false cypress

[darkwaterdevil]

Just got 4 on sale for 99 cents each from 25$ each. Can they be put outside when its already cold out. Or inside for the winter?

 

[jkd2572]

Where were they at the nursery you got the from?

 

[pkTheory]

Chamaecyparis should live outside. I would suggest planting them in their containers in the ground in a location with full sun for their first winter.

 

[Dav4]

Chamaecyparis should live outside. I would suggest planting them in their containers in the ground in a location with full sun for their first winter.

Definitely outside as a rule, but not in full winter sun, and not outside at all for this winter if they came from a place where they weren't allowed to go fully dormant.

Shrewsbury, MA is zone 5...rootballs freeze solid in December and stay frozen until March/April. Frozen soil and sun or wind equals freeze dried foliage. If the tree is dormant, I'd get it outside in a very protected place, like an outbuilding or garage. A dormant conifer has minimal light requirements, so sheds and garages are fine as long as they keep temps below 40F. If the temps in the building fall below 25F on a regular basis, I'd want to mulch the rootball.

If the tree isn't dormant/ was kept in a greenhouse, I'd place in a cool window with as much light as possible until spring.

Good luck

 

[darkwaterdevil]

Definitely outside as a rule, but not in full winter sun, and not outside at all for this winter if they came from a place where they weren't allowed to go fully dormant.

Shrewsbury, MA is zone 5...rootballs freeze solid in December and stay frozen until March/April. Frozen soil and sun or wind equals freeze dried foliage. If the tree is dormant, I'd get it outside in a very protected place, like an outbuilding or garage. A dormant conifer has minimal light requirements, so sheds and garages are fine as long as they keep temps below 40F. If the temps in the building fall below 25F on a regular basis, I'd want to mulch the rootball.

If the tree isn't dormant/ was kept in a greenhouse, I'd place in a cool window with as much light as possible until spring.

Good luck

it was kept in a greenhouse then grocery store

 

[darkwaterdevil]

what 2 are the best material??

 

[Dav4]

it was kept in a greenhouse then grocery store

Yep...leave it inside til spring.

 

[Poink88]

what 2 are the best material??

No one can tell from those pics

 

[darkwaterdevil]

How should i do the pics?

 

[Vance Wood]

As the trees are right now you will probably not be able to get the kind of pictures needed to make some sort of fine assessment on the quality of each one of them. In bonsai the most important feature is the shape, size and movement of the trunk. I don't think from what I can see that any one of them is much more than a multiple trunked well rooted cutting of three or four years old. It is not likely that any one of them has a singular trunk but more likely three to five branches coming out of the soil like a quince bush.

This does not mean that you don't have some good material for a bonsai, just that you don't have something that is more than absolute raw stock that needs to be developed to the pre-bonsai condition possessing a single trunk and the beginnings of a good base.

Welcome to the wonderful world of bonsai and the entry point where you have to learn how to develop raw material into something that can be worked on with bonsai in mind. This is not a bad thing but it does limit your design options into the grow and develop mode. Hinoki Cypress is worth the effort.

In the future you should consider obtaining more mature material with careful attention to the trunk. Learn about trunks and bases, these features are the foundation of all the images of bonsai. If you start with material that already has a good trunk and base the rest of the tree can be developed and cut down from larger material. This is much easier than buying small and young stock and trying to grow it up into a bonsai.

No matter which way you roll you are looking at a minimum of five years to get something of quality. If you start with larger material and cut it down to a smaller bonsai size in five years you will be closer to a point where you can begin to see a finished bonsai shape in the near future. If you start with trees like your Hinokis you will take five years to develop the trees up to a point where you started with the larger trees. So in essence if you do everything right you will be probably five years behind where you would be with the larger material.

One of the most difficult things to learn in bonsai is recognizing what material is good and what material may be worth developing for future work and what material you would be better off leaving alone.

 

[darkwaterdevil]

All 4 are single trunk. And like i said only 99 cents.

 

[Vance Wood]

All 4 are single trunk. And like i said only 99 cents.

Did you consider what I wrote to you?

I am not criticizing the price you paid for these trees, I was simply trying to point out what you are up against and some options for future decisions. You said all four trees are single trunks, that's good, but you can't tell that from the pictures. I would believe from past experience with material like this the single trunks are not much larger than a carpenters pencil.

A piece of material is only worth what you paid for it if you have an idea of what to do with it. That's true with a dollar up to a thousand dollars, and yes you can pay a thousand dollars for bonsai material that if you don't know what to do with it,--- is no more useful to you than material for a dollar. There is a mind set that says it doesn't matter if I screw this stuff up I only paid a dollar for it. That may be true if you accept that philosophy as a given. However; if there is a way you can do something with a one dollar tree and give it the kind of care and development it needs to become a bonsai you will be more equipped to deal with the thousand dollar tree if you ever decide to go that direction. Learning the processes that make bonsai don't just come to you out of the blue because you have a lot of cheap trees or have a lot of expensive trees. The processes of making a bonsai have to be learned, searched out and practiced. The kind of vision that allows you to see the possibilities in a piece of raw material takes a while to develop.

Even if you have a one dollar tree you have to learn to take it seriously and try to treat it like it was a thousand dollar tree.

 

[october]

Hello darkwaterdevil.. Welcome to bonsai..which means welcome to the world of waiting and patience.. As far as material. An honest answer is that these trees will not be ready for any bonsai work until about 4-5 more years. Not become a bonsai, but just to be ready for bonsai work, such as wiring and certain kinds of pruning.

Also, these trees, grow very slowly, especially the trunk and branches. To give you an examle of how slow they actually grow. In the 10 years of training mine, The trunk has increased by maybe, 1/2 inch. I am being generous with this measurement too.

I would hold onto these, but purchase something that is a bit older. Maybe a tree with a 1 inch trunk with many branches to work with. Of course, once again, work should be done at the appropriate time with the appropriate techniques. If not, it can severely weaken or kill the tree.

Good luck,
Rob

 

[jkd2572]

Don't waste your enthusiasm. Take everything you read and learn out on one of those trees. Wire it cut off branches. Learn how to repot it and do it. You might kill it you might not, but in the process you will learn from it. You will probably do all those things wrong but you will understand more and more when you read something. Best of all you will learn how to do it better the next time. Trust me. The first time you wire it is ugly and you probably won't set the branches where they need to be. The next time you do it it will be better. You will see someone else's example and think "yeah that's how I should have done it". The problem is you can't start from zero experience and try to expect perfection. When you do something to a tree first hand it's easier to understand what people with more experience are doing. You say "oh yeah that's what I did wrong". Instead of going all out on an expensive piece of material and doing everything wrong on your first go. Do yourself a favor and destroy those value priced trees. Learn as much as you can. I bet a few years from now you will not be able to get rid of at least one of them, not because they will ever become anything great, but because they are like that first child you dropped on their head because you did not know what you were buying or what to do at first. It's a fun journey. Do yourself a favor and always work on something. That's what makes it addicting and crazy fun. The future kids, trees, you get will be less stressful and more intoxicating, because you will be better and better at raising them and sculpting their identity...... Keep reading reading reading, watching watching watching and more importantly doing doing doing.

 

[darkwaterdevil]

The trunks are ail just under a inch thick except for one just over a inch it I'll try to take a pic of that

 

[darkwaterdevil]

i found the best 2 here they are