My 1 day mission to find and create something from generic and problem material

Hello all,
After scouting out all the Lowes and Home Depots etc over the last 10 years looking for possibly good bonsai material. I thought it might be a fun experiment to just grab some generic, sub par material and work on that. I think in the past 8 years, I may have found 2 good bonsai candidates. However..thousands and thousands of bad ones. I set out yesterday and found what I was looking for at a Lowes..a dwarf alberta spruce. I did not really look at it until I got home. The only thing I noticed was the the trunk was slightly thicker than the others. When I got it home, I noticed it had no taper, bulges in many areas going all the way up the trunk, moderate die back etc..

This was just an experiment, so to speak. This tree will never be shown..given the amount of smoke and mirrors wiring. Also, this much work on a conifer is extremely risky.

Over the last couple of years, I have been devoting some study to working with practically impossible material. Sometimes I wonder if it is a wasted effort. However, given the ratio of good material to bad. I am hoping that it may become fruitful.

After about 6 hours of work.. Here is what I came up with.

Rob

This is the tree as purchased



Here it is after pruning, but before wiring and carving.



With the shari added.



After wiring...

Well Done!

Looks like that back branch became the leader? Smoke and mirrors indeed!

One of the things that collecting trees from the wild has taught me is the art of finding something good in terrible material. Its definitely a skill worth practicing.

I found my best Euonymus at a lowes two years ago.
-Jay

PICEA GLAUCA CONICA OU ALBERTA NANA seems to be a species easy to grow in pot, but is not a good species for bonsai , it's my experience since 25 years .
My first bonsai was a picéa glauca conica, it is very sensitive to dust mites , spiders , and the diameter off the trunk increase 1/4 inch in 10 years !!!!!

abcd wrote:PICEA GLAUCA CONICA OU ALBERTA NANA seems to be a species easy to grow in pot, but is not a good species for bonsai , it's my experience since 25 years .
My first bonsai was a picéa glauca conica, it is very sensitive to dust mites , spiders , and the diameter off the trunk increase 1/4 inch in 10 years !!!!!

I agree! Although you really have done a great job with the styling. As an excersize it is first class as bonsai material.... Not so

Thanks drgonzo Can you post a pic of the euonymus. I would be interested in seeing it.

Thank you abcd and tony.. Yes, you are correct. The material is not good for bonsai. However, it makes the post a little more interesting. Also, since I wanted problematic material...This fit the bill quite well.

Also, this was purely for fun.. If the tree does survive and becomes a pleasing bonsai in the future. That will be a bonus.

Rob

p.s. Before and after close ups

hi,
a good bit of fun had there making a nice 2D tree image - to make it a bonsai though it needs to fit into pot narrower than the tree width and about as deep as the trunk thickness.........did you explore under the soil to see how much more 'wood' is down there ? there could be more trunk and some big initial roots that may never fit in a shallow pot.



good practice material though, even if it doesnt go on to be a classic in coming years.

Marcus

Thanks for the reply marcus.. I did some checking and and a bit of digging under the soil and it seems that the trunk is pretty level with the soil. I did not lift it out of the pot to examine the entire root ball though. Had it been a more promising piece of material to begin with, I would have. If I had to guess (which I don't really like to do) I would say that the root ball occupies maybe 60% of the current container.

This is just one of those projects that was for fun and so that I had something to work on. It seems like this season, I only really need to take wire off a few trees and do some maintenance pruning. I suppose this project was actually done out of boredam and because a lack of good stock to work on. For now, I'll just leave it alone and forget about it, just water and fertilizer. Who knows, maybe this small project for fun will turn out nice as the years go on.

p.s. I like the pot you provided in your virt.

Rob