was struggling how to word this

TheDarkHorseOne

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I'm afraid all that provenance would be lost on me. Firstly, I think any tree that has such age would deserve better than me as a host. Sure, it may teach me a lot to care for a beauty such as that or those, but I feel at my stage, my hands are too full of ham to do any justice. I'd rather admire a tree and it's owner's ability at that stage than bring any risk to one so long lived.

I'll stick with puttering around with my meager plants in pots. Maybe one day I'll be passing off such a thing, if I live well into my dotage, but right now, I need training wheels, not a Ferrari.
 

milehigh_7

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I'm afraid all that provenance would be lost on me. Firstly, I think any tree that has such age would deserve better than me as a host. Sure, it may teach me a lot to care for a beauty such as that or those, but I feel at my stage, my hands are too full of ham to do any justice. I'd rather admire a tree and it's owner's ability at that stage than bring any risk to one so long lived.

I'll stick with puttering around with my meager plants in pots. Maybe one day I'll be passing off such a thing, if I live well into my dotage, but right now, I need training wheels, not a Ferrari.

Still true for me... Maybe I can blame it on Vegas... Maybe not.
 

Ang3lfir3

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Attila was talking about a 5-figure tree, that's what I was referring to. I guess I'm too shocked that such trees would exist but I just can't imagine. The three figures are much more manageable.


awww ok I understand what you mean. As we mature in the art here (in America) we will also be creating a larger stable of more valuable trees ... its part of the maturing process and in some ways means the art is progressing
 

Ang3lfir3

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I'm afraid all that provenance would be lost on me. Firstly, I think any tree that has such age would deserve better than me as a host. Sure, it may teach me a lot to care for a beauty such as that or those, but I feel at my stage, my hands are too full of ham to do any justice. I'd rather admire a tree and it's owner's ability at that stage than bring any risk to one so long lived.

I'll stick with puttering around with my meager plants in pots. Maybe one day I'll be passing off such a thing, if I live well into my dotage, but right now, I need training wheels, not a Ferrari.

Not to be argumentative and I understand your motivations ..... however ..... this is the kind of thinking that hold people back for ages! I hope you reconsider it and find ways to work around the limitations you might perceive as being in your way..
 

Poink88

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Not to be argumentative and I understand your motivations ..... however ..... this is the kind of thinking that hold people back for ages! I hope you reconsider it and find ways to work around the limitations you might perceive as being in your way..
I agree...if you cannot handle a Ferrari at full throttle...no one is forcing you to. It can be cruised easily at 65mph as well. Same with bonsai trees.

I personally strive to get the best material I can, as soon as I can. With financial limitations...I mostly get cheap or free stuff though.
 

tmmason10

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awww ok I understand what you mean. As we mature in the art here (in America) we will also be creating a larger stable of more valuable trees ... its part of the maturing process and in some ways means the art is progressing

Trust me I'm all about progressing thr art and level of bonsai I'm America, I guess I just need my bank account to progress some more too!
 
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The 100 yo bonsai is a Japanese import from the late 50s that Eric and I disagreed about. It has had three important branches die back, and will need years of reconstruction, but I still think with work it would be worth the effort. It's not a spectacular tree... but we didn't put a spectacular suggested price on it either. Some of the trees had great potential, all had really nice bark. Some things only time can give us... bark is definitely one. You can graft and grow until you are blue in the face, but a maple takes decades to get fully barked to tertiary branches. That is always worth money to me. :)

I'll be amused to see what they get offered for when they hit BNW. I'd like to know how far on/off the market we were. We priced them with quick sale in mind, coupled with not cheating the owner. That's a hard balance to strike actually. I look forward to finding out what cousin Dick gets, if any strike his fancy. :)
 

Attila Soos

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Right on, those are the trees!

Two twisting pomegranates. These two can probably measure up with any pomegranate bonsai in the world. What's truly special about them, is that Jim grew them from very young material (possibly cuttings), and they have been grown in containter all their lives. So, they have no trunk-chops and no scars.
In general, old pomegranate bonsai is made from a collected stump, grown in someone's backyard. Needs lots of carving to make it usable, so they all have issues. These two, however, have none of that. They are simply perfect. And the twisting nebari/trunk is magnificent. Very rare, indeed.
 
