The Yamadori Thread

yenling83

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Great trees!

Any advise on going on your first outing? I have always found my trees in friends or families yards, or nursery stock.

This Saturday will be my wife and my first trip out hiking to search.

Thanks @chicago1980, really appreciate it! @Bonsai_Jon I'm not sure if this is for me or not. But I'll chime in anyways:) Here's info i'd give to anyone getting into collecting. Rule #1 is always respect the land and the trees. Get everything set up for aftercare before hand, use 100% pumice, build a box to fit the root ball and not much more to create a good balance of water and oxygen. Get as many fine roots as possible. If you find a great tree, I would suggest leaving it alone this year. Collect some thing smaller, younger and not as good now to gain experience and learn from your mistakes before going after something really nice. Different tools are required for different digging/extraction environments. Collecting in Spring or Fall is best. I would highly recommend taking re-potting lessons from someone like Boon, Michael H, Ryan Neil, Peter Tea, Matt Reel, Tyler S, etc. as a lot of this transfers over to aftercare, properly handling trees and potting them up. Good luck!!
 

BrianBay9

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Great trees!

Any advise on going on your first outing? I have always found my trees in friends or families yards, or nursery stock.

This Saturday will be my wife and my first trip out hiking to search.


Get permission before you dig. Best areas are at the edges of forest - along creeks, clearings, road cuts, utility easements, rocky ridges. Learn to identify the best of your local species, and which are most likely to survive collecting. Elms are great for a beginner east of the Mississippi. Focus on the lowest foot or so of the trunk. You're looking for good root spread, aged bark, movement in the lower trunk, low branching, trunk taper. You'll probably not find all of that in any one tree, but the more good features the better.
 

chicago1980

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Thanks @chicago1980, really appreciate it! @Bonsai_Jon I'm not sure if this is for me or not. But I'll chime in anyways:) Here's info i'd give to anyone getting into collecting. Rule #1 is always respect the land and the trees. Get everything set up for aftercare before hand, use 100% pumice, build a box to fit the root ball and not much more to create a good balance of water and oxygen. Get as many fine roots as possible. If you find a great tree, I would suggest leaving it alone this year. Collect some thing smaller, younger and not as good now to gain experience and learn from your mistakes before going after something really nice. Different tools are required for different digging/extraction environments. Collecting in Spring or Fall is best. I would highly recommend taking re-potting lessons from someone like Boon, Michael H, Ryan Neil, Peter Tea, Matt Reel, Tyler S, etc. as a lot of this transfers over to aftercare, properly handling trees and potting them up. Good luck!!
Hoping to repot with Peter tea next year. Amazing Bonsai artist.
 

Waltron

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who can Id these pines and juniper? I'm thinking red pine..but doesn't seem like red pine buds..juniper.. common? Don't think it's ground..North west Michigan...IMG_0591.JPGIMG_0596.JPG
This juni will come out with ease and many fine, close, roots.
how about this? Michiganzita?

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This tree was cool to stumble upon. It is alive but only a few buds way up there. Found dead bodies of awesome yamadori all over this area.
IMG_0789.JPG IMG_0793.JPG
 

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M. Frary

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who can Id these pines and juniper? I'm thinking red pine..but doesn't seem like red pine buds..juniper.. common? Don't think it's ground..North west Michigan...View attachment 152986View attachment 152988
This juni will come out with ease and many fine, close, roots.
how about this? Michiganzita?

View attachment 152993
This tree was cool to stumble upon. It is alive but only a few buds way up there. Found dead bodies of awesome yamadori all over this area.
View attachment 152990 View attachment 152991
They look like the regular common junipers everywhere here. Sometimes they grow a little more upright but are usually spread out. There are some by West Branch that are over 10 feet tall. But they are also like 30 feet wide.
As for the pine the picture isn't so good but....
up here if it isn't a red pine it can only be a Scots.
There are only so many pines where you and I live.
Jack,EWP,red and Scots.
One of the best ways to describe a Scots pine is to say it's a crooked growing red pine with Jack pine needles.
It's one of the other. Has to be.
 

Waltron

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IMG_0725.JPG IMG_0776.JPG IMG_9877.JPG IMG_9819.JPG @M.Frary Mike, thanks for chiming in, this is on the other side of the state as you, ive noticed its slightly, but definitely differnt ecosystem over there. Spinniken actually thought it might be an Austrian pine.. my original thought was Scotts. Def not Jack or EWP, this is on a giant lake michigan sand dune, I counted at least 4 different junipers in this area, not including ERC, the ground, common, and alligator or whatever that yellowish one, and this. I think this is like a blue rug, except its not blue. very possibly could be an volunteer from landscapes long ago. the majority of the dune is thuja, birch. my buddies parents own a huge section of private dune and beech front.
 

