Could someone ID this tree?

[Oleg]

Hi I have 4 little trees I dug out of garden, they are probably about 4 years old, and doing well. The colour is a little red due to wet the conditions. is anyone able to ID them for me? and will they make a decent Bonsai.
Thanks in advance.

 

[just.wing.it]

ERC

 

[just.wing.it]

Eastern Red Cedar.
Juniperus Virginiana.
Purpleish/brownish winter color.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

And to answer your second question, no they do not make good Bonsai subjects. Regardless what the next 10 posts will suggest...?

 

[Oleg]

Sh*t!!! I have one of those and now I have 5, you're right, they do not make good Bonsai!
I now have room in the bed though,
Thanks for answering.

 

[Forsoothe!]

I hate to show this because it might inspire some to try to make one like it. This is Vance Hanna's ERC which won People's Choice at the Four Season's Bonsai Club show, 2005. This was collected by him eons ago.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

I hate to show this because it might inspire some to try to make one like it. This is Vance Hanna's ERC which won People's Choice at the Four Season's Bonsai Club show, 2005. This was collected by him eons ago.
View attachment 233927

Yeah, that may be the best one that has turned up in the great ERC debate. But it’s still not a good Bonsai IMO, and probably took “eons” just to get to this point, and who knows how long it can be maintained in the condition shown.

1 down, 9 to go. Who’s next?

 

[rockm]

I hate to show this because it might inspire some to try to make one like it. This is Vance Hanna's ERC which won People's Choice at the Four Season's Bonsai Club show, 2005. This was collected by him eons ago.
View attachment 233927

Ive been using this particular tree as the mostly only example of a decent ERC around. Created by someone who knows how to choose a decent trunk and make the most of the foliage (which is extremely finicky to develop beyond the sharp juvenile form. I'd welcome more decent examples of ERC bonsai...

 

[Oleg]

"Sh*t!!! I have one of those and now I have 5"

I should explain because this bothered me all night, they don't look the same as the ratty grayish green thing with wispy pendulous branches I have.
I do like that tree though, do they replace their needles with scale?

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

At great age, ERC will develop scale foliage. Generally we see ERC with the sharp juvenile foliage.

It is on my list of difficult to work with bonsai. Normally I'm an optimist, hell, at 64 years old I'm regularly starting trees from seed. ERC is difficult enough that I won't bother trying to work with one any more. I won't live long enough. Got better projects going.

Just about any other species of juniper is easier to work with. ERC is not completely impossible, if you find a nice enough trunk, and feel confident, go ahead and try, but if you want a nice bonsai tree in your lifetime, I would pass on ERC.

ERC seedlings, for a brief period of time, might be okay in a forest planting, or some sort of less formal accent plant. The autumn & winter color might work well mixed in a grass planting, where the tree is not the focal point. But as a specimen tree, they never make the grade for top shelf bonsai.

They are iconic easter North American junipers, my nephew in 2013 with an ''reputed'' to be 800 year old ERC on a vertical sandstone bluff in southern Illinois. It has scale foliage. For those who think Illinois is all flat cornfields, you are mostly right, but get to the Shawnee National Forest, and you actually do have hills, bluffs, and ''hollers''. Yes in southern Illinois, ''holler'' is a noun.

 

[Forsoothe!]

Actually, they continue to grow some juvenile foliage forever. It's a defense mechanism that the tree has developed to ward off cavemen collecting them for lining their caves. I think I heard that on BBC.

 

[Oleg]

Thanks for the info & pics.

"They are iconic eastern North American junipers"

Yes they are, mine was a gift from my MIL. she dug it up at her cottage on Cape Hurd. It's a spit between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay and that's how & where I think of them, way the hell up there growing on a rock, Kind of surprised to find 4 in the garden. I don't think it came from mine, though you never know what they get up to at night.

"Actually, they continue to grow some juvenile foliage forever."

Thanks for the heads up!

"It's a defense mechanism that the tree has developed to ward off cavemen collecting them for lining their caves. "

They are terrible on the back of the hands.