At least I don't think you're Snobbish, since you're seemingly undecided still.
Ok, maybe snobbery was the wrong word, but it still stands that I will always prefer a gnarly old oak or maple to a perfectly manicured rhododendron or pyracantha because they will simply match, to my mind, what the essence of bonsai is more closely. I know that will irk some folk to say the least, that is not my intention. It probably isn’t even correct, it’s just my opinion of what bonsai is or should be. But hey, art is meant to be divisive, right? Or at least thought provoking.

Also, I am fully prepared to purchase and collect stupid amounts of plants that I am unlikely to be as invested in as the main ones I am willing to be successful - for the same reason that my Mum can’t go to a garden centre or nursery and leave empty handed. Plants are nice and the hands must be busy. They will just end up in the ‘experimental’ section.
 

Woocash

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I have somewhere between 43 and 130 species growing in my backyard. The sooner I find out what doesn't work for me, the less time I'll be wasting on those species in the future. Take JBP for example, the king of bonsai. People love them! I love looking at them too! I just found that no matter what I do to them, I can't seem to make them thrive. Not in full soil, not in various bonsai media, and the type of pot makes no difference. I'm happy to know that, because I was thinking about spending a pretty decent sum of money on a bigger specimen and that would've been a waste of money, effort and time. JRP and scots do very well, as do mugo's, jack pines, and a hand full of other pines. I wouldn't have known if I wouldn't have tried.
I believe it's better to have spent a few bucks on seeds and seedlings to see if it works, than to spend a couple hundred on something I might have to keep patching up for years before it finally dies.
Learning how to care for different varieties can help establish a good feel for plants overall. I learned a great deal when working with vegetables in a laboratory, things I can apply in bonsai too.
This is why I will not be shelling out on fancy material anytime soon. I mean, its not as if the required material isn’t growing on trees... I’m already dismayed at the cost of all the materials and kit needed to style and pot up a single £10 juniper. Still, what’s done is done.
 

sorce

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Don't mean to pick on your word choices...but with the rest of the Philosophy and such going on around here I guess it matters to mention that....
art is meant to be divisive, right?

I believe this is correct in this nonartistic age, but In an artistic age, more feminine, it wouldn't be true.

So...

Or at least thought provoking.
Hell yeah!

We should talk about it!
I gotta check what I wrote before....I'll be back.

Sorce
 

sorce

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Ok...so yeah, I don't think it's snobbery, I think it's you making a calculated personal decision to limit the number of different things you have to do to achieve success. It just happens to be by this controversial definition of tree that you are setting your limits by.

This is no different than me chosing to only, or mostly only, make rectangle bonsai pots. I want you to be able to throw my rectangles across the garden safely to kill squirrels. I'm not gonna realize this if I'm playing "Ghost" on the wheel.

It's discipline. Good for you to have it.

Some people don't understand discipline. More precisly, self discipline.

Sorce
 

Littlejoe919

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I don't do bonsai for anyone but me. I only buy trees/shrubs that speak to me, and I break the rules all the time.
I do tend to sell off what becomes boring, to upgrade the quality of my trees/shrubs. I only keep about 20 bonsai and/or pre bonsai at any one time.
 

Starfox

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Ahhh, visions of Patrick Swayze and his strong yet delicate embrace with Sorce at the wheel. That's what Sunday needed.

I only like Australian natives, I'd be perfectly content having them and nothing else. That's just me though and I do have others species but.... I don't know yet.
That said I recently decided to seriously try out pines which I have mostly stayed away from. Made a big plant order and included an JRP and Mugo and they were the only 2 products the place did not have. I see that as a sign, lol. They do say they will come eventually.
 

VAFisher

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I kinda agree about the tree/shrub thing although I have some azaleas, juniper and dwarf crapes that are shrubs. The actual trees just float my boat a little more. But I don't limit myself to just a few species. That would be boring for me. There's Japanese maple, trident maple, amur maple, native red maple, dogwood (a tree in the eastern US), water oak, water elm, American elm, Cedar elm, winged elm, Chinese elm, Bald cypress, American hornbeam, crape myrtle, Virginia pine, mugo pine, ponderosa pine, Colorado spruce, black hills spruce, engelmann spruce and eastern hemlock. Oh yeah and a tulip poplar experiment. Phew.
 

coh

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Ultimately the idea of bonsai (as it seems to me, anyway) is to produce a small-scale replica (*) of a large tree. Usually something old with lots of character. That can be achieved with any kind of material, whether a shrub like azalea or a maple, hornbeam, pine, etc.

Shrubs with naturally small leaves and twigs can often make more effective "replicas" of trees than the actual tree can. Azaleas and boxwoods in particular, I think, can make a more effective "oak bonsai" than most oaks can, especially when in leaf. Most oak leaves are too big and spoil the illusion of scale (except for huge bonsai). Of course, you lose the effectiveness of scale as soon as the azalea blooms, but most of the year those small leaves are a pretty good match for the size of the bonsai.

That said, to me there is something special about a bonsai of a normally massive tree that actually resembles the way that tree grows in nature. Something like a redwood, for example. That will always impress me more than using a shrub to create the same effect.