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maninbox

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Is there a concern with trees just being old and at the end of thier life expectancy? I had never thought along those lines but I recently had one of my nicest acquisitions die. It was a white birch about 15-20 years old. I assumed that the death was my fault being that this tree was in a rather small bonsai pot. We get some real hot weather around here and I assumed that it just dried out in one day when I was at work and never recovered.
Anyhow, I got some feedback that suggested that maybe the tree was just old and that white birches don't live that long.
Do trees die from old age regardless of the quality of care? That would suck.
 

Attila Soos

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Do trees die from old age regardless of the quality of care? That would suck.

They do die. And birches usually live under 100. But 25 yrs is way too short, for a natural cause.

Bruce Hisayasu has a very old crape myrtle, probably the largest and best in the western world. Last time I inquired about it, he said that the tree is slowly declining, losing one branch after another, and needs to be re-designed. There is not much he can do about it.
 

Attila Soos

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Do trees die from old age regardless of the quality of care? That would suck.

They do die. And birches usually live under 100. But 25 yrs is way too short, for a natural cause.

Bruce Hisayasu has a very old crape myrtle, probably the largest and best in the western world. Last time I inquired about it, he said that the tree is slowly declining, losing one branch after another, and needs to be re-designed. There is not much he can do about it.
 

rockm

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"Do trees die from old age regardless of the quality of care? That would suck."

Depends on species. Some of the Japanese bonsai at the National Arboretum have been in bonsai training for a very long time. The Yamaki pine for instance, has been cultivated as a bonsai since 1625. Other pines in the collection have been bonsai since the early 1800's/late 1700's. None of them show signs of slowing down.

Birch are short-lived "pioneer" species that grow and reproduce very rapidly, colonizing areas with their offspring. It's a survival strategy, just like the longevity of pines. Birch are notorious for giving up as bonsai BTW. They drop limbs and entire trunks if pruned too agressively, in favor of root suckers from the root crown or from suckers away from the main trunk.
 

maninbox

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Thanks for the information. I planted 2 white birch (betula alba) multitrunk trees in the landscape in 1978. They did well to about 30 feet for about 28 years and then both died the same year. I assumed it was because my (quercus agrifolia) live oaks had grown up around them and started to shade them out. Maybe there is more to it than just the competition.
I think I'll stay away from white birches for a while.
 

TheDarkHorseOne

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Not to be argumentative and I understand your motivations ..... however ..... this is the kind of thinking that hold people back for ages! I hope you reconsider it and find ways to work around the limitations you might perceive as being in your way..

Time and experience, Ang. Can't buy them. They don't come in a can. Those are what I feel are my limitations. I don't feel that's holding me back, really. I just know right now those sorts of trees would be in better hands than mine. I think that admission isn't a cop out, but a personal understanding. Never said I won't get better, and never said I don't plan to. Today. Right now. I'd not buy those trees.
 

edprocoat

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I do not get the whole provenance appeal, nor do I desire a pre-made Bonsai completed flawlessly by some master . I would not want his Bonsai no more than I would want his underwear he wore during his styling of the tree. Let me put it this way, I bought a ticket for the 350 million dollar powerball drawing, I have kept and enjoyed Bonsai since a child if I were to win the whole pot with my ticket I would not care to buy a masterpiece from Japan or some great master. I would be up for taking a trip over to Germany and meeting Walter Pall and see if I could bribe him into taking me on a collecting trip to see if I could find a future specimen that I liked, ask him what he would do with it and maybe take his advice or maybe not. I would actually spend some money meeting many of you guys here with the same thought in mind, not to buy one of your finest, certainly look at them in person and compliment you on your work, but more get your viewpoint and digest it and see what my mind would regurgitate. For me the whole appeal to Bonsai is to see what I can do, I love to grow things and to mess with them. For me it would never be mine unless I made it.

