Newbies - want to share your trees?

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Nice post, thank you for sharing.

I like your mugo, it has potential. I see the tree as being made from either just the branches at the first whorl of branches, or the first and second whorl combined. I think it could make a really nice small pine.

I am "known" for being somewhat overly detail orientated when it comes to names. I had learned a little German in high school, so it caught my eye. 'Zundert' is the number 100 in German, it does not mean ghost. The name 'Zundert' in Dutch is the name of the town in which Vincent van Gogh was born. In Dutch, Zundert can mean "sings". There is a large conifer wholesaler Boskopf in the Netherlands, and I suspect they may have named the mugo after the city where van Gogh was born. Although our BNut member @Wires_Guy_wires is a native to Netherlands, he can tell me if I am correct in my "translations". One of the USA wholesale nurseries might have decided to trademark the 'Zundert' clone under the trade name 'Ghost', because they think 'Ghost' will sell better than 'Zundert', but I did not dig far enough to determine if that is what happened. Do keep calling it 'Zundert', unless you have the nursery name tag, and it shows the name 'Ghost' with the 'TM' trademark icon after the name. It is my dose of mostly unimportant of detail for today.

The German word for hundred is Hundert, in our language it's Honderd (the U in german sounds like the E in yew, our O in this case is like the O in dog). Singing translates to Zingen, but Zundert is indeed a place in the NL's and it's likely that the cultivar was named after it. I understand the mixup. Thuja Brabant is named after the province of (Noord) Brabant. We're not a very creative people when it comes to names; 30% of Dutch company names are made by combining the first names of the owners. Our biggest supermarkets are literally the first and last name of the original owner.

Boskoops is a company in the village/city of Boskoop and the added 's' means that something is from there, like in the US they add 'er' or 'an' to New Yorker or Californian. Boskoop is known to be a hub of plant breeders, especially conifers. They still have wildtype shimpaku junipers and the J. chinensis var. Blaauw was developed there, along with probably some others that I don't know about.

Just for sanity's sake: don't try to understand Dutch grammar. It makes no sense, neither do the sounds we produce. We use rules from French, English and German, and then blend them all together and use the least logical rules to call it a language. Then there's accents and dialects, with their own grammar that make less sense. I'm pretty OK with languages, but there are parts in this country where I don't understand anyone. And we're smaller than some states in the US.. Weird.

Now you know a little more than before, have a nice day!

 

[bluecat]

Hi,

100 in german = hundert.

This is what I thought but google seems to think that both zundert and hundert mean 100 in German.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Nice post, thank you for sharing.

I like your mugo, it has potential. I see the tree as being made from either just the branches at the first whorl of branches, or the first and second whorl combined. I think it could make a really nice small pine.

I am "known" for being somewhat overly detail orientated when it comes to names. I had learned a little German in high school, so it caught my eye. 'Zundert' is the number 100 in German, it does not mean ghost. The name 'Zundert' in Dutch is the name of the town in which Vincent van Gogh was born. In Dutch, Zundert can mean "sings". There is a large conifer wholesaler Boskopf in the Netherlands, and I suspect they may have named the mugo after the city where van Gogh was born. Although our BNut member @Wires_Guy_wires is a native to Netherlands, he can tell me if I am correct in my "translations". One of the USA wholesale nurseries might have decided to trademark the 'Zundert' clone under the trade name 'Ghost', because they think 'Ghost' will sell better than 'Zundert', but I did not dig far enough to determine if that is what happened. Do keep calling it 'Zundert', unless you have the nursery name tag, and it shows the name 'Ghost' with the 'TM' trademark icon after the name. It is my dose of mostly unimportant of detail for today.

Thank you! I'll be posting the Zundert as a thread next week if I have time then... I'm of the same opinion at this point.
Cheeers
DSD sends

 

[Housguy]

Little trim on the Nana today.
Before

After

 

[Bricker918]

Got this Redwood as a gift a few months into my bonsai journey. Been two years now, still very much a newbie. After watching a few Mirai videos on the species this year I finally know how to handle the foliage properly.

