Thanks a ton for the replies, I'd gone to the store and by the time I'd returned I had a filled page of scrawled notes to either PM you or post....I'll be honest I was thinking PM because I fear civility (my own) because I'm kinda at a loss as I think my own appraisal (objective appraisal, not "oh I'm personally fond of it!") of so many of mine was just WAY off from yours and, with you being more experienced (always assumed- you're >a decade aren't you?) then I just have to surmise that you're in the right but at the same time I struggled with a ton of "but's" that I wanted to ask you so when I went straight to my laptop and saw you'd already replied I was very psyched- thank you very, very much for spending the time here!! I think that my terrible presentation & lack-of-information on some of (what I think/thought) my best specimen is a serious culprit here, as-is the seriously-high price tag on the species of Olive and the very potential acquisition of any 'new' buttonwoods (kinda wish I'd left my title as "Podo's, ficus, any small-leafed maples, and ANY non-BC conifers" to exclude the pricier-species) So, specifically:
I'm in full-acknowledgement that in many instances a buttonwood isn't "kosher" - in fact I'd be happy to hear what your estimate on what % of bonsai-buttonwoods on-display were taken in-accordance with the law, am quite sure that you can't just grab a BC from a swamp - even if it's ready to be turned into a commercial lot over the coming 18mo - without a permit. I first thought of this when watching Levine's interview with Mary Madison because it made me think "ok, I am going to guess that the % of specimen that
should, but do not, have permits-for-collection are either 99% or 100.0%", I mean this must apply to the
majority of true yamadori wouldn't you imagine? I do know that people pull permits and whatnot, and more power to doing so, but for plenty of reasons from efficiency/laziness, to knowing you'd get a No to a tree that would otherwise be destroyed&mulched (literal 'saving trees' lol), well, I don't think that it's oxymoronic to say that there's instances in which one can be a moral/ethical bonsai-outlaw! If Mary's got filing cabinets with doc's for all her buttonwoods I'd certainly be taken aback, and while I won't call names because it'd be in poor taste (and mine would be among them), for all the BC collection on this site I'd bet anything that the majority are 'illegally obtained' (my understanding is that even on private-residences it's still a no-no w/o prior permission for reasons of wetlands-protection, whereas buttonwood would certainly be no-no regardless now as you say[and I don't doubt])
[not to inspire tangential subjects but it does raise interesting Q's IMO, I mean what if the area down the street from you, full of BC's & Buttonwoods, is set to be demo'd tomorrow for a new marina, and w/o hopping a fence or straying >10' from your property line, you could grab some of the specimen that, tomorrow, would be obliterated - illegal, yes, unethical.....? ]
PS- for all intents&purposes the overwhelming majority of my garden is yardadori-based, that's my bread&butter lol (and hopefully will become even moreso as I focus a higher, then full, percent of my work on trees
)
Okay, WOW this threw me for a loop!!!! I'm so thankful you've replied.....Firstly, an 18" BC for $100 sounds more like "I got a steal by paying a kid to do the work for me" less than "this is market-value that Zack would list for on his site"
That said, I've been doing this for years and my passion has only been growing steadily since I started and, wow I was anticipating embarrassment saying this via PM but in-public....Ok- I genuinely thought I was doing great, that I was totally on-track... I'm going to go take some pics now to post in a separate post below because I do hope (and kind of expect as, in looking at the album in my sig that you're probably referring to, that needs to be erased LOL) that I'm not off-base, any & everything that could help 'right my ship' would be GREATLY appreciated. The only "clearly different" thing, that some (myself at times) would call a negative, is the lack of any special/rare/etc species, heck half of my ficus are B's not M's, but so far as most of the stock I was seriously working on I thought that most of it would become at least B+ material (and at the rate I've got growing down that'll be sooner than later, this year was the first time I was intentionally restricting growth just because I couldn't keep-up and primaries were setting too-quickly in ways I couldn't allow!) Will post pics of some examples, soon as I submit this I'll take pics to get that post up in-hopes you (+/- others, in good faith please as this is essentially "have I been devoting so much of myself, for so long, in the wrong way?" kinda scenario..) can tell me if I am in-fact on-track, or if I'm off-base in significant ways and, if so, any&all suggestions on how to get on-track would be massively appreciated (of course!!)