(*) Of course I don't mean an exact replica of a tree in nature, so don't get on me about that :)
 

just.wing.it

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At it's heart, bonsai is an expressive art. Regardless of what the material is that was used to make the image, if the image moves you (or someone else) then that is all that matters.
Yes.....

Unless its a Tropical!....ugh....

😜😝😂
 

amcoffeegirl

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Yes.....

Unless its a Tropical!....ugh....

😜😝😂
I was thinking that earlier when I read this post. Some folks don’t consider tropicals for Bonsai. Or succulents.
I have seen a mondo grass display that was gorgeous. I think it was used as an accent but in my mind it was beautiful alone.
So many plants can be grown in Bonsai culture. I have seen an arrowhead vine even.
Pretty sweet to consider that there is so many options.
 

Woocash

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How about a lonicera?
Well, that is possibly the least honeysuckle looking honeysuckle I have seen and it does give a nice image of a tree, (you can feel it coming) BUT it just lacks some of the majesty that a beastie old oak or Scots pine would have. I realise that’s not the be all and end all with all bonsai, that’s just my taste.

To be fair, honeysuckle that I know are the sort that grow in hedges or up the side of old buildings. My Nanny had a massive one on the front of her house with a massive trunk. It was a stunner and smelt delicious, so if I were to have one it would probably be Lonicera Periclymenum in some sort of cascade or something. I’m chucking out my own theory now aren’t I?
 

Warpig

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I was thinking that earlier when I read this post. Some folks don’t consider tropicals for Bonsai. Or succulents.
I have seen a mondo grass display that was gorgeous. I think it was used as an accent but in my mind it was beautiful alone.
So many plants can be grown in Bonsai culture. I have seen an arrowhead vine even.
Pretty sweet to consider that there is so many options.
Thats funny because i was having that same conversation with someone as i was reading this. That agree with it or not, you cant deny Tropicals have that same stigma to them.
 

Woocash

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Ok...so yeah, I don't think it's snobbery, I think it's you making a calculated personal decision to limit the number of different things you have to do to achieve success. It just happens to be by this controversial definition of tree that you are setting your limits by.

This is no different than me chosing to only, or mostly only, make rectangle bonsai pots. I want you to be able to throw my rectangles across the garden safely to kill squirrels. I'm not gonna realize this if I'm playing "Ghost" on the wheel.

It's discipline. Good for you to have it.

Some people don't understand discipline. More precisly, self discipline.

Sorce
Yes, but you only get to throw the rectangle ones once, unless you make ‘em really strong!

Thanks for the vote of confidence, mind. I’m also limited by space and have an abundance of free material to learn with. So choosing to specialise makes more sense for my current situation. That’s the theory anyway.

I reckon if I lived across the pond my viewpoint would be different as well. You have a much larger variety of native species to choose from, which is part of my thinking. When you grow up or live around these plants and are inspired by their natural shapes then it’s probably easier to visualise the smaller version.
 

Forsoothe!

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The concept of playing bonsai by someone else's rules offends my sensibilities. I am perfectly happy if someone with what I consider to be a Plain Jane JBP (which I don't like) gets raves from people who just keep walking past my tropical (or, fill-in-the-blank). If I expect to have the freedom to bonsai anything I want, why shouldn't other people be allowed to have any opinion of any tree (or non-tree)? I have one of everything. I'm a sucker when introduced to a new species. When somebody tells me about something new, my reaction is something like, "White Elephants? How many do ya got?"
 

Woocash

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The concept of playing bonsai by someone else's rules offends my sensibilities. I am perfectly happy if someone with what I consider to be a Plain Jane JBP (which I don't like) gets raves from people who just keep walking past my tropical (or, fill-in-the-blank). If I expect to have the freedom to bonsai anything I want, why shouldn't other people be allowed to have any opinion of any tree (or non-tree)? I have one of everything. I'm a sucker when introduced to a new species. When somebody tells me about something new, my reaction is something like, "White Elephants? How many do ya got?"
That’s a nice way to look at it. It’s one reason why bonsai competitions are a little odd, in my eyes. Being such a subjective area, surely you are just telling people how the art should appear by classifying the order of quality. What’s nice to you is not necessarily what may be pleasing to me.
 

leatherback

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It’s one reason why bonsai competitions are a little odd, in my eyes. Being such a subjective area, surely you are just telling people how the art should appear by classifying the order of quality. What’s nice to you is not necessarily what may be pleasing to me.
I am not sure I agree that bonsai is very subjective. Something can be a good tree based on a number of objective rules. Whether someone likes the species or the tree does not per se come into play there.
 

Adair M

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Ok...so yeah, I don't think it's snobbery, I think it's you making a calculated personal decision to limit the number of different things you have to do to achieve success. It just happens to be by this controversial definition of tree that you are setting your limits by.

This is no different than me chosing to only, or mostly only, make rectangle bonsai pots. I want you to be able to throw my rectangles across the garden safely to kill squirrels. I'm not gonna realize this if I'm playing "Ghost" on the wheel.

It's discipline. Good for you to have it.

Some people don't understand discipline. More precisly, self discipline.

Sorce
Good choice to focus on rectangles. By far most of the pots I’ve seen produced by American potters are wheel thrown. (I’m not sure how you get rectangles by throwing at squirrels... but “squirrel-thrown” might become the next rage!)
 
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