Can someone tell me why this Juniper is unique?

[Kevster]

I was working in someones house today and noticed they had quite a few bonsai such as this one throughout their house.

After asking them about the plants they started to inform me they were called BONSAI lol. So I stopped the and said I was too a had many Bonsai but I would never consider keeping them inside.
She looked at me strange and said where else would you keep them?
So I went into the detail of most keep them outside blah blah blah.
Again with the strange look from her and she said she didn't think they wouldn't last long outside and she had always kept hers inside.

So I wanted a close look. I'm thinking these things MUST be dying if they are kept in the middle of the house without light.

To my surprise!!!! They WERE real but not any longer! I have know idea how they were preserved but they look and feel just like a Juniper because they are. Still soft and somewhat flexible but they are not living any longer.

I'm wondering if this is what Ed saw in walmart..... ED!!!!! Is this what you saw?

Oh and she insisted on still calling them bonsai after I explained bonsai are alive which amazed her. She thought they were all like hers lol. But insisted hers were still bonsai. What could I do. Customers are always right! And actually the meaning of BONSAI does not say it is living so I couldn't argue that point.

What do you all think?

 

[coh]

I think it needs to be trimmed and wired.

Seriously, I've never seen anything like that, even in walmart!

Chris

 

[Poink88]

I've seen juniper that stayed green like that after they died. Give it time and it will eventually turn brown.

 

[Kevster]

She had most of them for over 5 years. Even the moss looks alive in the pot but it's not.
They were bought this way. Never watered. She said she only has to dust them lol. I tried convincing myself they were fake but at some point they had to be living.
I have had plenty junipers die. I know the foliage gets brittle and dull once it's dead. Not this.

 

[Bill S]

Probably a thick coat of polyurethane. I have seen something like this at a restaraunt.

 

[goosetown]

Yeah, they sell stuff like this on Amazon - I believe they're once-living trees that have been, for lack of a better term, lacquered to death:

http://www.amazon.com/Bonsai-Boys-P...7628&sr=8-6&keywords=bonsai+not+a+living+tree

Creeps me out. Would be like buying someone's taxidermied pet.

 

[Kevster]

That is such a shame
And what an outrageous price for a dead plant!

 

[tmmason10]

That is just weird. Are we sure that was real before lacquered? Best mallsai juniper trunk I've seen.

 

[Gene Deci]

I was fooled by a tree like that once in a shop in an up-scale hotel in San Francisco. When I discovered it was dead, I assumed that it had been died bright green like they do with Christmas trees sometimes. I felt violated somehow.

 

[Kevster]

LMAO same here Gene!
Then I wanted to ague with this lady that a Bonsai is a living plant not something that was murdered to become a bookend or paper weight. But she wasn't hearing it. Then I showed her a couple pictures of living bonsai I had on my phone and she asked where she could buy them and could NOT believe they were alive.

VERY FRUSTRATING!!!!!!

 

[Ang3lfir3]

the most disappointing part of course .... is the poor styling ...... at least someone could have styled it before they killed it ...

 

[edprocoat]

Kevster no, the rubber ones I seen in Meijer's were actually rubber, it was amazing the foliage detail. They felt like the rubber grapes on vines my mom had as decoration when I was a kid. The ones that were dead were turning, they were a darker green and when touched the foliage fell off.

I seen these in a store in the mall in Florida, they were treated with a formeldahyde, scuze the spelling, they had a Bonsai that would have won an award, the price was $1500.00 ! The salesman said they were raised as Bonsai and treated with the preservative and would never turn brown or lose the foliage, he added that the $1500.00 Bonsai was imported from a Bonsai master in Japan who refused to sell any more after he seen what they had done to the plant. It could have been a sales pitch but this thing was flawless, nebari, trunk girth and styled like a master had worked it for years. It also had moss that was treated on the front side. They had some rose plants that were treated the same way and also a few butterflies for decoration.
I could not help to think that it was a shame that beatiful specimen was preserved that way. They called them " Forever Bonsai. "

EDIT
Oh by the way, the salesman said all you need to do is every few months blow the dust off with a can of air, which they also sold. These things actually both looked and felt alive too.

ed

 

[rockm]

This kind of preserved tree isn't all that uncommon. The preservation process uses a solution that plants are soaked in (probably not formaldehyde, as that would be an environmental hazard)

http://www.iwda.org/clientsector/pti/production/efolio.asp?cat=Preserved

I've seen these "bonsai" at big box stores and other places. ICK

 

[Oliver Muscio]

I have seen fall leaves preserved in a similar manner so that they keep their color and are pliable. No, not formaldehyde. Glcyerine, perhaps, or maybe ethene glycol?
Oliver

 

[rockm]

I'd bet its glycerin...