A word of note for you guys especially you newbies. A lot gets said about the bad source big box stores are, so much so that I believe that there are a lot of good potential bonsai that go un- found simply because people believe this hype and don't bother to look. I don't know what many of you think of my trees, Masterpieces they are not but they all came from nurseries, not dug from the mountains, not purchased as pre-bonsai from a bonsai business but found in the lowest places on Earth; friendly neighborhood nurseries.
Something to work on is better than dreaming about something really good to work on. If more people worked on a lot more things a lot more would happen than if all anyone did was dream about it. You can be a legend in your own mind or be a legend. You cannot build skill by contemplating how you think things are to be done, reality and imagination almost never wind up being the same.
I edited my post to fix the autocorrect typo... And just for the record, I am probably not as much of a newbie as I make myself seem sometimes... I have been working on bonsai for over a decade now, just not happy enough with my own creations to show them off a whole bunch right now and I spend my time trying to learn how to improve my stuff rather than showing pictures of it or trying to act like I know how to create masterpieces. (That is not a comment about how anybody else acts or a shot at anyone, just explaining where I am at personally).
I have seen many of your trees Vance and you may not have a bunch of masterpieces, but they do seem to be a good bit farther along than my own- that is for certain! You have a lot of well developed Pines from the pics I have seen and you should be plenty proud of what you have created Vance!
Personally, I have found that you can find some good looking trees at nurseries, Home Depot, Lowes... All I was saying is that normally you find very "clean" trees there. Trees with smooth trunks that most people consider "pretty". With species like this you normally find tall, skinny trees grown to be landscape giants or street trees... To get a tree like the OP is showing with short, squatty growth, low branching and an interesting looking lower trunk with some taper... Is a pretty rare find in my experience! That is all I was saying man, didn't mean to imply all trees from a nursery or big box store are "junk" (didn't we just do a thread about that recently? LOL).
Thanks for qualifying that, because I think my statement probably came off like that is what I was saying.. Most of my trees probably did come from a nursery or a big box store... They have probably been altered to the point of not looking much like they did originally if I have had them a while, but I think most of us use nursery stock for a bunch of our trees. I have very few Yamadori and a few I bought from bonsai nurseries and friends who grow bonsai, but besides that, most of my trees were a nursery tree at some point.
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