This is kinda where I thought that it'd be a fair-trade by the fact that my specimen was A more common (less valuable) but, in an equal & opposite manner it was B so much larger that it made-up for the species. There's most-certainly a size//species 'graph' for any tree and, if like-kind, would of course not expect similar-girths at similar-developments but what you're saying is a bit irrelevant I think because it gives me the impression that, for you as for me, it's pretty darn simple to come-across a large bougie you can grab, or to just go swamping for some BC's, but at the exact same time there's a huge % of this community that isn't getting in that swamp for anything and is simply going to pay for it - I certainly didn't expect (in making this thread) that I'd find someone
like me who does their own collecting, was picturing that anyone I found would be a purchaser not a collector, and that I could generally-speaking rely on 'market #'s' (which of course aren't the same #'s you & I would place on boug's or BC's in our own minds because they're so much simpler for us) But it doesn't sound like you disagree with this as-concept, moreso that you disagree any of my stuff has any worth (which, with my 2nd post as quick as I can get a few pics / get it up, I can hopefully change your mind on - otherwise I can hopefully get whatever pointers you're willing to give, thought I had "beaten the studying stage" by a long shot at this point
)
That crape is BEAUTIFUL!!! My immediate thought is "can I see the other side?" because if that's true taper then that thing is awesome and I can totally see why it's worth 400 (and yeah it's insane how quickly you can develop them, in my 9b w/ irrigation and slightly-acidic water(phos.acid added to tap when the rain-barrels are dry) and w.pall's feeding method (plus some organic, I've got worms in almost every container I open to up-pot or re-pot lol) creates an insane growth rate!!! If that crape isn't hiding a massive chop-wound on its backside then it'll be a star for sure, can't wait to see how that one goes!!!!
The BC, I know you can get them all day and so could I but most can't so they do have value (although to be fair I did say tampa area only, but again most people
in this area aren't interested in, or capable of, going swamping with any practical chances of actually getting useful specimen out of it), I definitely get what you mean that
you (or me or people like us) wouldn't be interested but purchaser-only hobbyists certainly could be...and FWIW that BC, unless the angle is just horrible, looks like the type of thing that, if/once lifted, you immediately think "crap it
felt so much better/more-even underwater!!", sometimes you can only be so sure about the quality - I think it's fair to say that only a single 1 of my ~10 BC's conforms to that poor a trunk-line (apologies if text-only communication made that sound in *any* way malicious, I certainly would develop it myself and as-said I have 1 that I know-for-fact has a worse buttressed-area, I just mean that unless it's a bad angle or unless it's to be shown "from 1 side only" (I'm very much of the 3D approach, which as I understood was a central theme for serious bonsai artistry), that trunk will forever look odd no matter how great (and long) a development the top was given (unless you went in and ground-out a huge area, have seen Bill Butler go all the way down a BC's trunk before to fix a super low flaw and it looked like, once healed&grown-over, it'd have 'worked'/looked-great!)
I guess I just thought that, at minimum, my top 10 would've been able to score me some fat podo's (even some ~1.5yr old chunky stock, hardly developed - I'm quite into wood-carving and just getting better & better at it
), some medium Junipers, heck if I were lucky there'd be someone like-but-opposite me
in that they had nearly 10 buttonwoods but couldn't find OK BC areas, that person must exist lol (in FL, I know BC's are limited in the US but buttonwoods wayyy more so) but the 'any moderate sized conifer' desire being beneath my best (or just such an off-trade that I wouldn't be expected to take it/do it) has me stunned because I did a horrible job of choosing which specimen to show & how, or I've been approaching SO many things wrong (I've listened to & read everything I could, the good stuff **many** times, thought I was totally 'past that' and, from this point, it was more of a 'sketch pad & good horticulture + time' thing....no way I'm posting sketches but am still thinking I have a good lil handful that'll be quite the lookers when finished (and while that's not of any value right now I am still operating under the belief that things like my BC's from '18 are genuinely "OK to Solid" level stock (one OK, one 'solid--->B+', will show you very very shortly am just gonna go take some shots & probably have to find some pics as so much of my garden is just over-grown right now as it's dead-center vegetative season and am doing very well so far as growth-rates!!
Thanks again for the reply, honestly I could give two hoots about new specimen at this point now I'm far more concerned I've been "on the right track" or, if not, that I'm able to see where I got off it & get back on!!!! Wayyy too much time & materials to approach it any other way!!!
IF you're in the mood/up for it, hell yeah I'd love you to swing by!!! I'm sure I've got some randomness you may be interested to take-home just for visiting I relish any chance to get a veteran's eyes on my garden (you'd be just the 2nd!), my entire backyard is 'fenced' by a 2-tiered bonsai-bench just loaded, 2 center tables as-workstations, a pair of veteran eyes would be hugely appreciated I'd totally tilt/factor that in to any trade we may be able to reach if you've got medium-->large podo's!!
