Please show me a Jacaranda or a Delonix (Royal Poinciana) bonsai that has not been photoshopped?

[Clicio]

I keep wondering WHY those vendors are pushing both species as bonsai kits.
Yes, the seeds are easy to sprout in warm weather.
No, they will not flower so easily in pots.
Googling "Jacaranda Mimosifolia bonsai" we find many pictures of wisteria bonsai labeled as Jacaranda; they are not the same plant of course.
Googling "Delonix Regia bonsai"the search results show us some beautiful Flame trees
gloriously flowering in bonsai pots, all...
Photoshopped from real big trees inserted digitally into bonsai pots.
First question is: why are they sold as kits if they are very difficult species to be trained as bonsai?
Second question is: do you still believe in bright blue maples seeds sold by the same vendors?

 

[canoeguide]

First question is: why are they sold as kits if they are very difficult species to be trained as bonsai?
Second question is: do you still believe in bright blue maples seeds sold by the same vendors?

"It's immoral to let a sucker keep his money." - Canada Bill Jones

With that said, Jacaranda trees are just fantastic.

 

[Forsoothe!]

"There's a sucker born every minute." -Phineas T. Barnum

The people selling bonsai seeds are not bonsai people. They are people with an overabundance of Jacaranda & Poinciana seeds. And, people keep buying them. Oh! I just remembered, -they have baby blue Japanese Maple seeds, too.

 

[sorce]

It's more about our inclination to buy stuff that has hard syllable sounds.

Marketing BS.

Sorce

 

[SWfloirda]

I agree. Here in the landscape they are huge, leggy and messy but they do look nice when they bloom.

My introduction to bonsai was a seed kit from Christmas 2018. Two jacarandas are the survivors. One I planted in my yard. The other is this one. I may end up planting it in the yard too, but I’m not sure I want two messy trees. I pinched it continuously the first year. This winter and spring I let it escape that basket and it shot up to about 6 feet tall. A couple months ago I cut the escape root and chopped it.

 

[armetisius]

WHY; Why; why . . .
Well, let me preface this with I will probably be banned for this BUT, here goes.
1) The reason they sell these ridiculous kits in the first place is because people are gullible and do NOT look into something before falling for it; hence, a fool and his money are soon parted.
2) We have become so fixated on "one of a kind" that we are all trying to "one up" each other in every aspect of our daily lives. Learn to appreciate the beauty in the common and appreciate the beauty that your techniques and training can bring from it.
3) ALWAYS remember "A jeweler is in reality only a scrap metal and gravel dealer." The hype is what gives it the false value.
4) You are attempting to indulge in a hobby that involves a great deal of dedication and time. In an effort to shorten the time factor you have to spend money to "shortcut" off the time someone else put in to get it to that stage.
5) It is illegal to horse whip these shysters and hucksters thru the streets as was common in the past.

 

[Kudo]

I really don't know why starter kits are with this kind of hard to bonsai trees and the pictures are so fake. All I know is they are getting success otherwise they would stop this kind of strategy.

However, out of curiosity there is a guy named Ladoso in Belo Horizonte - MG, Brazil, who developed a Delonix into a bonsai. Here is the video:

The video is in Portuguese and Google automatic closed caption sometimes fails because of his local accent. But images are worth thousand words. He also has some nice bonsai using unusual species, most are naturalistic styling approach, like a Chloroleucon dumosum, that he shows on his Youtube chanel.

 

[YamadoriFL]

Here is a Dwarf Poinciana I’m working on from a larger nursery stock

 

[Forsoothe!]

And this is what 8 years from a small one looks like 2,000 miles north of its range...

Not dead, but not flamboyant, either.

 

[leatherback]

5) It is illegal to horse whip these shysters and hucksters thru the streets as was common in the past.

oh, but it would be so satisfyinG!

 

[Clicio]

I really don't know why starter kits are with this kind of hard to bonsai trees and the pictures are so fake. All I know is they are getting success otherwise they would stop this kind of strategy.

However, out of curiosity there is a guy named Ladoso in Belo Horizonte - MG, Brazil, who developed a Delonix into a bonsai. Here is the video:

The video is in Portuguese and Google automatic closed caption sometimes fails because of his local accent. But images are worth thousand words. He also has some nice bonsai using unusual species, most are naturalistic styling approach, like a Chloroleucon dumosum, that he shows on his Youtube chanel.