September 2018:


June 26th 2020:

 

[YamadoriFL]

Got this Redwood as a gift a few months into my bonsai journey. Been two years now, still very much a newbie. After watching a few Mirai videos on the species this year I finally know how to handle the foliage properly.

September 2018:
View attachment 311773

June 26th 2020:
View attachment 311774

Looks great! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Tbrshou]

Well done for keeping the collections alive! Always curious where people collect from (never collected so just finding out about it) - where did you get yours?

Local woods near Hampton,Ga. Mostly hornbeam, winged elm hawthorn and those Elliott blueberry bushes.Ive even had some i collected out of season that survived but budded out super late. Wouldn't advise anyone to do that tho.

 

[Tbrshou]

Got this Redwood as a gift a few months into my bonsai journey. Been two years now, still very much a newbie. After watching a few Mirai videos on the species this year I finally know how to handle the foliage properly.

September 2018:
View attachment 311773

June 26th 2020:
View attachment 311774

Holy sh**!!! What a gift

 

[dtreesj]

Jacaranda progress. Not sure if I'm doing it right, but I'm doing it. Hopefully it doesn't die with how much I chopped off.

 

[Clorgan]

So happy this thread is still going strong! Thanks so much for sharing everyone, what a great place this forum is

 

[Clorgan]

So I got this spirea on ebay, good deal decent seller and love the trunk. Arrived with leaves on one half wilted, seller said it likely got too hot/dry in transit. Said if it doesn't pick up he'll sort something for me. Hoping it picks up though, any tips? Left side pretty healthy

 

[Antrox]

Hello,
I am not sure if I had to create a new topic but I would like to share my portulacaria afra with you.
Almost involuntary I created a sort of slanting style after the first report.
This below is the tree when I bought it in April 2019

Currently, it looks like :
front

and
rear


Not sure if it was a good idea but now I am trying to get a balance
Any suggestions?

 

[sorce]

trying to get a balance

The first thought I had was how well balanced this has become. I don't think you can do a better job in one year.

I'd like to see you cut those rear branches back, just to get folaige closer in, but then grow it back out to that length and hang, I like that.

It's hard to see if all the branches are still intact from the right of the top pic, if so, you could probably remove the 2 heavier ones over time, possibly soon.

"Remove heavy, keep fine. Remove heavy, keep fine."
That's Bjorn's voice in my head. You can keep it in yours too!

Sorce

 

[Shibui]

So I got this spirea on ebay, good deal decent seller and love the trunk. Arrived with leaves on one half wilted, seller said it likely got too hot/dry in transit. Said if it doesn't pick up he'll sort something for me. Hoping it picks up though, any tips? Left side pretty healthy

Hot is unlikely in a box. Dry is far more likely.
First aid for any dehydrated tree is immediate soaking in water to properly rehydrate the entire root system. Soak for at least 10 min up to overnight then allow to drain and put it out to recover. No need for shade as the damaged part is already damaged and any good parts now need good light to make food to repair the damage.
In most cases the damage is temporary as trees have the ability to drop leaves to preserve life. The usually sprout new leaves and shoots when water returns. If the damage is more severe parts of the tree may die but the still healthy parts survive. There is little else to do but allow the tree to save itself and maybe cross fingers.
Great to hear that an Ebay seller is willing to back up their product, packing and shipping.

 

[Clorgan]

Hot is unlikely in a box. Dry is far more likely.
First aid for any dehydrated tree is immediate soaking in water to properly rehydrate the entire root system. Soak for at least 10 min up to overnight then allow to drain and put it out to recover. No need for shade as the damaged part is already damaged and any good parts now need good light to make food to repair the damage.
In most cases the damage is temporary as trees have the ability to drop leaves to preserve life. The usually sprout new leaves and shoots when water returns. If the damage is more severe parts of the tree may die but the still healthy parts survive. There is little else to do but allow the tree to save itself and maybe cross fingers.
Great to hear that an Ebay seller is willing to back up their product, packing and shipping.

