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Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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I have close to 100 trees, the oldest can't compare to that ancient tree, at only 146 years, and several others at 50-100, but most are 25 years old or less. It takes tremendous patience. The fastest route to a decent bonsai is collecting from the wild, but even those that I collect from the mountains require 2-3 years to adjust and grow healthy roots before I can start working on them.
Nature does amazing things, with saplings buried in snow every winter at high elevations. I do have some planted from seed, from 8 to 25 years old now, but at my age would not do that again.
Yes when I was either in high school or middle school. I killed my bonsai! My parents got me a book and I even root pruned it, made a special soil mix etc. What I didn't understand is that evergreens need water in winter, too. Now I look back, the soil must have frozen in the pot...
I have close to 100 trees, the oldest can't compare to that ancient tree, at only 146 years, and several others at 50-100, but most are 25 years old or less. It takes tremendous patience. The fastest route to a decent bonsai is collecting from the wild, but even those that I collect from the mountains require 2-3 years to adjust and grow healthy roots before I can start working on them.
Nature does amazing things, with saplings buried in snow every winter at high elevations. I do have some planted from seed, from 8 to 25 years old now, but at my age would not do that again.
How wonderful. How do you care for them in winter cause I know it can get cold and grey there in winter. Can you share some pictures?
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,576 posts, read 81,186,228 times
Reputation: 57813
Quote:
Originally Posted by no kudzu
How wonderful. How do you care for them in winter cause I know it can get cold and grey there in winter. Can you share some pictures?
Our winters are fairly mild, so I put mulch around and over the pots. It rarely gets much below 20F.
Some of the less hardy trees go into a small greenhouse that I can heat when needed, and the tropical trees come into the house all winter.
These pis (below) were taken last winter when we got the one and only small snow storm.
From left, two Ponderosa Pines collected from the Rockies at 10,000' elevation, then a Deodara Cedar,
Weeping Larch, Japanese Maple, Chinese Elm, and Weeping Hemlock. Below left on the grown are some Sitka Spruce.
I have over 400 potted plants and of them more then 100 are trees. I got my first bonsai in 1983 for my 23rd birthday, a small Japanese maple in a 1 gallon pot, I pulled it out of the pot and washed all the soil off the roots then put a rock under one of the larger roots before potting it in a shallower pot. It has gone through many changes in 32 years and is now in a nice bonsai pot and the rock is tightly encased in the root. My largest, though technically bonsai's end at 8 feet, bonsai is 18 feet tall started from seed in 1992, it is a Monterey cypress with a trunk over 5 feet in circumferance and next to it is a Junper started from seed the same day that I planted it in a hole on a piece of serpentine, it has overgrown the serpentine with its roots in to the pot the rock is on. I have most of my bonsai under the Monterey Cypress for its shade, it is still in a half wine barrel sunken below ground lever and its roots burst through the bottom a long time ago. I have a bonsai'd swamp cypress I got as a tiny plant in 1984 and it is just under 8 feet tall with a 10 inch diameter trunk, it is in a 90 gallon pond as part of a natural filter for my 220 gallon goldfish pond. I have two Dawn Redwoods, both the same age around 18, one I planted over a dogs grave about 6 years ago and is over 10 feet tall, the bonsai'd one is about 3 feet tall.
How I would love to see some pictures. Sounds like a wonderful hobby for somebody in the right climate and pretty stationary (not planning to move very much).
First picture is of the Monterey with the bonsai beneath it. Second is the Japanese maple, third is the swamp cypress followed by its trunk then the trunk of the juniper that is 23 years old, but only as thick as the base of my thumb and last is a horse chestnut in a wine barrel that I started from seed in 1995.
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