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OROZCONLECHE
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Best Option To Start a Bonsai

I find bonsai one of the coolest art, I'm trying to start with a Japanese Maple tree but Should I start from a seed or should I buy a grown one, and if I buy a grown one how old tall and or should I buy it online or a nursery, I just don't know any nursery here in ontario california that might sell any type of Japanese maple trees.

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Intriguedbybonsai
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Japanese maples are a good choice to begin with. I would stray away from seed planting a maple or any tree you wish to "bonsai". It will take many years, and that's just too long.

As far as nurseries go, I'm sure there are plenty of them in Ontario. Just look at what search Google has given me.
https://www.gardenguides.com/local-nurseries/ca-ontario/

Ebay is also a great place to shop for bonsai. Just make sure the seller has a good rating, and they include lots of pictures.

Check this out.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/FAT-KIYOHIME-JAPANESE-MAPLE-SHOHIN-BONSAI-TREE-TINY-LEAVES-EXPOSED-ROOTS-1-/120826653781?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c21d46c55

Here's a Trident Maple, which is another good choice to start with.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bonsai-Trident-Maple-Tree-Huge-Old-Tree/290638727615?ssPageName=WDVW&rd=1&ih=019&category=20524&cmd=ViewItem

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OROZCONLECHE
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I forgot to put the main point, I'm trying to keep this at the most minimum price so the ebay ones are a bit to expensive and big

tomc
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Intriguedbybonsai wrote:Ebay is also a great place to shop for bonsai. Just make sure the seller has a good rating, and they include lots of pictures.

Check this out.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/FAT-KIYOHIME-JAPANESE-MAPLE-SHOHIN-BONSAI-TREE-TINY-LEAVES-EXPOSED-ROOTS-1-/120826653781?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c21d46c55

Here's a Trident Maple, which is another good choice to start with.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bonsai-Trident-Maple-Tree-Huge-Old-Tree/290638727615?ssPageName=WDVW&rd=1&ih=019&category=20524&cmd=ViewItem
For what its worth the posted opening bid for either tree is greater than my total expence for any year save the year I made a big purchace of pots.

At a minimum I would read every one of Brent Walstons monographs on the internet as well as every book on bonsai that your local library has.

Then I'd rustle up the stuff to make and sift soil; before buying anything.

Just about all my first years trees were collected from trees, seedlings, and saplings, that were due to be destroyed. Some of them even lived.

A few of yours might too.

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OROZCONLECHE
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I guess I might have to do the soil and get a pot ready and maybe just start from seed a couple of them, I guess it will be my trial an error or experiment for new years now just to get the seeds

tomc
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OROZCONLECHE wrote:I guess I might have to do the soil and get a pot ready and maybe just start from seed a couple of them, I guess it will be my trial an error or experiment for new years now just to get the seeds
Last years Japan maple seeds are slumbering underneath countless southern california (Japan maple) trees as we sit. If you are a good speed reader, and are a speed-forager, you might just possibly have an idea in mind about the time you have actually sought and collected (free) material to sift soil for a tree.

About the time you've collected (and sifted) your dirt those new japan maple seedlings should be germinating. Because you've been out and about with foraging in mind, you may have (by then) several trees to check for those volunteer seedlings underneath the parents boughs.

Nothing about the dirt a tree lives in, is what you think it is. Which is why your getting the mantra of read, dirt, then collect.

The delightful thing about bonsai *if* you take the time to learn how to keep a tree alive in a pot, is where you start is not where you end up with trees.

I will go so far as to wager than by year five, you'll tell me what your next new project will be, and how its different from your beginings.

TomM
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My 2 cents?

Get some seeds if you wish.

But also start a cutting or two, maybe an air layer of an established tree. AND visit some of those nurseries in your neighborhood. There must be a decent source for Japanese maples nearby and try to find a small one that is not an arm and a leg but still 5 or more years ahead of a baby seedling.

Total cost? In the world of bonsai - very little.

Then you will have (hopefully) a few project trees at different stages of development, and the beginning of a nice collection! :)

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rainbowgardener
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Another possibility, that I'm thinking of for myself is start with a pre-bonsai or bonsai in training tree. Wigertsbonsai.com is one good place to find them

[url=https://wigertsbonsai.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=66&zenid=87be557a80aacbebbce57b1af03e6fae]pre-bonsai trees[/url]

but there are several others. (e.g. weetree.com) These are young trees that have had some basic initial pruning to promote good branching and are in nursery pots not bonsai pots. So there is plenty of room for development, but saved those first five years of so of growing it from seed. Different sites I looked at prices for this type of tree were in the range of $10 - $40.

tomc
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Orzo & Gbhunter, there is nothing any of the greyer heads here want more for you than for you to have a blast tending to (and talking to) your new herd of pet trees.

Any of the horticultural skills you add can and will if you persist, take you to places that you will not be able to forsee.

Trees unlike most anything else that grows in a garden does what it does to its own clock. All the stuff you think you know now, will get reshuffled as you bend to the trees needs.

In short your gonna get every bit as trained as the trees you tend to.

I-we like the itch you both are starting to express. Scratch it.

When you finaly do have a living tree in a pot and you've repotted it a couple years running, 'the next thing' that you have read about and the tree before you will speak to your imagination.

The pay out is the ride, not the destination.

gbhunter77
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I agree with you. I have had to learn how watering changes when I use a fan to circulate air. Had to deal with learning what happens when there is no fan...the mold...eww. Its has been a high learning curve the worst part is that the club here in Michigan is *&&%$. I have talked to Mr. Boon and he stated I face an uphill fight due to what he has heard about clubs in my local area. He suggested to lone wolf it with books and pages such as this. I also intend on purchesing the dvds he sells(he never tried to sell them to me). He as well as you gents have pointed me to websites that have useful information. Its going to be hard, but I think the trip will be worth the effort. At one point I hope to get the nerve to post a picture of some of the plants I have.

