how long did it take you to get a tree you were extremely proud of?

[barrosinc]

That´s basically the question.
How long did you have to invest in making a tree to the point you are extremely proud of?

If your first tree was 5.000USD azalea, well that is not really the point. I am trying to see first trees usually are prebonsais, young bonsais or mallsai.

I only have been in this for a year and still think I need 2 or 3 years to have something that I have contributed a lot too and will be looking nice in a bonsai pot.


what about you?

 

[JudyB]

I have felt at different stages that I had something that I thought was good, only to see that it wasn't as good as I thought it was later on. I think I have some stuff now that I can say that about, but who knows, maybe in a couple years I'll realize that I still have far to go with them to consider them something to be proud of. Your vision of what is good changes as you progress.

 

[63pmp]

About thirty years.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Here's the gentle answer:
You should have trees you're proud of at each stage of your journey. I was very proud of some of my trees at 1, 5, and 10 years in, that I'd be embarrassed to show you now. As I got better, so did my budget, my trees, and my ability to produce good results more quickly.

Here is the honest answer:
Time = Money. Period.

You can pay for someone else's time and buy a $5k azalea that has been grown for 20 years before you ever saw it. You can buy a $20 bush at Home Depot and spend 50 years to develop a decent bonsai, or anything in between.

Look at it like a graph; time increases along the horizontal axis, money increases on the vertical axis, and the goal is to move up and right toward better quality, more valuable trees.

Lower left has young, cheap trees, think box store. Requires much time to move up and right on the graph.
Lower right has old, poorly developed inexpensive trees, many cast-off import JWP used to be here, so are club member "outgrowns", and many yamadori. These often end up moving left on the time axis before they can move up and to the right.
Upper left are young, expensive trees...rare cultivars, tough to grow, or "hot items" like Chojubai. Still requires much time to move to the right side of the graph.
Upper right contains trees of increasing value, that have increasing years of good work done.

Think about it; for some, it's $20 tree and 5000 weeks in the back yard. For others is $5k and 20 weeks in the back yard. Either extreme and anywhere between is fine, so long as the result also matches your expectations.

 

[Adair M]

Awesome post, Brian!

If I may add a bit to the conversation:

The best bargains are to be found in Brian's "lower right". The old cast offs, and mismanaged trees. Many bonsai are acquired by people who lack the skills or training to properly manage their trees. They might not kill them, but they don't keep them in prime condition. These sometimes return to the market, and can be made into excellent bonsai with the proper care. The advantage with this approach is you usually can get a tree with a decent trunk and bark. These take time to develop.

 

[barrosinc]

Sounds good Brian, I knew the question will not have an answer.

 

[Nybonsai12]

I don't really have any trees that I am proud of yet that began as raw stock and are solely my own work. I think they may get there one day though.

I have more finished trees I purchased that are beautiful, but not my work so the only one to be proud of them is my credit card.

For now I feel good when I have accomplished something I haven't done before, whether it be completing a big bend without breaking something, or when my first air layer took or even seeing repotted trees take off. I think it's baby steps for now but all part of the big picture.

 

[dick benbow]

My best trees are the ones that I found at altitudes of over 6,000 feet in the mountains. I had nothing ( well not as much) to do with their design as mother nature did. My contribution was finding them and giving great care during the two years graduation from being dug and placed in pumice and anderson pots, to real bonsai pot with akadama based soil.
I've got a decade or so into my chojubai quince and feel they're coming close to "arriving"
as trees I worked on exclusively.

 

[Adair M]

I have more finished trees I purchased that are beautiful, but not my work so the only one to be proud of them is my credit card.

[/QUOTE

This is the attitude I don't understand. Why aren't you proud of the trees you purchased?

Bonsai is a living art. You will have to water it, fertilize it, provide winter protection, repot it, prune it, wire it, spray for insects, etc. for years, or else it will decline. I like to feel that I can actually improve it!

