Saddler
Chumono
Here is one I did recently. reminds me I need to cut the wires on it.
https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/ror-acer-p-on-nephrite.26863/
https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/ror-acer-p-on-nephrite.26863/
Cypress sitting on a cliff ROR, help needed.
AlainK
Imperial Masterpiece
Er... What do you call a "cypress"?...
I know that some people don't care about scientific names, but frankly, there's a big difference between many trees that people cal "cypress", and they are totally different.
As for the stone, this is not a good choice at all in my opinion...
I know that some people don't care about scientific names, but frankly, there's a big difference between many trees that people cal "cypress", and they are totally different.
As for the stone, this is not a good choice at all in my opinion...
Saddler
Chumono
G-Hoppa
Sapling
Vance Wood
Lord Mugo
Have you given any thought as to how you are going to attach the tree to the stone? There does not appear to be any rough features, crevices, or indentations that give the stone character that would support a tree. Have you ever done anything like this before?. That's one of the things that makes bonsai so frustrating, we know this stuff can be done and we automatically figure it's pretty easy to pull off. Sadly most of the time it is not. So now we see one of the problems with this site. I have had this happen a number of times. I will prepare a response and post it just to find out between the two events an entire page of additional information has been posted that I had not yet seen. Now I cannot delete my now ridiculous post.
Saddler
Chumono
@Vance Wood On this one I do indeed have a plan. I want to grow the roots all the way down the rock and under it having them come out the other side. I hope to do this on both sides and it will grip it like a hand and presto, in just a short decade, it will be secure, maybe. If not, I can make indentations in the rock under where the roots lay.
I don't want to make average or cookie cutter trees, I'll make a lot of dogs for every gem I produce. I need to try ideas I have and I am looking thirty or forty years for some of them possibly. I originally started this hobby to learn patience. Reading about Ebihara and the unbelievable things he has done has only made me want to try my ideas more and this one in particular is a stepping stone that has been preceded by other stepping stones. If it fails I can try again changing this or that. If I succeed and it is an abomination, I can try again and fix whats wrong.
The one thing I have noticed on this forum I don't like, and this thread is a prime example, people ask a question and everyone says its a bad idea, possible offering alternatives and no one will answer the question directly. I have seen it semi regularly here. It is annoying but whatever, I can make decisions on my own.
I don't want to make average or cookie cutter trees, I'll make a lot of dogs for every gem I produce. I need to try ideas I have and I am looking thirty or forty years for some of them possibly. I originally started this hobby to learn patience. Reading about Ebihara and the unbelievable things he has done has only made me want to try my ideas more and this one in particular is a stepping stone that has been preceded by other stepping stones. If it fails I can try again changing this or that. If I succeed and it is an abomination, I can try again and fix whats wrong.
The one thing I have noticed on this forum I don't like, and this thread is a prime example, people ask a question and everyone says its a bad idea, possible offering alternatives and no one will answer the question directly. I have seen it semi regularly here. It is annoying but whatever, I can make decisions on my own.
Vance Wood
Lord Mugo
Some people myself included ask questions of a person mostly because as you did in that you wrote: Thanks in advance for your help. To me this means you are looking for assistance in your project. When the project seems so extreme and unreasonable for any number of reasons we are left to conclude that the individual we are talking to is not a long experienced bonsai grower and is probably headed for disaster. This is annoying to me as well, people ask for help or opinions but are really looking for approval, or plaudits for being clever. When help is offered or warnings delivered as to appearant pit falls, people react as you have. Then you say no one has answered your question directly. See-- this is one of the reasons your experience is called into question and suspect. So---How to attach a tree to a stone is not something that is available in the books and if this had been something important to you I would have thought you would have searched this information out a bit more directly.
You of course need to drill some holes in the stone provided it is not igneous and like granite and impossible to drill without special equipment. You will have to drill several holes in order to anchor the tree to the stone and then you will have to more or less bare root the tree to expose all the roots to get that hand grasping the stone look. This process in itself calls experience again into question about whether or not the tree has the roots capable of handling this procedure and surviving and that you have the ability to make it happen without killing the tree.
