Deals and Steals

I’ve got some deals, and some outright steals to show you. This haul came from New England Bonsai Garden’s summer sale. I got to meet the owner Ashley, and he and the crew were more than supportive to our blossoming adventure in Bonsai. Here’s what I came home with:

Lets start with a nice little Privet .

This tree has clearly gone through a quite difficult time and died back almost to the base. Luckily it hung on and is now thriving. Check out the spectacular bark on this too.

It was suggested that a phoenix graft might be a good idea for this tree since it has such good features on its old structure. A phoenix graft in most cases would mean that you carve a groove into a fully dead tree and then pin a (usually young) tree into that groove. In this case, a groove would be created above the new growth and the new growth would be forced to grow into that groove. What do you think? Would this make a good post in the future, or do you have another idea for this tree?

Tree # 2 of the day is a Juniper.

This one already has some pretty solid structure to it, so I plan to do some cleaning, drop some branches, create some jin on the first branch to reduce its power a bit, and create some pads. I think the first major questions on this one are how dense/powerful should the first branch’s foliage be, and how much should the apex drop (if any). Let me know what you think?

Third up is a difficult Juniper. I believe a Shimpaku.

I honestly don’t know where to go with this one yet. Its trunks are quite straight and the main branches are very long. Its best attribute is its foliage. Some of the tips are VERY dense. Do you have any ideas on this one?

Fourth up is another Juniper that I believe to be a Shimpaku again. This one has much easier structure to work with.

We’ll have another post on this tree after cleaning it up. I promise there’s some quite good lines hidden in there. Can you see the lines?

Fifth and final for the day is another Juniper that I believe to be a San Jose Juniper. Here’s the tree at the current angle.

I am very excited about this one, but also a bit afraid of it. San Jose Juniper’s don’t bend quite as easily as some other Juniper species. It’s also fairly root-bound. Here’s my rough proposed angle after re-potting next year.

Oh boy are those lines nice! This is my vision and also the main reason I’m afraid of this tree:

There’s a fairly major branch at the top of the tree that would need to be significantly bent to make this happen. Maybe I just bend it half-way for now? Am I correct to be afraid or should I go for it? Should I wait until after re-potting since I have to re-pot next year?

I’d like to finish off this post by again thanking New England Bonsai Garden and their crew for being so supportive today. I would never expect the amount of support I received, but I truly believe that this type of support towards Bonsai education can significantly help speed up the growth of the Bonsai Culture in the US. We also have another post coming up soon which is going to feature the absolutely amazing deadwood on a group of Junipers that they currently have for sale.