What is this?

[Vance Wood]

Great advice, lesson learned, next question...
What are the basic principles in chosing stock?

Gerhard

PS: Sorry I have to be so tenacious, but I cannot let the opportunity pass without learning this too!!

The most difficult feature of any tree to develop, control, and change is the trunk. It can be summed up in two major areas of misconception.

1.) Most beginners go out and purchase a tree because somewhere in their mind the tree kind of reminds them of some bonsai they may have seen, even if just a little bit.

2.) Most beginners think that most good bonsai are grown up into bonsai from smaller less mature stock.

Let's approach reality from #2 first. Most good bonsai are cut down from larger stock, not developed upwards from small trees or seedlings. Even if the seedling and small tree market is used it is mostly to acquire hard to find stock that is placed in the ground or large growing containers untill it gets to a point where it can be "Cut Down" into a credible bonsai.

Point # 1 when searching for good stock you always look for the trunk first. The bigger and more tapered the trunk the better. For the most part branches can be developed, or grafted into places where they are needed. This usually means that the trees you select will probably be considerably larger in size than the bonsai you desire to make. The Japanese Maple in my gallery was over six foot tall originally. It is now about twelve inches tall give or take a few.

There should of course be an understanding what materials are good candidates for bonsai, which are easy, which are moderately difficult, and which verge on being impossible. This is leaving out those trees that will not work at all.

 

[gve]

Vance, I wish I could visit you to learn from you. What a paradigm shift to realise bonsai = "reducing" and not "growing into". Thanks a lot. Like one of my friends always says:"This I can take home with me"

Gerhard

 

[Vance Wood]

You flatter me, but thank you for the praise. Maybe some day I can come and visit you, I would love to see Switzerland. In all honesty though, I have not told you anything any advanced or intermediate bonsaist in your country could not have told you if they had taken the time to think about it. That's the problem with teaching.

Sometimes those who are very good at something do so much from instinct that they take for granted some of the down to earth mundane principles that the rest of us have to figure out along the way-- if we are lucky. No one ever taught me that one, I had to figure it out, like Newton and the apple. Every body knew that an apple would eventually fall out of a tree, but it was Newton that asked why. He then tried to figure it out when no one could tell him anything but fairy stories and old wives tales. Much of what those that are new to bonsai think and believe seems to come from an impression that you have to wait a very long time as you watch a tree grow into a bonsai. This is how some of these shady seed sellers can get away with selling seeds labled as bonsai seeds.

Sometimes the most obvious lessons contain the most profound knowledge.

In short I am very glad I have been a help to you.

 

[Anonymous User]

From an article I wrote last year... (Condensed)

I had the ultimate honor of accompanying Vance Wood on a trip to a nursery here in Michigan. To say Vance is experienced at nursery crawling is an understatement; most of what I know about nursery collecting I learned from posts made by Vance on an internet forum, long before I met him in person.

After arriving late because I was looking for his street off of the wrong road, Vance and I headed out to the nursery where we found some great deals and I got to watch this man evaluate Mughos and other species first hand. The most valuable lesson I learned from Vance is to forget the foliage, in fact he doesn't even consider it when selecting a tree. Foliage can be trained, shaped, removed, and replaced, it's the trunk and roots that make or break stock.

In nurseries the problem is that the trunks and roots are often buried under dirt, needles and other debris and if you want to see what's under there you have to "see" with your fingers. This is not a sport for the neat freaks, you will get dirty and you'll spend hours removing the dirt from under your nails. On the plus side, you'll find some great deals and some excellent stock.

Vance and I went though many Mughos that day and passed on 80% of them judging by what we could feel alone.

Using these methods I also picked up a couple nice Junipers as well as shown below. All of this stock would have been overlooked or passed on by the bonsaist who only concentrates on branching or what is above the soil line.

Vance was an excellent instructor and showed me things I couldn't have learned without hands on experience. We were two smiling lunatics with a truck jammed full of trees on the way home. The bed and the back seat was full of trees, we couldn't have taken another tree home if they were free.

Note: The Mugos I helped Vance select that day ended up being the material used for the ABS Best New Talent Contest. Small world indeed!


Will

 

[zelk]

i think its a San Jose juniper