A Recent Collecting "Trip"

Collecting trees for bonsai does not require a trip to the mountains. Sometimes an imagination and a willingness to ask are all it takes to find some promising material.

Here are a couple of trees I collected over the last week. This first tree is part of a hedge in front of my shop. It seems to be some type of Russian olive, although it has never produced those little red berries we used to throw at each other when I was a kidd. It does, however, have very small leaves and came with a great deal of good fibrous root, so I have a lot of confidence in this one. It will eventually be a much smaller tree. I'm looking forward to working on it next spring.

One consideration when collecting is allowing the tree time to recuperate from the operation. One year is probably a bare minimum, but longer is indicated if the tree seems to be failing to thrive. Only work on a very healthy tree.




This next tree is a Scots pine I collected from the Xmas tree farm owned by the gentleman who sells us split oak for our fireplace/furnace. It came up with few roots, so I am a bit guarded in my estimation. It was never going to make a good Xmas tree, but it does have some natural literati possibilities.

I apologize for the photos leaning to the left, I haven't reloaded Photoshop since I rebooted my laptop from disk.