The 5 to 10+ Year Progression Thread

[grouper52]

The Shoe Tree is an old snag that has been bedecked over the decades with old shoes and boots from the logging community. It is up North on Vancouver island. I will try to find a picture. It is about the same size as the Old Cedar above and covered with shoes and boots top to bottom.

Hope you get the chance to come up collecting again and you are more than welcome to visit.

No, I've never seen nor heard of the Shoe Tree - sounds like quite a sight!

Thanks for the invite - it'd be great to meet you and see your trees if I'm up that way again. I used to have a pine permit from the USDA Forestry Department so I could bring Shore Pines across the border, but it's a huge hassle to reactivate that, so I'll just hunt Alaska Yellow Cedars and Mountain Hemlocks if I get up there again, or maybe rely on Dan having an active permit to bring pines I collect across. Heck, I'd like to get up that way again and maybe not even collect any trees of my own, but just visit Pete again and meet you. I'll see if Dan's planning any trips up there again, and either way I'll keep you posted if I'm headed your way.

 

[grouper52]

So here's another old progression - or perhaps regression - that I dug up (literally!), and one that started out like the Chinese elm posted above, in that I got this Korean Hornbeam as an import from Brussels in about 1999 when I was just starting in bonsai, then moved in 2000 to the climatic meat-grinder of Taos, New Mexico, where many trees that I had started working on died, and where most of the survivors ended up much changed.

This one - like several others - was a thick-trunked field-grown tree created - I found out - by fusing together several trees with thinner trunks when they were quite young, a not-uncommon technique with imported trees, especially from China.

During the three years in Taos, two of the three fused trees died, leaving some nice deadwood features to work with, but the deadwood - being deciduous deadwood - was very soft, and prone to rot despite the best efforts to preserve it.

After moving up to the Pacific Northwest after leaving Taos, the deadwood on this tree eventually did just that - loosing the deadwood from one trunk first, and then finally a second one that had died as well. The photos below start in 2006, before the loss of either of those two deadwood areas in 2009, if I recollect correctly. The last two pix are from 2009, and I thought it looked very attractive at that point ...



I believe the limits of posting make me post the remainder of the progression in the next post ...

 

[grouper52]

So the next two photos show the tree in the ground during the 2009 - 2015 time frame - and you can see some of the exposed areas of deadwood where the old deadwood segments rotted off - and then two further pix of it wrapped in black plastic after taking it from the ground in 2015. I gave it to Dan shortly thereafter, and have no further pictures of it. Enjoy!

 

[Paul2229]

thanks for sharing everyone.

I really need to start documenting my trees

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Here’s one that isn’t quite 5 years with me, but a relative on my wife’s side did Bonsai for 50 years in New Orleans. This was his first tree, according to his wife. He thought he killed it once, at their Virginia mountain home, and he threw it over the hillside, and found it a couple years later, still alive. Who knows how that’s possible. Anyway, his widow knew I did Bonsai and gave it to me. Her father is credited with the concept of houseplants, so I felt an obligation to take good care of it, even if it meant making a smaller Bonsai of it. Here is a progression, from how I received it in 2014, through 2018:

 

[grouper52]

Here’s one that isn’t quite 5 years with me, but a relative on my wife’s side did Bonsai for 50 years in New Orleans. This was his first tree, according to his wife. He thought he killed it once, at their Virginia mountain home, and he threw it over the hillside, and found it a couple years later, still alive. Who knows how that’s possible. Anyway, his widow knew I did Bonsai and gave it to me. Her father is credited with the concept of houseplants, so I felt an obligation to take good care of it, even if it meant making a smaller Bonsai of it. Here is a progression, from how I received it in 2014, through 2018:

What a wonderful "Tree's Rags-to-Riches" story (and progression) !!! I hope the less experienced here pay close attention to the very first move you made - pictures 1 to 2 !!! To know when to do that, and which sorts of trees you can do it with/to, and what to expect when you do it, could help them so much. Thanks for posting this!

 

[Nybonsai12]

Awesome thread. I have a few progressions around 5 years or so. Here’s a black pine that BVF helped me develop.
.

 

[Nybonsai12]

And a juniper

 

[bonhe]

The spiraling characteristic of the trunk on "Neji-kan" variety is really amazing!
This is a "Neji-kan" isn't it?

Thanks.
Yes, it is.
Thụ Thoại

 

[thumblessprimate1]

If you make a stop in Dallas, I could give you few prebonsai. Whatever I have at the time to keep or give to next person. Just something of small value, but has potential ?

 

[t_fareal]

Bump...
For more progressions...

 

[leatherback]

@t_fareal thank you for reviving this thread.

Amazing to see how trees that after initial styling look good, look sooo much better after a few years. Great also to see what time does, something we often forget.

Lonicera, from 2012-2013 winter when it was dug, to this summer. So about 7 growing seasons

 

[Tidal Bonsai]

5 season progression on a native pitch pine. This tree was a rare find at a plant nursery, and it's looking more and more like yamadori every year!