Walter_Pall

René,

I put collected trees into a bonsai pot before styling quite often. The reason is twofold:

1) it as a good idea to put a collected tree into a small container rather than a big one. This is well established wisdom among long-time professional gardeners. I know, it is not general bonsai wisdom. Often enough it can be the final pot anyway. Then I leave the tree alone for a couple of years and then start styling. After that I may want to change the pot or the position in the pot. But usually this is not such a great change and can happen one year after styling easily.


2) Many collected trees have quite awkward rootage. This comes form livining in awkward places for over 100 years. While the trunk and branches might suggest a certain form it often is not possible to later on put the tree inot a decent pot in the right position ever. Thus the positoin and kind of pot becomes the most important bottleneck for many collected trees. This is why this is the very first thing to tackle. How do I get this tree into what sort of pot. Then afterwards we can usually form the crown to fit the position in the pot. This is the opposite of what one usually does.
I have seen well designed trees in growing boxes which will never ever become a decent bonsai because the design cries for a certain type of pot that is just impossible from the rootage point of view.

best regards
Walter Pall