Provided you get this far, you have to lay the roots out and try to do something about the roots a tree of this age will have that are not capable of being flexible enough to grasp the stone because they are too lignified to be forced into conformity to the stone. Then these roots will have to be closely bound to the stone while the feeder roots are given access to some sort of growing medium to keep the tree alive as the roots bind themselves to the stone. This means that the tree tied to the stone will have to be buried in growing medium of quite a few years, maybe as many as five at the least, probably more like ten before the roots start to cooperate in the manner you desire. As the roots start to grasp the stone the soil can be gradually washed away and the growing tips encouraged to grow into the the soil at the base of the stone. One point you also have to remember conifers are not quite so friendly to this kind of process so you experience must be assumed capable to knowing the growth habits of the tree involved. It is after all important that a tree is a living thing and it would be nice if it survived the process. So for my part I am very sorry I questioned your attempts and made the probably wrong assumption that you didnm't know what you are doing.
Vance Wood
Lord Mugo
Some people myself included ask questions of a person mostly because as you did in that you wrote: Thanks in advance for your help. To me this means you are looking for assistance in your project. When the project seems so extreme and unreasonable for any number of reasons we are left to conclude that the individual we are talking to is not a long experienced bonsai grower and is probably headed for disaster. This is annoying to me as well, people ask for help or opinions but are really looking for approval, or plaudits for being clever. When help is offered or warnings delivered as to appearant pit falls, people react as you have. Then you say no one has answer the question directly?
Saddler
Chumono
I am not trying to be daft when I ask this, but when you said "people react as you have", what do you mean, how have I reacted? I think I see your point about the thanking in advance part. It is a noob thing to say when I think about it and that would make sense as I am pretty new to posting in forums. I read a lot but I have posted more in this one then all the others combined, which isn't much. I am still working on the manner and pleasantries of the online life.
While I am not a decades old hand at this hobby, I have experience in a lot of related fields from a past life and I have gone pretty hard in the years since I started. I wasn't looking for how to attach the rock to the stone or any technical details and I wasn't looking for approval, I stated as much in my first reply. I was asking for what looks best, I thought I was pretty straight forward with my question. I suck at art and design (last fall I bought almost 30 med-large trees without a limb between them so I can work on design from the ground up). I honestly thought it was a simple question. The main response was: its an ugly rock! What warning or pitfall is that, besides I might have bad taste? I don't need this rock/tree combo to go to Kokufu-ten. I have my reasons for doing it which reach further then the history of it. FYI, be prepared to see a lot more "bad" choices from me lol.
You are the first person to ask how I am going to do this. I have had nothing but positive advancements with my chosen methods on doing root over rock. I currently have six in the ground in various stages.
I sought out a tree that would work. This was my first choice of a few and after a discussion with the nursery owner, he said it was root pruned the year before and it would likely work. He also recommended having a second pot on hand just in case after I missed last springs repotting season, and I did. But you know what, it is currently firmly attached to the rock in its large milk crate covered dirt ready to sit there for 2-5 years until I dig it up and wrap the roots tightly with moss and plastic and put it back. My only concern is where I placed it. The rest shouldn't be difficult if I am patient and detailed in my root work. Or it will fail to grasp the rock and I put it in another pot. In the end, its only a tree and Ive killed tens of thousands of them in my life, some that were worth hundreds of times more then this one. I can live with a fail if I am forced to. I just wish I knew where the best place to put it was.
While I am not a decades old hand at this hobby, I have experience in a lot of related fields from a past life and I have gone pretty hard in the years since I started. I wasn't looking for how to attach the rock to the stone or any technical details and I wasn't looking for approval, I stated as much in my first reply. I was asking for what looks best, I thought I was pretty straight forward with my question. I suck at art and design (last fall I bought almost 30 med-large trees without a limb between them so I can work on design from the ground up). I honestly thought it was a simple question. The main response was: its an ugly rock! What warning or pitfall is that, besides I might have bad taste? I don't need this rock/tree combo to go to Kokufu-ten. I have my reasons for doing it which reach further then the history of it. FYI, be prepared to see a lot more "bad" choices from me lol.
You are the first person to ask how I am going to do this. I have had nothing but positive advancements with my chosen methods on doing root over rock. I currently have six in the ground in various stages.