My daughter is a classical musician. She didn't write the Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann symphonies she plays. But she takes great pride in her musicianship!

 

[edprocoat]

Ok, I am going to pretend I am your mommy and tell you that you should be proud of everything you do. Not everyone is an artist, but everyone can produce art that pleases them and perhaps some if not many others too. If you are not proud of your work who the hell else will possibly be ...

ed

 

[Nybonsai12]

I have more finished trees I purchased that are beautiful, but not my work so the only one to be proud of them is my credit card.

[/QUOTE

This is the attitude I don't understand. Why aren't you proud of the trees you purchased?

Bonsai is a living art. You will have to water it, fertilize it, provide winter protection, repot it, prune it, wire it, spray for insects, etc. for years, or else it will decline. I like to feel that I can actually improve it!

My daughter is a classical musician. She didn't write the Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann symphonies she plays. But she takes great pride in her musicianship!

My point is I did not design or complete the work on the tree to have it in it's current state. I haven't had the finished trees more than 2 years so there hasn't been much done to them as of yet. I was answering OP's question as to getting a tree to the point of being proud of it.

Over the years as I develop it and complete actual work on it myself of course I will be proud of it. I'm past the point of being impressed with myself for keeping it alive. I tend to be critical of myself and abilities as it what keeps me interested in becoming better.

 

[Judge]

I am proud of all my trees , or I would not have potted them.
They all take tears to be show quality but that's not my goal.
My goal is to enjoy them while I can, and perhaps pass them on to someone else to enjoy.

 

[PaulH]

Brian's post said it all.

 

[dick benbow]

Something similar exists with my other japanese hobbies. For example, I have close to 35 years in buying one year old Koi and raising them to compete for grand champion in 7-8 years.
There are others who buy Koi already finished. Some, "stealth" koi meaning recently brought in from Japan for a particular show. They've never spent more then a week or less in the owner's pond and care.
To be honest, selecting a baby koi to compete is a dream. Buying is a reality. I think both can be accepted by the general public. One for the work and pride that went into it, the other to be able to see a beautiful fish ( just had nothing to do with the owner).
In japan very few finished bonsai that win in the shows are cared for by the owner. Still how wonderful to be able to see the finished product.
At our last convention, a ponderosa pine took top honors for the owner. Much of the design work was done by Michael Hagedorn.
I think it's an american thing to want to have arrived at being able to do the work ourselves.

I think the expression "it's the journey and NOT the arrival" that's the key to personal satisfaction.

 

[Victrinia Ridgeway]

I have a lot of trees I'm proud of... and some I'm appreciative of. I've been that way from the start... but when I started in vesting more into trees... well... I got what I paid for, and then I made them better.

I still have my first tree... I think someday it'll turn into something... as soon as I plant it in the ground for a decade or two... but still I'm a little dubious. lol Not proud about it anymore... but that's because I learned what it wasn't as I went along.... a bonsai. I keep it around so that in the midst of beauty and refinement, I am reminded of humble beginnings.... humble middles... and humble presents. lol



V

 

[Eric Group]

I kind of have an answer to this one...

I started Bonsai roughly 15 years ago I think... Maybe a little longer. During that time, I had no clue what I was doing... I had a couple stick I put in Bonsai pots and thought it meant I was on the right track... Over time I learned a little bit about what to look for, what made a good Bonsai... And eventually decided the trees I was working with were mostly garbage and needed some time to grow out. So, I kind of backed off- not having the funds to pay for someone else's 20 years of growing out a good tree- and planted the trees I wanted to keep in the ground. This was a bunch of Japanese Maples, a few Azaleas.. Stuff like that. After growing out for a couple years, the very first JM I bought years ago (a tiny cutting, pencil thin whip of a tree) has developed into a beautiful 9ft tall landscape tree with Bonsai potential but I don't know if I can ever bring myself to dig it up... But some of the cuttings I took from that tree over the years and have grown out in the ground have finally developed decent trunks, and one is actually a tree that- while still in development- I feel has great potential and is a tree I literally started from scratch (a cutting of a cutting of a layer of a cutting...) and I am proud of it.

