Tampa, Trades, Looking for medium-->large trunked *stock* of: podocarpus, olive, conifers-besides-BC's, and conocarpus/buttonwoods (esp Silver's!)

[SU2]

I dig them up out of the ground, usually let them sit in water for a few days to a week and then pot them. I only dig ones up that are bigger than my finger, no sense in seedlings.

WOW I had, by default/subconsciously, been thinking "gotta get them while they're just seedlings" and actually shunned the older ones!!! WOW that is perfect timing as, upon posting this, I'll be starting the truck to head to the site I'd originally gone for the pine seedlings (and this place has been un-touched so far as I know....it's vacant and I'm pretty sure un-mowed, I hope!) Should be able to quadruple my pine collection today

When you say 'no sense in seedlings' though, that kinda throws me- do you just mean that the success% is roughly the same or that growth is so slow that it is that big a difference? I'm genuinely surprised at how slow my Oak & Pine seedlings are growing (especially the Pines), am thinking something as thick as a finger probably represents ~1yr's growth so that is a big difference in time but I also expect it to have a correspondingly-large tap-root and, so far as I was understanding this approach/method, it was getting them young not only because they didn't transplant well as adults but also because their roots don't take heavy insults & need to 'be formed right' from the start...truly thought the seedling approach was for each of those reasons pretty equally!

Will be grabbing seedlings as-well-as thicker stuff today, will get a large sampling to see if I can actually get some rough #'s on relative-success of seedlings-v-fingerthick samples! Interesting that you let them sit in water so long, I do put them in water while collecting of course but I've always had the impulse to get them into soil quickly, as-if their secretions aren't something I want floating-away into a cup of water (just a feeling/not something I'm trying to suggest!)

I am 99 percent sure of what they are so not needed.

Good stuffs (which species have you found most-prevalent after Live & Laurel? They're the only 2 I can ID by site and I know/suspect that there's a ton more varieties of Oak all around me)

Have 2 species of swamp-tree I collected in Feb, one that's a gigantic ~4' stump-with-primaries (already has a >1" leader-primary measuring at least 5' in length, thing clears my gutter!!) that I've yet to find the names for, not for lack of trying but just lack of caring (figure they are what they are, their names aren't of any use to me not right now at least!)

 

[JoeH]

@SU2 no sense in seedlings in that they are a waste of time if they are just little stems with 2 leaves. You might as well start your own in a tray. I dig them up, root prune and sit them in water for a few days. Then pot them and keep them wet. I probably succeed more than 75 percent of the time. I just dug another I found at work and let it sit in a tray of water potted till Monday.

 

[SU2]

Okay so hoping any&everyone that's willing to donate a minute will take a peek at anything in here to find areas I may be missing things especially bigger things! And I want to mention/be clear that these were taken this week for this purpose, in no way are they 'clean' in fact they're quite the opposite lol IE they're overdue for bark-scrubbing, most are in heavy grow-out mode, nothing is "for presentation" so please judge / critique my materials/stock and techniques so far as how I'm approaching "building a canopy from a leader", choosing trunk-lines and general lines/shapes, etc. Of course, w/o sketches of what I'm aiming for, this'll make some things less clear but I expect everything will be obvious-enough

One of (maybe the) my favorite piece of CM stock, 'cavernous crape'

https://imgur.com/a/Dr4BgK8

My favorite bougie, 'twin trunk' (used to have a pic of it in-flower as my avatar)

https://imgur.com/a/ORutO41

the 2nd bougie yardadori I ever collected, this one is the biggest challenge I've got as 'topping'/apex-creation seems near-impossible on such a wide piece and I don't want to 'default to' the old "bushy-bougie stump" approach, with all my bougies (all my trees actually) the idea is they should look as good as normal when defoliated!!

https://imgur.com/a/eApCP21

Another favorite bougie is 'cerberus'

https://imgur.com/a/5sV0imJ

about as much shari as living tissue, all primaries / growth is being developed in an up&over arc should be a very cool piece when done (expecting 2.5-4yrs)

album for 'BGYcobra', a bougainvillea that was once part-of a much larger trunking, it has an absurdly wide/flat base (hope the pics show it well enough!) and an insane craned-neck(trunk), currently growing-out primaries in-line with the lines of the trunk (considering arcing the outer primaries at the tip of the upper limbing/trunking, 'giving the snake a head' so to speak, will have to decide soon enough as they're thickening about as much as they can before that window closes!

https://imgur.com/a/NjpKsfJ

[I wish I could get a good 'front' shot but the canopy is too large at this time there's no way to "rope it to the side" as it's full grow-out right now]


album of random stuff for a more general look at things, by no means complete just meant as example https://imgur.com/gallery/lQPBBuz


Had taken more pics but will have to upload&post later am so late LOL, anyways those are a solid depiction of "the way I approach bonsai" so hopefully can get some critiques if anything is off-base / I'm missing important concepts yknow! Oh here's an album of BC's from this year, just to show how I'm approaching new-BC's, the 2nd-half of this album is the same BC it just has such a beautiful base I wanted different angles: https://imgur.com/gallery/AyvWiAZ



Oh and since I didn't put any ficus, here's a large ficus.benji that I'm both thread-grafting the base of (so I can chop the top 90%), as-well-as air-layering the thing's sole branch which will then be fused-onto the trunk-wound-site on another ficus.benji yamadori I've got https://imgur.com/gallery/CNRUCYD

[oh actually here's the other ficus.benji, the 1st pic is the chop-wound that'll get that ^ branch, have to make the perfect template/outline for the layer so it'll fit just-right but, with how well ficus' perform in this manner, expect little issue! https://imgur.com/gallery/3oBQYwr

ficus micro, almost done closing the chop-wound and need to get my sketches in-order so I can start wiring&forming my apex! Aerial roots like this are part&parcel in this area it seems (I only started ficus this year) https://imgur.com/gallery/Zpgomae

 

[JoeH]

I don't see a dang thing in any of those pics you posted.

 

[choppychoppy]

Okay so hoping any&everyone that's willing to donate a minute will take a peek at anything in here to find areas I may be missing things especially bigger things! And I want to mention/be clear that these were taken this week for this purpose, in no way are they 'clean' in fact they're quite the opposite lol IE they're overdue for bark-scrubbing, most are in heavy grow-out mode, nothing is "for presentation" so please judge / critique my materials/stock and techniques so far as how I'm approaching "building a canopy from a leader", choosing trunk-lines and general lines/shapes, etc. Of course, w/o sketches of what I'm aiming for, this'll make some things less clear but I expect everything will be obvious-enough

We'll have a lot to talk about. Crepe and BC management for sure. And you know I REALLY don't like those zip ties