I sought out a tree that would work. This was my first choice of a few and after a discussion with the nursery owner, he said it was root pruned the year before and it would likely work. He also recommended having a second pot on hand just in case after I missed last springs repotting season, and I did. But you know what, it is currently firmly attached to the rock in its large milk crate covered dirt ready to sit there for 2-5 years until I dig it up and wrap the roots tightly with moss and plastic and put it back. My only concern is where I placed it. The rest shouldn't be difficult if I am patient and detailed in my root work. Or it will fail to grasp the rock and I put it in another pot. In the end, its only a tree and Ive killed tens of thousands of them in my life, some that were worth hundreds of times more then this one. I can live with a fail if I am forced to. I just wish I knew where the best place to put it was.
Saddler
Chumono
@Vance Wood, Please don't be sorry for assuming anything. Its usually better to assume the worst and work forward then the other way around, even if feeling might get hurt. I'm giving my feelings chocolate ice cream to cheer them up haha. seriously though, Im not known around these parts yet and I kind of do my own thing. I don't post questions about some of my trees because I know they are ugly, others are just not worth posting about and most are to unconventional and unready to have me deal with the haters. The few I do post will be 90% design related and still probably ugly. Sometimes the question has be asked even if I won't like the answer.
Vance Wood
Lord Mugo
In my book it is not so much that someone has ugly trees it's that people have trees at all. Even in bonsai a semblance of art can be reached by following the by the book rules of design etc. In the end an ugly tree is the product of a lazy grower but that too is alright.
Saddler
Chumono
@Vance Wood Laziness is only one way to make an ugly tree. I work two jobs, have a kid I put to bed every night and take to school every morning and yet I put in 49 hours into repotting trees last month with at least as many hours reading and rereading articles on bonsai and trees in general. Did I mention I have to keep 75% of my trees 99 km away at my cousins house and that I rotate them as often as possible due to their needs? My car isn't big enough for a lot of them. I make the best of my situation and do what I have to, but laziness plays no part.
Vance Wood
Lord Mugo
No one said you were lazy that I recall.
_#1_
Omono
Vance Wood
Lord Mugo
I never said anyone had an ugly bonsai I said because of the way the books are put together and the rules that are in the books,--if you follow them you may not have a KoKufu bonsai but you wont have an ugly bonsai. You will have a cookie cutter bonsai. However if you are too lazy to do your own home work and not research the literature on bonsai you may wind up with the proverbial ugly bonsai, the product of being lazy.
_#1_
Omono
Ahh misunderstanding on my part.
Thanks for the clarification Vance
Thanks for the clarification Vance
Saddler
Chumono
I also thank you for the clarification Vance. I was wondering if I misunderstood your intent, but it was easy to infer you were calling me lazy. My bad. A lot of my trees are ugly because I pushed them too hard (and I will continue to do so until I have learned what I need to for better or worse). I think a lot of them can be recovered, but will take time, time learning the art of design and that is why I am here. I have your trees (and others) to study and learn from. In the end it is only time. If I can routinely make one of Canada's best chefs put my creation on the menu on my first try, I can learn to design a tree, just need a decade or so more 
. Until then, I look forward to seeing what you post and your opinion of my creations.
. Until then, I look forward to seeing what you post and your opinion of my creations.
barrosinc
Masterpiece
I would be extra cautious with the roots, these don't handle bare rooting and fiddling with roots like that maple posted on post 21.
I like the tree a lot. I just think it's gonna be a rough time trying to get it to grasp on to that smooth rock.
I like the tree a lot. I just think it's gonna be a rough time trying to get it to grasp on to that smooth rock.
Saddler
Chumono
@barrosinc I have no doubt that it will not be easy getting the roots to stick. The rock isn't that smooth on the smaller scale. It is more like sandpaper. I am hoping there is enough surface area to make up for the lack of fissures and indentations. It will be a battle. I have my backup plans for a lot of the possible outcomes. Ill probably get bitten with an outcome I don't foresee lol. Life!
Vance Wood
Lord Mugo
What you re planing is more likely to end in the demise of the tree. Sadly about the only thing you may learn is that "I can't do that again" . Usually what you are trying to achieve is done with Trident Maples because they have the kind of root development conducive to this kind of formation, most Conifers do not. I consider it to be axiomatic that you cannot make a whale fly and land in a tree.
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