So, the short answer is- about 15 years. Give or take a couple.

Now, I have owned dozens of trees over those years that I was proud of or greatly drawn to or really really liked for different reasons... So, if it is just a question of how long it took to OWN a tree you were proud of... Hell I hope we ALL own a few. I took your question to be more of a question of how long before you made a tree yourself you were proud of, and I am honestly just getting to that point. With multiple trees. All at about the same time. I hope to have some pictures later this fall of a few to post and illustrate why I am getting excited about them.

 

[sorce]

All good answers. Heres mine.

Im proud of any tree that is healthy, and is growing into, or reducing down to, a vision I am proud of.

And it took only 2 weeks for me to be proud of my BSC tree.

The only tree one shouldnt be proud of, is a 5k$ tree someone else made perfect and you are killing!

Sorce

 

[Cadillactaste]

All good answers. Heres mine.

Im proud of any tree that is healthy, and is growing into, or reducing down to, a vision I am proud of.

And it took only 2 weeks for me to be proud of my BSC tree.

The only tree one shouldnt be proud of, is a 5k$ tree someone else made perfect and you are killing!

Sorce

I think everyone brought good points to the table...just out of the gate so to speak for my own bonsai timetable. I have years to go before I have accomplished anything that will wow the socks off of anyone. But, in the same sense...they bring me...contentment. (Those I've not killed) The ones I've killed...humble knowing that...there is more to bonsai than just wiring and such but keeping them thriving and healthy is the biggest hurdle. When my bonsai that bloom...bloom...it's like a treasure...a gift they are giving back for my time tending them.

I have some bougainvillea cuttings...and though many who visit see campfire wood stuck in the soil. I see the potential they have. And I do get a sense of pride to know...that I have the years and time to enhance what is before me. The more foliage that appears...the more sense of where I might take them is a steady high.

 

[fourteener]

Nothing from my first 5 years is around anymore. Yamadori is my thing. Many things I gathered in my second set of five years aren't around anymore either. Indiscriminate gathering of "anything" meant I gathered too many things that were not what I like now. The third set of five years has morphed into an understanding of what I really want when I gather. It means I bring home trees that I will be proud of in three to five years. And a lot of things I used to gather get left in the woods where they belong!!


All that being said I would say it took me 10 years to know what style I like, what trees I would work on, how I would do that, what I would say no to so I could say yes to other things.

As has been said earlier, my taste outpaced my ability to get my trees to come with me.

 

[Vance Wood]

This really is a totally subjective question. It depends on what you individually consider a good piece of work and what does it take to satisfy that sensibility. Honestly I am still working on it. I neither have the money or the desire to possess a world class bonsai. My goal in life is not to own a magnificent work of art created by someone else, but to create one.

I know that there are some that want these wonderful masterpiece trees and have said to me that they were sure I would not turn down an opportunity to own one of Kimura's prize trees. They would find that I would sell it as soon as possible. If this is what bonsai is all about I would not be interested in it.

To me, and to no one else as far as I am concerned, bonsai is participating in the journey of life. A journey that creates this wonderful image of survival, and defiance in the face of extreme adversity where in the apex of this strugle a profund beauty is achieved. A beauty that declares "This is me, I have survived the worst you can throw at me and have returned an image of both peace and power."

In my world and way of looking at it you cannot understand this image if you have not helped create it. It has taken me many years to come to this revelation. Are there trees I am proud of? Yes but not one of them is beyond being totally redesigned. As I grow and change I do not just abandon those trees that I have grown up with I take them with me. I am after all---- the wind and the snow, the avalanches and the years that sculpt the images these trees, my friends, will become with me.

I don't know if anyone understands any of this without circling an ear with an extended finger, but this is what bonsai has become to me.