Thanks for this! Yeah I soaked it last night, for around 20 mins, good to hear I did the right thing! Fingers crossed it bounces back. Thought it was odd that only half the plant has been affected though? The seller has been great, I'd looked into him before purchasing. I believe it's the same guy who runs this site: https://shokabonsai.com/

Edit - he's giving me a refund - said the branches on that side will likely die

 

[Clorgan]

Hello,
I am not sure if I had to create a new topic but I would like to share my portulacaria afra with you.
Almost involuntary I created a sort of slanting style after the first report.
This below is the tree when I bought it in April 2019
View attachment 311892
Currently, it looks like :
front
View attachment 311893
and
rear
View attachment 311894

Not sure if it was a good idea but now I am trying to get a balance
Any suggestions?

Thanks for sharing - no need to make a new topic, people seem more than happy to advise in this thread however, if you want to track its progression and possibly ask lots of questions about it, it could be a good idea to create a thread for it, would be easier for you to keep all info on it in your own thread, particularly if you've got a lot of questions!

I've posted about some of my plants in here, but also have individual threads for some of them. When I started this hobby around a month ago I started threads for each plant to track them seperately (some of them threads are cringy as hell with so many daft questions in them!) But now I'm using individual tree threads for trees I want to really work on, and asking the odd random questions in here!

Hope that helps you a little? Sorry if all this is really obvious stuff to you, I just know that a month ago I had no idea what I was doing at all (still don't to be honest!)

Thanks for posting, and great looking tree!!

 

[Shibui]

I am not sure if I had to create a new topic but I would like to share my portulacaria afra with you.
Almost involuntary I created a sort of slanting style after the first report.
This below is the tree when I bought it in April 2019

You are welcome to grow a tree in a pot in any shape or size you wish but there's a bit more than just a leaning trunk to make slanting style.
Your trees looks quite healthy so congrats on good growing skills.
On the design front my eye gets distracted at the first really strong vertical branch/ trunk? I start asking why is the tree slanting when such a strong branch can grow upright? What in the life of this tree has caused that phenomenon an will it continue?
Design means sticking to some sort of theme. Something aesthetically and horticulturally believable.

If the emphasis is more on the slanted trunk and the left leaning branches I think it would be far more pleasing to look at and would tell the story of where it comes from and why far better if that vertical branch is removed or really shortened..

 

[Clorgan]

Went to get cut paste and saw this hibiscus, another non-popular bonsai choice to add to the collection! I like it, particularly the trunk and nebari. Not sure it's got good bonsai potential, but I like it and the flowers look lovely!

Thankfully I did remember to get cut paste too!

Edit - I'm guessing it's not ideal that the two main branches are coming from the same point?

 

[Antrox]

The first thought I had was how well balanced this has become. I don't think you can do a better job in one year.

I'd like to see you cut those rear branches back, just to get folaige closer in, but then grow it back out to that length and hang, I like that.

It's hard to see if all the branches are still intact from the right of the top pic, if so, you could probably remove the 2 heavier ones over time, possibly soon.

"Remove heavy, keep fine. Remove heavy, keep fine."
That's Bjorn's voice in my head. You can keep it in yours too!

Sorce

Thanks for the suggestion.
Not sure if I get it everything you said.
I think you were talking about the branches of the red circle below?:


For that part, I would like to develop an horizontal pad, I m trying to increase the ramification and prmote some back-budding.

On the left part, I would like to have more branches up to the edge of the pot.

The blue branch is a sacrificial one.

 

[Antrox]

Thanks for sharing - no need to make a new topic, people seem more than happy to advise in this thread however, if you want to track its progression and possibly ask lots of questions about it, it could be a good idea to create a thread for it, would be easier for you to keep all info on it in your own thread, particularly if you've got a lot of questions!

I've posted about some of my plants in here, but also have individual threads for some of them. When I started this hobby around a month ago I started threads for each plant to track them seperately (some of them threads are cringy as hell with so many daft questions in them!) But now I'm using individual tree threads for trees I want to really work on, and asking the odd random questions in here!

Hope that helps you a little? Sorry if all this is really obvious stuff to you, I just know that a month ago I had no idea what I was doing at all (still don't to be honest!)

Thanks for posting, and great looking tree!!

Yes,thanks for that.
I will keep the discussion short and post more of my experiments soon
Thanks