Under-used\under-rated plants

[M. Frary]

The one I got from Grouper52 had no sand in the soil.
I have all his notes on what he did and he has a thread on it here too. I think he did it by the half bare root method. I'll check.
Or if and when he shows back up we can ask. The one I pictured is in about half sand and half bonsai soil.

 

[erb.75]

I have two dwarf pinus strobus v. "diggy". The have smaller needles and look pretty good as pre bonsai. I'm taking it slow with them. Mainly, year one I might repot one of them, and just focus on getting the tree as healthy as I can.

Interestingly, both have weak tops with a lot of brown needles, but low on the tree it is very green. Might be basally dominant? It was a hell of a deal though $10-$20 per tree with 3'' trunks from a local place...discounted from 160! Fall super saver sale!
will post pictures later with progressions

correction...I had 2 p. strobus. They bit the dust. Sometimes you get bad plants when you buy them at the end of the year sales. Looks like they had been root bound for a long time. Least I didn't spend too much on them

 

[Eric Group]

I'm performing horticultural experiments on Acer macrophylum. It's an Oregon native Bigleaf maple. The leaves of this species can be reduced significantly.

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They're capable of second flushes and defoliation. The new foliage is beautiful.
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Fall colors are great:
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The thing about these Maples with large leaves though- it is not just leaf size but the intermodal distance and petiole length that becomes a real problem. Even on the reduced one, you can see excessively long petioles makes it look out of sorts as a Bonsai.

 

[parhamr]

The thing about these Maples with large leaves though- it is not just leaf size but the intermodal distance and petiole length that becomes a real problem. Even on the reduced one, you can see excessively long petioles makes it look out of sorts as a Bonsai.

Yes, they're not the most ideal summer image. I am still focusing on thickening growths so my water and fertilizer routines are contributing to some longer extension growths. When they're starved and more dry they do produce smaller foliage, internodes, and petioles.

My plan is to focus on their winter image.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

There are a few Pinus bungeana out there as bonsai. I have a few in the works; also just bought 2 pounds of seed. If anyone has one or has worked with them, please PM me as I'm researching techniques to train them. My best one was in a grow bed for a few years and a deer ate all the needles off. Now it has twice as many branches . The seeds are to start some controlled experiments.

The key for bark exfoliation seems to be exposure to sunlight. I've owned 5 of the cultivars, but the graft unions have always been rough. 'Silver Ghost' seems the most appealing of cultivars, with 'Rowe Arboretum' being the least.

I have a few seedling Pinus bungeana finishing their 3rd summer. Big green needles, in bundles of 2 & or 3, pretty thick. So far seedlings in Anderson flats (15 x 15 x 4 inches) on the ground are winter hardy in zone 5b far north 'burbs of Chicago. First summer was juvenile foliage, looked like a seedling spruce, but bright green. In same flat I have Pinus edulis - Colorado Pinion, which have bright blue-gray juvenile foliage, and also seems winter hardy in zone 5b. During the last 2 winters coldest we have had is -17 F. (-27 C) which is typical low for our area. So far so good, but it is hard to say anything bonsai related about trees that young.

Last week saw a couple 8 foot tall in 40 gallon nursery cans P. bungeana at a Michigan nursery. The nursery was in a shady location, surrounded by tall trees, bark was mostly light gray, with only a hint of exfoliation. The trees were a couple hundred $$$ more than I thought fair for nursery stock, and that was with a 20% discount. The needles were thick, green, in bundles of 2 or 3 and some bundles of 4 and maybe 6+ inches long. The needles were more widely spaced on the first and second year growth than typical in a JBP or P. sylvestris. But that may be due to these trees being in a shady location. Over all, the P. strobus next to it seemed to have more bonsai potential. Overall impression was of a thick needled scotts pine or sparsely needled JBP, with weirdly smooth white-gray bark, not that of a relative of JWP which it botanically is in the 5 needle pine group. Odd. Really odd. My guess full sun would tighten up the needle spacing, but it probably really is a species best for full size, imperial sized bonsai, at least 4 feet tall and with thick trunks. The exfoliating bark could be pretty cool, but this won't be an easy species to get up to a useful size very quick. At least that is my guess, from what I've seen.

Just because I like the idea of exfoliating bark, I will keep an eye out for a low grafted bungeana ' Silver Ghost', thanks for the tip on that. Might use it in the landscape, though I can't help wanting to turn everything into bonsai. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Hackberry is over looked, C. laevegata (spelling?) in the south, C occidentalis, just about everywhere, and 3 other less common North American native species. All should work well for bonsai.

We have both hackberry and sugarberry here in Missouri. But we also see dwarf hackberry (C. tenuifolia) growing around here. I'd like to try getting my hands on one to put in a pot, but it tends to grow on glades. So it's not easy to dig up a tree growing mostly in rock.