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M. Frary

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View attachment 153069 View attachment 153068 View attachment 153063 View attachment 153062 @M.Frary Mike, thanks for chiming in, this is on the other side of the state as you, ive noticed its slightly, but definitely differnt ecosystem over there. Spinniken actually thought it might be an Austrian pine.. my original thought was Scotts. Def not Jack or EWP, this is on a giant lake michigan sand dune, I counted at least 4 different junipers in this area, not including ERC, the ground, common, and alligator or whatever that yellowish one, and this. I think this is like a blue rug, except its not blue. very possibly could be an volunteer from landscapes long ago. the majority of the dune is thuja, birch. my buddies parents own a huge section of private dune and beech front.
The one picture looks like a fir tree of some sort.
And that spot looks like a place over by Frankfort I've been to trimming powerlines.
As to the different junipers you could be right. We only have the nasty ones over here.
Do you have a Scots pine near you that you can go look at?
The buds are a good way to tell. I have a tree with a little darker colored bark like that and the new growth looks just like that.
Whatever tree that is I would dig it up for sure. It's a 2 needle pine with short needles living wild in Michigan.
I call that a win,win.
 

Waltron

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yea that was a fir I came across, the first photo in the second series of photos is of a badass jack pine yamadori, I did dig it up, its hanging in there, dune collection is easy on the collector, as far as removal, but hard on the tree, some new growth has died back a bit, but not all the way, but they are standing erect and showing sap, bud, and needle movement, which I've come to know as a sign of root growth and recovery in jack pine. the color is not good overall, but mostly because of the old needles, and burt ends of this years growth. there is good color in the right places, the current overall image would not reflect my very positive feelings about that tree's recovery to most people who do not know the jack pine. it was collected the following day after fathers day. pumice, akadama, fir bark, dune sand, dune moss, and fresh mychoriza from a healthy repotted jack pine in a large grow bag to accommodate the awkard dune roots. July would have been better, I know this as fact now. I talk to that tree every night before bed. tell it how its going to be ok and how im going to look after it. I will go back for the un ID'd pine and juniper at some point down the road. I stuck 3 different pine cones in the hole, if anyone cares, but for the record, there are thousands of square miles of un touched, protected, wild sand dune as far as the eye can see filled with billions of flora in this area. this tree appeared as an ant in an ant farm from a mere 50 yards away on the steep incline, not even sure how I managed to notice it, took me an hour to even find it again piecing back clues from photos I took the previous day. again, I did secure legitimate permission. I took a birch not pictured here as well at the same time to test how trees from this area will react, I attempted to leave the foliage on the birch, and thought it was going to power through after one day, as other birch have in the past when I collected in leaf, but after monitoring for 48 hours the leaves started to droop so I did a complete defoliation on the birch, which was a mistake for anyone reading this btw, should have done it immediately after collection. all branches are in leaf today, leaves 1/3 the size of the original birch leaves.
 

arcina

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Southwestern white pine. This is a very old tree with nice deadwood, bark and movement. I am not completely sure what to keep. There are 3 main areas of branches. The top seems to be to far away so I'm thinking to remove it. The next branch is a very old, long one. It will require some bending. I could remove it and build a shorter tree with the first branch, which has a lot of ramification. However, I kind of like it. Maybe keep it all the branches and make a very tall literati. Any ideas and feedback is appreciated.
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The 360 of the tree is loaded in my website.

http://www.chobonsaiyamadori.com/#/own

SW White Pine 11
 

arcina

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A yamadori that I have never seen used as a bonsai. It is a desert mountain mahogany. It is a really interesting tree with super small leaves, nice bark, amazing deadwood and really hard wood. It is really dense so the trees are heavy. It has very little flowers like trumpets and the fruit is like a hairy tail. Additionally, it ramifies very well, it responds really well to chops and then pushes new grow from below the cut.

The 360 can be found in my website:

http://www.chobonsaiyamadori.com/#/own
Desert Mountain Mahogany




00001.jpg
 

chicago1980

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A yamadori that I have never seen used as a bonsai. It is a desert mountain mahogany. It is a really interesting tree with super small leaves, nice bark, amazing deadwood and really hard wood. It is really dense so the trees are heavy. It has very little flowers like trumpets and the fruit is like a hairy tail. Additionally, it ramifies very well, it responds really well to chops and then pushes new grow from below the cut.

The 360 can be found in my website:

http://www.chobonsaiyamadori.com/#/own
Desert Mountain Mahogany




View attachment 153212
Wow! Extrodinary tree!
 
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