Last year I'd put 2 tiny Privet into small pots for my 2 little girls - unfortunately their trees were among my losses from our vicious winter (and my poor 1st attempt at winterizing my trees). So, I replaced them with a few saplings from a large number of seedlings I planted last year. I thought these to be 'lace leaf' maple trees, but I'm now not too sure; The bark on mature trees peels like paper bark, revealing rich oranges and browns beneath. The leaves closely resemble a Trident Maple. I will work on the correct species. The seeds were collected from a local park with lace leaf trees that were loaded with ripe seeds in season last Autumn.
I'm using seashell material on 2 of the pots. We recently were on a family beach trip to The Outer Banks in North Carolina. While there, I thought that this light airy shell material might do well for soil for some bonsai! This is shell material gathered with the tides; any beach you can goto, if you dig a few inches down you reach this 'shell' layer that is crumpled, and quite fine. We'll see how they do compared to a more 'regular' pea stone w/ bark mixture (The shell plants also have some organic material mixed in underneath the top shell cover).