Ah yes, he's got some nice tropicals.
I agree with his accent, even for us Brazilians sometimes he is hard to understand.

 

[Starfox]

I´d be happy to have any of these on my bench.

Jakaranda in flower - AusBonsai

Jacarandah progression - AusBonsai

Jacaranda - defoliation - AusBonsai

 

[Clicio]

I´d be happy to have any of these on my bench.

Jakaranda in flower - AusBonsai

Jacarandah progression - AusBonsai

Jacaranda - defoliation - AusBonsai

I still don't see them, as I am not a member of the forum you have linked.

 

[Cajunrider]

Here is my delonix regia in its 3rd year. I originally mistook it to be a tamarindus indica. The picture is taken from the top so it looks to not have any taper but it does have some. The tree has grown another foot from the time these pictures were taken. All the major branches, most particularly the one on the left, will undergo drastic reduction pruning next spring to improve taper.

Where I grew up there were plenty of these developed as bonsai. With the large compound leaves, they only look good when flowering and with the leaves stripped.

 

[Clicio]

Here is my delonix regia in its 3rd year. I originally mistook it to be a tamarindus indica.

Where I grew up there were plenty of these developed as bonsai. With the large compound leaves, they only look good when flowering and with the leaves stripped.

Yes, I have both, Jacaranda is native here in Brazil.
The main problem is that the leaves never reduce enough, as you said; Tamarind is easier to reduce.
Brazilian growers do bonsai them Jacarandas, but always as big, very big bonsai, to make them proportional to the leaves.
I guess you could manage to make a credible bonsai out of yours, but it will take time and I guess they never bloom as bonsai? I could be wrong here, but most of the blooming pictures of jacaranda bonsai on the internet are in fact pictures of Wysterias.
Thanks for showing your tree!

 

[Cajunrider]

Yes, I have both, Jacaranda is native here in Brazil.
The main problem is that the leaves never reduce enough, as you said; Tamarind is easier to reduce.
Brazilian growers do bonsai them Jacarandas, but always as big, very big bonsai, to make them proportional to the leaves.
I guess you could manage to make a credible bonsai out of yours, but it will take time and I guess they never bloom as bonsai? I could be wrong here, but most of the blooming pictures of jacaranda bonsai on the internet are in fact pictures of Wysterias.
Thanks for showing your tree!

They will bloom as bonsai at around 7 years or more.

 

[Forsoothe!]

I've had a Copperpod for a dozen years that can't really be pruned. I trim it back to a bud to keep it inbounds because it grows straight up and it rewards me by abandoning that stem and growing from a point six inches lower. I am probably no closer now to it blooming than I was when I got it.

 

[Cajunrider]

Here is one that is not so old and yet is flowering.

 

[ZombieNick]

I started to see smaller Jacaranda's pop up at local nurseries here in Southern California labelled as "Bonsai Blue Jacaranda". After some googling I found that it is a newer cultivar that apparently flowers at a much younger age (2 - 3 years vs 10 years from what I could find). Here is a blog post with a little more information, albeit not much: https://mrplantgeek.com/2020/05/16/jacaranda-bonsai-blue/

I was at Home Depot a couple days ago and I finally said "screw it" and pulled the trigger. Perhaps I am one of those suckers you guys are describing. I am not entirely sure if this will end up as a bonsai tree or if I will just keep in my garden. I plan to watch it for a year or two to see how it grows. If it indeed shows potential at flowering this small, maybe it can be something one day.

 

[Wulfskaar]

Regarding the kits, I'm glad they exist. I got one for Christmas a couple years ago and then the pandemic hit. Without that kit, I never would have googled anything about bonsai. It was a good and easy introduction into tree growing because the kit had everything needed to begin. Some of those seeds actually grew and are still alive. It opened me up to the world of bonsai and allowed me to get excited about something nice during quarantine. I have a new life-long hobby because of it. I bet I'm not the only one here that discovered bonsai through a kit.

I do think the pictures are misleading and there isn't much in the manual about how long it will take to actually get something that could be considered a bonsai. For what it is, it's a good place to start if you're interested in growing trees from seeds.