ed
 

Ang3lfir3

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I do not get the whole provenance appeal, nor do I desire a pre-made Bonsai completed flawlessly by some master . I would not want his Bonsai no more than I would want his underwear he wore during his styling of the tree. Let me put it this way, I bought a ticket for the 350 million dollar powerball drawing, I have kept and enjoyed Bonsai since a child if I were to win the whole pot with my ticket I would not care to buy a masterpiece from Japan or some great master. I would be up for taking a trip over to Germany and meeting Walter Pall and see if I could bribe him into taking me on a collecting trip to see if I could find a future specimen that I liked, ask him what he would do with it and maybe take his advice or maybe not. I would actually spend some money meeting many of you guys here with the same thought in mind, not to buy one of your finest, certainly look at them in person and compliment you on your work, but more get your viewpoint and digest it and see what my mind would regurgitate. For me the whole appeal to Bonsai is to see what I can do, I love to grow things and to mess with them. For me it would never be mine unless I made it.

ed

interesting thoughts Ed and I totally get where you are coming from ... from our point of view ... we purchase trees that have been in development by others as material from which we can create the designs that we see ...

now there are two kinds of bonsai people (okay more than that but just go with me here) .... those that buy styled trees to maintain and enjoy with no intent of ever changing them.... lets call them "collectors" and there are those that buy styled trees or those that have been bonsai for sometime already with the intent to work over the tree and take it further than it already is ... lets call them "practitioners" ... for the most part I honestly think everyone here would fall in the second category

the concern I think many people have is that they feel that by buying someone else's tree that there is some sort of pre-ordained law that they must not change it ... I think that couldn't be further from the truth ... When we buy trees at auction or from a collection the reason is that we see something with some potential there to be worked with .... I've often discussed design with people in cases where radical work was needed to realize some new iamge and getting people to overcome the idea of jinning a branch that had been grown for decades can be a hard pill to swallow .... I can tell you that once you do choke it down, you begin to see things in a new light ... from personal experience it was eye opening to see our teacher jin a branch that he had been styling for 30yrs ... I could blather on for hours about the emotional hurdles many people face in bonsai (my self most of all) however I think you probably get my point and have had all you can take by now
 

Ang3lfir3

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Time and experience, Ang. Can't buy them. They don't come in a can. Those are what I feel are my limitations. I don't feel that's holding me back, really. I just know right now those sorts of trees would be in better hands than mine. I think that admission isn't a cop out, but a personal understanding. Never said I won't get better, and never said I don't plan to. Today. Right now. I'd not buy those trees.

A wise man knows his own limitations and lives each day pushing them ..... and so I think you are a wise man .... just don't ever sell yourself short (knowing you have had some prior experience in bonsai already) ...
 

edprocoat

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interesting thoughts Ed and I totally get where you are coming from ... from our point of view ... we purchase trees that have been in development by others as material from which we can create the designs that we see

I can agree with this, I not only understand this aspect of buying anothers tree, but as I have posted here in another thread that if I buy another pine I will get one that has been started towards a Bonsai as in good pre-bonsai to save all the effort of sorting out the roots and have a start with branching, and yes if I had unlimited funds I might even buy a well established Bonsai that I seen something else in I thought I could bring out. That said I would still actually rather meet the people who designed the tree and talk with them, I am a very verbal type person, I enjoy the exchange in conversation, I even enjoy a good debate/argument at times. I would love to meet you and tour the place you work at, I would also love to meet Bill Valvannis, Smoke, October, Rockm or any of the others who have produced such outstanding examples of Bonsai that I have seen posted here. To me that would beat any provenance associated with any Bonsai.

ed
 

Attila Soos

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Thanks for the information. I planted 2 white birch (betula alba) multitrunk trees in the landscape in 1978. They did well to about 30 feet for about 28 years and then both died the same year. I assumed it was because my (quercus agrifolia) live oaks had grown up around them and started to shade them out. Maybe there is more to it than just the competition.
I think I'll stay away from white birches for a while.

Yes, Southern California is a hit-or-miss for white birches. They don't last long down here. Live much longer in the north, but it is still a short-lived species.
 

dick benbow

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I wanted the slant maple and chuhin black pine so bad, I could taste it. I went with the slant maple. here's a pic. It was totally dry, so i'm soacking it in water with B vitamin. Then i intend to remove all the moss and jab holes thru out the soil and pray for a mild winter so in february i can get it into a proper pot. The pot it's in is too high depth wise and too small in length. It's just a plain acer palmatum but i find they really show the color best in the fall. there is a very nice root over rock mugho. But it was way out of my budget. another maple sold this morning
in addition to mine. the boxwood pictured with my maple was nice and the pot was wonderful.

Wish i was born wealthy :)
 

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