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TPT Bonsai Thread! Show off your collection!

65K views 617 replies 73 participants last post by  plantbrain 
#1 ·
So a couple people were suggesting we do this. So we are :hihi:

Post pics, list species, anything special you're doing, just summarize and talk even if no one is listening, etc. :icon_lol:

I'll start.




My Chinese Elm and first bonsai. Got this guy in mid-late February of this year. I'm surprised it's fared this well with everything I've put it through. It's bouncing back though :proud:

I'll post pics of my Maple tomorrow, it's cheering up after its 2 day ride in a dark USPS box.
 
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#36 ·
I've got some that are real nice there. That's a quality I seek and shows age and power.

Juniper......
Cork Bark Elm...
Dawn Redwood group.........
European Olive.........

The Juniper is "done".
The Cork bark needs a trim and the new pot to fill in with moss/ground cover.

Lately I've been using Gloss and other aquatic species as ground cover experiments.
The Gloss you saw in my 120 Gal was living in a Ficus bonsai for 2 years, then I added it to my tank.

Dawn redwood needs to simply stay the same size and fatten up the trunk and branches. I may repot to a larger container some day.
The Olive might be a candidate for over a serpentine rock, I do not like the pot and the ground cover did not take well as I'd hoped.
So this will be changed this fall.

I have a larger Cork Bark oak I got 2 years ago as a pre bonsai and then a smaller one with nicer form which needs time mostly.
The Ficus are recovering from cold and winter, but have started to leaf out good.

The Manzanita is a pre bonsi still, it'll be 2-3 years before I call it a bonsai. They take more work and are wild collected. I will get some more pines this summer in the mountains and another species of Manzy also that come from sea level elevations.
 
#38 ·


This is old pic of the manzy, the base is about head sized, the branches have been slowly trimmed back and while the roots adapt to this pot.

It will be transferred to a small pot this fall.




Last Fall before trimming:



Chicken wire to spot the squirrels from burying nuts in the pots. They get trapped and relocated if they do it, but another one moves right in to the territory asap.
I caught 40 or so at my last place.

New one would show in a 1-2 days.
 
#52 ·
WOW. That maple is absolutely GORGEOUS. Do you have any "progression" pictures as it went along? How long did that take?
That hornbeam was a rescue/labor of love for me. You can't see it, but the top third of the tree was basically one huge wound with thin ribbons of cambium left. With my sensei's guidance I carved it down to get better taper and then grew it out to heal the wounds. Painted with pure liquid sulfur on the wounds to protect the dead areas. It was eventually sold as it was not developing a proper nebari.

The shimpaku turned out amazing for a first styling thanks to my sensei. I got it as a grafted dwarf shimpaku on regular shimpaku roots. It was in a 4" pot before that weekend. I spent an entire weekend wiring on it to produce that. A young tree with boundless potential.

Ah, yes that maple was my first true bonsai. All others before that were regular nursery stock that I had styled with varying degrees of success. It came from someone in the San Francisco Bonsai Society and had been a bonsai for 30yrs. before I acquired it. I have had it for 13 years. It is one of 5 that I have kept since my daughter was born. Not the best, rarest, or highest quality, but by far my most valued. It is currently "recovering" in a much larger pot to be re-styled completely this coming winter. It cannot currently be considered a "bonsai", but merely tree-in-pot as my sensei would say.

Progression pictures are stuck on a hard drive that is having "issues". Sometimes technology sucks.
 
#49 ·
Nice thread. I've been "practicing" more or less for the past 5 years or so. Nothing worth posting yet however. Finally learning patience as in the past I always tried to rush things and wound up killing several potensai. This summer I brought back a couple of nice pots from China (nothing locally in Lexington really as far as bonsai material go) and transferred an ornamental peach that I grew from seed a few years ago and kept rough pruning into one of the pots this spring and it's showing some great growth. Most promising tree yet for me!
 
#56 ·
Get some annealed wire.
Yeah, I'll probably anneal my own for this tree, at least for the first wiring. I have a bunch of old copper wiring left from doing some electrical work and since I shouldn't need a lot of wire for this one tree, I figured I'd try annealing. In the future I'll probably buy a selection of different wire for other trees as I get more into bonsai. I may end up buying it anyways if I screw up the annealing process. Buddy of mine is a jeweler, he said he'd show my how to do it, so it should turn out ok. I'll have plenty of 10g, 12g, and 14g wire, so that's a start anyways.
 
#63 ·
speaking of wire, i should probably get some more. im out :(

I might do a workshop at natures way, during their open house. they are having Yamil Collazo and Mauro Stremberger coming in! if i do one, it will be a tropical workshop with Yamil! :D its only $65!! i think i might!!
 
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