Vance Wood

Sometimes the "Junk", as seen through the eyes of the nursery man who wants to sell the perfect landscape plant, is exactly what you are looking for in a bonsai. The things that make nursery junk are often the things that make bonsai gold. I don't mean to bad mouth the bonsai stores but for the most part unless you are looking for some high end imported stuff or pretrained material you are not likely to find the kind of raw material you may be looking for.

I look at the nursery trade in much the same way others would look at collecting in the wild. Sometimes the journey is wasted with no results, and often you find much more than you expected. The only difference here is not in having to dig out tree from the mountians but having to dig through a lot of material looking for the trait you desire in a particular tree. The real art to it is in the willingness to get on hands and knees and crawl down nursery lanes. These trees will for the most part,not jump out at you, it is necessary to get your hands dirty fishing around in the nursery pot examining trunks and bases of trees, seeing with your hands the trees that are acceptable.