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OROZCONLECHE
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So I found my self walking in my yard and saw this big tree we have that produces some kind of sweet berrys that look like a blackberry but smaller, well anyways..the roots of the tree were off the ground and its brances were nice, so I graphed the long flexible roots and the scion branch then I used some wire to train the brances, so I did this to like 4 branches, this is my first time on graphting but I took this as a learning experiance on graphting and using wire as if it was Bonsai wire. I ain't expecting much as its cold, my first graphting and well you guys get my point but soon I will try and get a maple tree [img]https://i1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee442/OROZCOVICTOR/2011-12-11220020.jpg[/img]

gbhunter77
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Just from personaly seeing it. You have to graph the right plant to the right roots. Dallas Bonsai sells Jap maples that are 2 year old graphs for 9.99. Also I got 2 non graphted maples at a nursery here for 11$ down from 125$ because they just wanted to get rid of them. I had t dig through a pile of trees to find it but in the end it was worth it. The plant in the picture, how long has it been since the grapht and what is it? Are you going to bonsai that plant?

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OROZCONLECHE
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Well its from the roots are from the same plant, and I'm just trying it out to get the feeeling of owning a bonsai, a 9.99 sounds too perfect, unfortunatelly I live in california not texas, but I'm not sure what the plants name is, Its just a tree in our property but it gives out some fruit similar to the blackberry but its a big tree now, well I just graphed it last night.

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rainbowgardener
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I've been biting my tongue, but since this discussion keeps going, I have to say it is graft.

Here's wiki--

Grafting is a horticultural technique whereby tissues from one plant are inserted into those of another so that the two sets of vascular tissues may join together. This vascular joining is called inosculation. The technique is most commonly used in asexual propagation of commercially grown plants for the horticultural and agricultural trades.
In most cases, one plant is selected for its roots and this is called the stock or rootstock. The other plant is selected for its stems, leaves, flowers, or fruits and is called the scion. The scion contains the desired genes to be duplicated in future production by the stock/scion plant.


So you are saying the little tree in the photo (I'm thinking maybe mulberry) has been grafted on to rootstock from some other tree? I enlarged the picture as much as I could and couldn't see evidence of it. At what point is the graft and what was the root stock you used?

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OROZCONLECHE
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Well I didnt know how to spell it, but thanks and Idk if it will work as I just digged around the tree found some roots that were the same size as the branches to joined them, I assuming it wont work but I gave it a go just to try it out, also I cant believe you found the name of the berries I have looked al over and that is the same that I have, also in the back yard that I cant go to as its restricted sense were just renting the house there is the same mulberry tree but the berries are white.

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rainbowgardener
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I have a mulberry tree in my back yard, so I recognized it.

There are white mulberries. It is a Chinese variety that has been imported. Like many imported exotics without native diseases and predators to keep it in check, it is becoming invasive here, tends to crowd out the native red mulberries, since they are competing for the same habitat.

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OROZCONLECHE
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Nice the tree is the neighbors who is also the landowner has a huge amount of trees, the mulberrie trees are about 30 feet high or even more they are huge, the black ones stain the whole driveway and the white ones land ontop of my garage, the landowner has a huge back yard, he grows thousands of trees and stuff, I dnt talk to him but I should to get tips and soil, his nephew gave me a tour and he has mountains of soil he gets, well those berries are pretty good, I just wished I had blackberries. If you can see my house is the on the top and his growing grounds are the back yard of my house

https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=531+w+locust+ontario+california&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&biw=1680&bih=935&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x80c333771f37d7b1:0x62c92c17da42369d,531+W+Locust+St,+Ontario,+CA+91762&gl=us&ei=Mt3mTta-GezXiQKRreitBw&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ8gEwAA

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rainbowgardener
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@tomc - any comment about the pre-bonsai idea as a place to start?

luigonz
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Wigert's is great.

nice sized trees, developed well, nicely reduced root ball. and FAIR price!

if u want something cheaper than their standard 25 $ plus shipping, I would suggest a local nursery.

But I don't think you can find something that developed at that good of a price.

for example: one might find a five gallon procumbens nana for 20 dollars. but that is a five gal pot and the tree isnt shaped at all.

it would take a fall pruning and maybe repot into a reduced sized pot maybe 2.5 gal pot .. then train for another 2 yrs to reduce it to 1 gal pot.

where as wigerts come in 8" bulb pots! and would be MORE developed,

don't get me wrong ive bought several trees for nuserseries with where not grown to be bonsai. but I have time and not alot of money :P

perhaps try both. some types of trees u cant get locally and some you cant get online :shock:

hope this helps

tomc
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rainbowgardener wrote:@tomc - any comment about the pre-bonsai idea as a place to start?
Starting a couple trees from seed or nut has been done (and loved) going to back to the earliest days I can find out about at Omya.

Coppicing a tree (making it short) works equally well. A coppiced tree does permit styling to start years (if not decades) sooner.

A living tree tended by a hobbyist needs, needs materials (like soil) that too often a new grower tries to step over, instead of aquiring first. To his-her trees disadvantage.

Some better nurseries do have nicely started low pruned examples that a poor man may not be able to buy as a first tree.

Mullberry is an outdoor tree I think is a fair candidate for tray-training. Often, where there are volunteers, there are bigger volunteers. Just a hint ;)



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