Collecting new material help

First let me express I am NEW NEW NEW to this.
second I live in Northeastern NY about 20 miles North of Albany
3rd I am limited to what I can find in my yard
4th I love the idea of thick truck bonsai

images below show a choke cherry air layered this past spring that I intend to chop this fall? or do I wait till spring? and Ideas what to eliminate?
2 oaks to consider, thoughts?
a beach I want to air layer that was noticed after tearing vines from the tree, would like to air layer at a steep angle to preserve the dead wood for carving and the thick trunk of the curvy branches above.

be gentle... I am new and am limited to what I can collect... the oaks I figured on chopping in early spring and waiting to see what they produce.

Whriley,

suggestions -

[1] Read up on ground growing for trunk thickening, also placement of the first 6 branches, and proportion, with regards to how a tree grows.

[2] Try not to annoy Jim Lewis with images that are on their side.

[3] Do some images of what you want your efforts to grow into. How tall, how thick the trunk and so on.

[4] Above all else learn to keep your plants healthy.

Keep us informed.
Laters.
Khaimraj

Try not to annoy Jim Lewis with images that are on their side.

Too late.  Damned camera phones anyway.  Get a camera!

On your questions.  You can chop the chokecherry now.  I suggest about 6 inches above the branches growing from the old stump. Let them resprout in the spring and THEN decide which new shoots to keep.  Oak . . . wait until spring.  Beech, the American species is VERY difficult to do into a decent bonsai.

JimLewis wrote:

Try not to annoy Jim Lewis with images that are on their side.

Too late.  Damned camera phones anyway.  Get a camera!

On your questions.  You can chop the chokecherry now.  I suggest about 6 inches above the branches growing from the old stump. Let them resprout in the spring and THEN decide which new shoots to keep.  Oak . . . wait until spring.  Beech, the American species is VERY difficult to do into a decent bonsai.

odd thing about the photos is that they view as vertical on my PC before I linked them.
Thanks for the input.
as for the beech, is it because of leaf size or do they simply not respond well to the root trimming and such? I love the way the branches naturally curve and twist, and have a number of them available to me... maples and oaks too. but all at straight with no low branches.

I want to focus on thick trunks to very thick... the smaller don't interest me as much.
The choke cherry is really smaller than I wanted but I wanted to test air layering without damaging the tree.
I may get some old apple air layers from neighbors.

I will share and inform as I progress... thanks for the tips...