Three little yews from ordinary gardencenter plants

[ChrisV]

Hello everyone I wanted to share some of my little yews with you that originally were plants meant for a hedge.
I use them as an example to show that enjoying bonsai doesn't have to cost much, if you are patient.
These were a bargain they cost me as little as $2,50 each. Due to multiple reasons, but one of them was they were growing with almost no soil in the pot at the shop.
I let them grow for 2 seasons and only pruned and fertilized them until I styled them.
Just had to get them healthy vigorous again first.
Yesterday I did some carving, but sadly my machine broke so it is not finished yet.

But here is the result and for the full story check out my blog: www.chrisvbonsai.wordpress.com

 

[Jester217300]

I really like the first and third tree. Well done. I just bought a clearance yew for $9 in a 5 gallon bucket for an almost identical project. Not as good of a deal but definitely similar. It was actually unmarked so that had to give it to me for the 0.5 gallon price since it was the only one in the system at the time.

 

[ChrisV]

Thanks.
9 bucks is a pretty good deal too. Did you already work on it?

 

[Jester217300]

Not yet, I'll work it next spring.

 

[Paulpash]

Hi Chris,

I see you've left quite big jinns on these trees. Can I ask why and do you plan to do anything with them?

 

[ChrisV]

Yes I have to carve and reduce them however my machine broke down last week so that has to wait a bit. But I left them at first, because these trees were examples for people to see what you can do with the yews you find in hedges and gardencenters.
So leaving them on would give people a clearer vision were what went and they can still see the lines the start material had.

 

[Alain]

I really like the 3rd one...good job!

Right now there are some amazing deals: I just bought a juniper parsonii for $4.16 at Home depot
And I was so pissed because they also had an amazing scots pine for $50 instead of the normal $169 but I couldn't buy it, even so low it was still too high for my pocket money...

 

[ChrisV]

Thanks!

Why was de scots pine reduced in price that much? Was it unhealthy or they just wanted to sell it?
Btw don't hesitate to post a pic of the juniper. I'm curious what you bought.

 

[Alain]

No it was just the 50 to 75% off on all shrubs and trees they've got right now (actually right now I just went there and the remaining stuff is kinda dead-ish, at this time - 2/3 weeks ago - everything was still good).

It was perfectly healthy with a minimum 3 to 4" diameter trunk.

 

[Alain]

Here are some (bad) pictures of my juniper.
I didn't do anything with it for the moment except re-potted it in a larger pot with better soil and remove a couple of dead branches.