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My guess would be swamp white oak (Quercus bicolor). The shape of the leaves, but more importantly that pale orangy brown coloration remind me of it. The true white oak (Quercus alba) tends to have more reddish burgundy fall color.

Thank you ll for your replies. @bonsainut: Adding pine bark makes sense, I will try that out. Fortunately my water is ok, a little on the alkaline side, but nothing terrible (thank you city!). The size of my trees is between a foot and two, so def. bigger than shohin. I call it comfortable size...

First time I want/need to buy ready to use soil mix for repotting my Japanese maples. After reading a ton of opinions I am still a little unsure what the best mix will be for my climate and my trees. They are in development, I tend to repot every two or three years. I live in Indianapolis, so...

Seeing how this quickly got off the rails, I wanted to thank you all for good ideas, advice, and several good laughs. :) My plan is to have two or three shohin sized trees that are somewhat adaptable to different growing zones. I understand that I will have to put a lot of effort into providing...

We plan to buy a motorcoach in the spring of 2021 and start traveling the country as part-time RVers on weekends, vacation trips, and spending holidays with family. At some point down the road we plan to do it full-time, sell the house, etc. I have had bonsai for the last 30 plus years and...

Hi Judy, I live near Indianapolis, so similar climate to yours. Just wanted to ask you if you could share what brand of kanuma you are using and where do you get yours? I have never used it, but want to repot my beech into it, and possibly mix it into my soil mix for my maples as well. I will be...

I plan on doing a first shaping and wiring of my Sea Green juniper next March after the worst of winter is over. Given that March is always such a mad rush to get repotting and some styling on many of my trees done, do you think I could wire and shape the juniper now? I overwinter all my trees...

In the fourth picture, do you still have that light blue one for sale? Oval shape, light blue to teak color?

@SKBonsaiGuy: I think of flowering bonsai as desirable for their flowering first, their eventual leaf sizes, while not unimportant, are secondary to me. I had a Jane magnolia for a few years in a pot, nothing special, just a young plant with multiple trunks. Each spring it was the star on my...

Great advice, all! I will probably sow them now, and let nature takes its course. In your experience, is any of the pine species listed not suitable to use the seedling cutting method on? I am especially wondering about the whitebarks (P. albicaulis). So after they have sprouted to cut off the...

Yesterday I received seeds of several western pines I bought online. I bought lodgepole, whitebark, jeffrey, limber, and sugar pine. Should I sow the seeds now and put the pots outside, protected against rodents to get stratified over winter? Or should I just wait until mid March and sow them...

Thanks a ton, Eric. You confirmed what I speculated on. I am looking forward to that write-up about the early styling and wiring decisions. Very much appreciated!

Makes sense, about the tightness of the curves. I collected some sylvestris seed this fall and will raise seedlings next spring and just jump. Let's see how they turn out. Thanks for your answers and suggestions.

I started following Jonas' blog a few weeks ago and I have been studying the thread by Eric in great detail. That was the reason for my question. I admire especially Eric's work and documentation of the process, but I am not sure how he decided to give shape to those seedlings for the first...

I have been reading the various threads on here about growing pines from seeds, the pros and cons of the various techniques and it's all great stuff. I have a pretty green thumb when it comes to growing things, raised my share of various seedlings, so that's not the issue. I have trees that are...

I looked at the pictures in this blog again, and it is actually a grafted form of the EWP. On the second picture you can see the typical V-shaped grafting scar right below the second jin on the left. This really makes this an old tree, because they do grow very slowly. Nice find!

Since I speak German I thought I translate some of the text from the blog posting. The title translates to: The (design) Path of a Pinus strobus (that wasn't hard to understand... I know. :-) First picture This it is, the Pinus strobus or Wymouth Pine in German, that belongs to the family of...

The maple is a form of Acer palmatum dissectum. Which one exactly is almost impossible to tell from a picture alone. Given it's orange fall color I would guess it is a green dissectum, possibly Viridis or maybe Filligree. I would ask the garden staff or look near the plant, there might be a name...

That's what I had in mind...lol. I don't need a 200 year old yamadori to have fun with this species. Thanks for the encouragement treebeard, I will keep you posted.

Ok, thanks everybody for sharing your experiences and thoughts.

That makes me curious... what is it that makes the western variety so much nicer than the eastern type? I have seen the western types as full grown trees, and man, they are impressive, but so are many eastern hemlocks. Just curious what get's you excited about the western over the eastern type...:D

I don't think they are that scarce in the trade either. Most nurseries and Lowe's/Home Depots around here carry some each year. I realize that's not the most exciting material, but like others such as pines it can be good starter material. So apart from the availability of exciting or...

I have often wondered why you hardly see any bonsai made from Eastern Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) or Tsuga caroliniana? I have seen plenty made with its western cousins, but very few with the eastern varieties. Are they not suitable for bonsai? Do they have flaws like sudden branch die-back or...

I have seen the ads, but I wouldn't say they annoy me. I just ignore them to the best of my ability. Now, if a good bonsai related ad pops up it usually catches my attention 100% :-)

Thanks for the clarification. The end of April is probably a good time frame for me. As to the light bulb idea...I like it, but this in the middle of nowhere... no outlets for miles... Thanks again, guys!