bonsaikc

Al, I couldn't agree more. I have said before that there are many paths to bonsai, and each has their own merits and drawbacks. Like you, I have moved from one to another. I prefer collected trees and prebonsai stock. I do not purchase mature trees because of the financial limitations at this time. However, in the past, my thought was always of nursery stock. What really turned me around was seeing local mentality that nursery stock was THE way to do bonsai. So we had members with 30 years experience with sticks in pots.

The expertise required to make a "masterpiece" from a collected tree and the expertise required to choose well and take a piece of inexpensive nursery stock to "masterpiece" level are two subsets of bonsai skills that overlap but are not identical. Each have their own challenges and I would never diminish one or the other.

But you are right. The best bonsai in the world are, with perhaps a rare exception, collected trees or trees that have been grown for many years expressly for bonsai. I don't have that many years to wait. Not that I intend to go anywhere, don't you know. I just want to spend my time developing things other than girth and movement. Life is too short.

__________________
Chris Johnston
"She was a critic, and lots fo critics who aren't called to do what they write about grow jealous and mean and small in their disappointment." - Stephen King, Duma Key
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