Yamadori at Christmas Tree Farm

bonsaial1

Sounds like a candidate for an article in Bonsai Today, or at least a few photo's here for us to drool over...

Thanks, Al

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A tree a day...thats all we ask.

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RonMartin(deceased)

And that brings us to another point. Just because it is a 70 year old yew does that by itself make it good bonsai material.

Mind you I haven’t seen yours. No slam on it. It could be a good one.

But just what makes for a good yamadori

Vance Wood

He has become very reclusive over the last few years and is almost impossible to contact. His carving of dead wood is every bit as good as Kimuras believe it or not. He did have an article in BT a number of years ago but that's about the last time I heard anything public from him.

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The only finished bonsai is a dead one; me 1992 MABA Des Moines Iowa

rockm

"To meet you defination of yamadori no tree planted by man can be yamadori."

Calm down- Yamadori is a Japanese term with very specific meaning--it means "from the mountain" or something very similar. It has become, fortunately, or unfortunately, a catch-all term for any collected tree. I use the term only for wild-collected trees, as do alot of people--not being snobby, just using a form of shorthand.

For what it's worth, I had a four foot, 6 inch diameter Scots pine bonsai that was collected from a Christmas tree farm. It was only passable as bonsai though. Mostly it was a pain in the behind.

Christmas trees have a big problem as a source for bonsai material, but not one that's insurmountable. It just takes some time looking for a good one. Beginners tend to go out and dig because they can, not necessarily because the tree is worth it. Don't make this mistake. Look for a decent tree, take your time, EVALUATE the tree you're looking at. don't dig it because you're excited to be able to dig up a tree. You will regret it.

The big problem is that Christmas trees are sheared every year into a conical shape to make them suitable for their intended purpose. This practice makes them rather characterless for bonsai.

Shearing mostly produces really bad bonsai shape (or rather no shape) to branching and no character in the trunk--since Christmas trees are prized for straight, bolt upright uniform trunks. That means you can get long thick straight branches with pom pom foliage on the ends attached to what looks like a telephone pole.

That means you have to spend the better part of a decade pushing new growth further back on the banches and hard pruning them to get some character.

While you're prying open branch structure to look inside and scraping around the trunk below the soil line (which is mandatory) Look for character in the trunk first and foremost, then look at the branching. If the branches are long straight with needles at the end, you willing to put in the effort to change it? You cannot replace it entirely as you can with deciduous trees. Conifers die if they are defoliated. The branch structure that's there is what you're going to be working wtih for a very long time.

Good luck.

Mcspeed

Hmmm, out in the "wild", fat, twisted, or otherwise interesting trunk, branching in the right places, with well placed foliage on those branches, and a nice pattern of radiating roots, or plant material willing to do all of the above. The kicker is it has to be somewhere we can get permission to dig it, be growing in a place we can dig it out without explosives, then be small enough to be able to get it home and replanted.

I just collected two apples, and two hawthorns from a cow pasture on a club dig, you might not call them yamadori, but you can call them Bovine Bonsai, at least untill it's my turn to style them. All chewed back, with short nice trunks, and lots of branching to work with.

RonMartin(deceased)

I think I heard this somewhere before.
Guess that makes it Deja- moo Bet I spelled that wrong ;o)

Vance Wood

You are right about that Ron. I remember when I first started bonsai within a club setting in California back in the early sixties. The club had a member who owned a ranch in the Shasta Mountains of Northern California. Every year the club made this exodus up north to dig up trees. Some of the trees people collected were simply "Butt-Ugly", and those were the good ones. So you see being a Yamadori does not necessarily make it good bonsai material. Crapola is still crapola regardless of where it comes from or how old it is. Going to the ends of the earth in search of Yamadori without the eye to recognize a good tree with potential makes the trip as useless as a door knob on an five gallon bucket.

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The only finished bonsai is a dead one; me 1992 MABA Des Moines Iowa

soonami

well my comment was just directed at the fact that my "yamadori" isn't a seedling. Idk how good of a bonsai it will be, but the trunk is huge and there is green low on the trunk, so it has potential. I suppose in 6 or 8 years we'll see how good this tree is, that is if I don't kill it.

Skywriting

Well I though that I had clearly indicated that the owner had given permission to look at his stock of trees. Permission to dig or collect was not yet given. In posting a request for guidance on what to look for in the way of good material for collection , I received a lesson on the correct usage of the term yamadori for which I stand corrected. Should have called it Yuleadori. Others have me digging up everything from something looking like the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree to the Rockefeller Center tree. Rest assured I have not sharpen the shovel or started the backhoe.

For those kind enough to have given good advice I thank you and appreciate your input.

Will be out LOOKING with camera in hand.

PS: At my age the only way to be is calm. That advise was given and taken from the family doctor years ago.

Thank you

Bob