bark
Yenling,
The bark on the large one is very thick and quite fibrous. So much so that some of it is dangling from the tree. I saw this on many larger trees that were in the area that I collected the tree... As for whether or not I would remove the bark, I don't think I would ever remove the majority of it, I would remove bark that is obviously falling off to clean up the trunk line, but not the well-attached stuff. I have never been a fan of oiled bark and chalked deadwood. But, to provide the contrast from the deadwood to the bark, which is light grey, I would use lime sulfur judiciously.
I made my first 6-hour-each-way commute last week to BIB. Not sure how often I'll be going but I have so many bonsai friends in the SF area that it's hard to not go back. I'll let you know when I'm on my way to and from for carpooling purposes.
TO is nice, much hotter than I am used to, I watered some of my trees four times the other day when it was about 85 degrees. The next day I went to Home Depot to get some sphagnum moss because watering 4 times per day is just not acceptable. I'm stressing about the water quality as mineral content including Sodium is about 5 times what it was in SF. I think I'm gettting a reverse osmosis system to use on the deciduous trees and any others that show sensitivity to mineral content.
FYI I'm mostly offline until Wednesday.