A few things in the garden

Just a few pictures from the garden - all pre-bonsai material and 'experimental' stages for me.  I'm enjoying the learning process!

A row of mostly trident maples in 2gal pots - these all have a future in a large forest I'm planning for them.  Further to the left is a American Elm, a large privet with a good nebari cut very low, and a 'rose of sharon' near the end.   Near the bottom you can see plant markers - I'll show my seedling progress next week, but so far - doing really, really well.  I planted numerous things - and am getting numerous results!

A close up of the left side of the left garden.  Can see a few large privet trunks, a Maple forefront left, and still not sure quite what the heck it is in center but it's interesting, so I'm working on it until I can see the leaves better this year to identify. 

This tree fooled me.  I thought I'd brought home a really large Sweetgum Maple in the middle of winter, but this turns out to look like it's a paperbark birch instead.  Which is exciting as it's doing really well, and is at the point where it should begin ex-foilating bark in the next few years!   You can see numerous buds up and down on the wood - it's coming to life.

Right side of the garden, more 2gal pots with some Junipers far right, some jap maples center, and more tridents on the left.  In the ground - are about 100 trident maples, a row of jap maples, a row of assorted local specimens (crepe myrtle, elm, birch), and some sweetgum maples far right.   These, are my future trees to play with many years to come.  Some will go into big 3-5gal pots, many will go into the ground in other places for 'wild' growth growing, and some will just be used as trees in the yard!  (Tridents are beautiful, with 

great colors in fall from yellow to orange to red!)

Azalea Yamadori coming to life

Rather big Azalea that got reclassified as 'bonsai material' last year.  I'm enjoying this tree and learning the patterns of Azaleas - if it keeps doing as well as it currently is, it might even turn into something decent one day, with some mindful attention to it's needs.

Needed a trim so I could review branches.  Defoliation time, it won't be making flowers this year.

Left a few small leaves on however it's already budding all over and on old wood again this spring.  Has some inverted taper in the base of the trunk, but that can be resolved with a little carving.   Waiting to see where the vigor of the tree takes it, then I'll help it along.   The exposed roots are just as it was originally in the ground - some are dead, some are alive.  This will be part of the 'carving' process down the road.

Yamadori Success - Paperbark Birch

Yesterday I took a stroll along the 'Little River' (Aptly named - except when it rains) that runs behind my home with my friend Aaron.  We had in mind to walk along a trail that is maintained by the county beside the river because many trees are pushed over and left to fend for themselves when they clear the trail - which leaves many trees regrowing and recovering in unique shapes due to their shock survival of being run over!

We found a great example: a Paperbark Birch or 'Betula Papyrifera', of which there are many large specimens around the forests in this area of, but oddly not many that I've found growing while of this medium size or smaller, for bonsai really...   This tree was literally 'run over' by county trucks that clear the trail, and shows deadwood and scarring down one side from this.   Other then that, it also has nice movement in the Trunk, quite healthy after I checked the tree over - we decided it would come home with us.

Next time - I will take more pictures 'of' the tree excavation, I was short on battery at the time, but it was a long process.  We came away with quite a good amount of feeder roots, as this tree had also grown in a sandy/rocky area along the riverbank/trail so I got 2 pluses for one out of this great tree.

Largest material I have at this time, great care will be given to maintain this tree and help it to grow used to container living.

Good girth with nice movement.

Can see the deadwood area from where it was run over and 'pushed' sideways on to the ground as we found it.   Nice carving area later on.

Good shot of the ex-foliating bark, I helped it along a little to see if I could find any buds further back on old wood and...

I found quite a few, this one is even close to the deadwood area.

Many buds in this area near one of it's bends.

A few more on this side as well.

Quite a healthy tree, it will receive good nutrients and lots of them as I have it in 80% non-organic porous soil, with slight organic additive to stimulate fine, radial, root growth.