Tired of spending money on "pre-bonsai"

[drew33998]

Here is the problem, and please don't think I am demeaning your point of view, but as you put it: It's good stock to practice on and hone ur skills and not ruin or dmg old and expensive material From someone who has always chosen nursery material as a preference and now without excuse; most of you are making the assumption that nothing you find in a nursery is going to be worth the effort you plan on putting into a Yamadori. This is not true. Though finding Yamadori quality nursery trees is not a common event it none-the-less happens.

I think it safe to say that yes bonsai material does exist In box stores and nurseries, however they are few and far between. It is easier sometimes to get material from people that have spent years developing it to be bonsai, IE- your tele farms type vendors, that would have more of the structure we look for in trees.
I appreciate everyone's input on this thread. All have given great advice and opinions. While most of my material does hail from box stores and nurseries, i am at a point where I can look at my material and safely say "these are 5-10 years away from having a "final" styling of sorts. I do appreciate the struggle and strife it has taken and will continue to take to advance this , I feel I am truly realizing that money does equal time.

 

[milehigh_7]

One more quick caveat to the box store find. You may or may not know that the prices in Lowe's garden center or the local landscape nursery are never set. I haggle all the time on stuff that no person will buy for landscape. Trees in big cans that have been broken are prime targets for a, "How much lower will you go on that? You know it won't sell for landscape." I normally get around 75% off marked prices.

 

[sorce]

Mile high. The second link you posted earlier goes to your profile. Was it supposed. To be another tree?
I'd like to know which. The other is Great.

Thanks

Sorce

 

[Giga]

One more quick caveat to the box store find. You may or may not know that the prices in Lowe's garden center or the local landscape nursery are never set. I haggle all the time on stuff that no person will buy for landscape. Trees in big cans that have been broken are prime targets for a, "How much lower will you go on that? You know it won't sell for landscape." I normally get around 75% off marked prices.

There is a HUGE local nursery that I actually formed a friendship with the manager guy and now if a tree is dmged and won't sell they hold it for me and I get it for 75-80% off. I got like 4-5 nice tree's this year because of that.

 

[Vance Wood]

There is a HUGE local nursery that I actually formed a friendship with the manager guy and now if a tree is dmged and won't sell they hold it for me and I get it for 75-80% off. I got like 4-5 nice tree's this year because of that.

This is smart. Often commercial nurseries do not have a real good ides what constitutes good potential bonsai material. The fact that they will hold stuff that you might want but they know they can't sell puts you in a good position.

 

[coh]

Getting friendly with the owner of a good local nursery can be an excellent idea. I've received big discounts and been offered trees for free. I need to find a place in the yard for a big (3-4" trunk) pink-flowered black locust that they are trying to get rid of. Was a $200 tree, but it suffered some damage and now they just want to give it away. I won't complain (except while digging the hole, perhaps).

Of course, over the past 10 years I have also spent thousands of dollars there...

As for Lowes, at the end of the season they mark down their remaining stock by 75% so I can see why they might be willing to sell damaged stuff at a similar discount earlier in the season. Depends on the manager, though, I've found some unwilling to budge even for severely damaged stuff.

Chris

 

[Giga]

This is smart. Often commercial nurseries do not have a real good ides what constitutes good potential bonsai material. The fact that they will hold stuff that you might want but they know they can't sell puts you in a good position.

They are really large, takes about an hour or so just to walk through the place and they have a green house that's say 4000 sq feet. They have almost anything you can think of. I kept coming in the summer that the manager chatted me up and it just went from there when I told him what I'm looking for.

Getting friendly with the owner of a good local nursery can be an excellent idea. I've received big discounts and been offered trees for free. I need to find a place in the yard for a big (3-4" trunk) pink-flowered black locust that they are trying to get rid of. Was a $200 tree, but it suffered some damage and now they just want to give it away. I won't complain (except while digging the hole, perhaps).

Of course, over the past 10 years I have also spent thousands of dollars there...

As for Lowes, at the end of the season they mark down their remaining stock by 75% so I can see why they might be willing to sell damaged stuff at a similar discount earlier in the season. Depends on the manager, though, I've found some unwilling to budge even for severely damaged stuff.

Chris

While I don't visit big box stores for there nursery stock, I will root through them at fall if I happen to be there. Got a 200$ japanese maple for 50$ so they do have some stuff

 

[milehigh_7]

oops sorry bout that

Mile high. The second link you posted earlier goes to your profile. Was it supposed. To be another tree?
I'd like to know which. The other is Great.

Thanks

Sorce

http://bonsainut.com/forums/showthread.php?4751-Quercus-virginiana

 

[catfish chapstick]

The problem with bonsai is that it's much too slow. I too would like to obtain better starting material for pre bonsai but I think collecting is the answer to that. You stand to gain a piece of stock that is probably much more interesting in the long run and you don't pay 900 dollars for it.

What would be really fun is if you buy an established tree and somehow redesign it. That is my bonsai dream.

 

[Dav4]

To complicate the issue, I've come full circle. I started with pencil sized stock 18 years ago, then eventually moved on to older, more developed material which I worked with exclusively for over a decade. 3 years ago, I started striking shimpaku cuttings, and I placed my 3rd order in 3 years for bare root seedlings from Matt Ouwinga last month. Junipers and pines all twisted up in colanders...tridents and palmatums growing out in the yard, ume, too. The thing is, it's fun watching the young stuff grow and develop with minimal intervention while I'm more aggressively working the more finished material...and I'm hopefully gonna have a load of nice material to occupy me when I'm old and decrepid...well, older and more decrepid.

 

[Poink88]

The problem with bonsai is that it's much too slow. I too would like to obtain better starting material for pre bonsai but I think collecting is the answer to that. You stand to gain a piece of stock that is probably much more interesting in the long run and you don't pay 900 dollars for it.

Smart........

 

[Don Blackmond]

Keep in mind that free is never free, so collecting good material costs you something, even if only sweat equity; the travel, the hunt, the dig, the return travel, the initial potting/placing, and the time spent watching it establish. In my world, time is money. Now, I also truly appreciate the hunt, the dig, the potting, the waiting and the making something out of nothing, so to speak.

That said, bonsai is a matter of degree. I enjoy working on everything from stratifying seeds to maintaining show trees. I have tons of trees in all stages. Making a tree is incredibly gratifying. Keeping a show tree beautiful is also very rewarding. Its all a matter of degree.

I encourage people to buy the best stock they can afford. Why? Because people will lose interest much quicker if they are working on seedlings or craplings. Getting people to stick with the hobby means getting people to last more than a couple of years. In my experience, more developed stock has a better rate of survival and tends to hold a person's interest longer. Where they get that stock really does not matter. You can find good material at a box store or in the wild, so it does not need to come from a bonsai shop. But, sometimes its a good idea to have a good piece of material from a bonsai shop to model your box store or collected material after.

 

[milehigh_7]

Great thread

How awesome to have advice from guys like Don and the other experienced expert level folk. Then you have people like me who have been pretty much newbies for 15 years. Then there are people like Dario who started faster than just about anyone I have ever seen by using urban yamadori. Lots of perspective.