Tamarix parviflora- excellent bonsai in a short time?

bonhe

Hi all,
I believe Tamarix (T) is an excellent material for beginner because it 's growing like a weed (hard to kill) at least in my area and for whoever wants to have a nice bonsai in a short time (less than 10 years?). The reason I say so is this story.

In 2002, I found one T tree in my yard and it was growing fast. At that time I didn't have any interest in bonsai at all, so I removed the T. Later on when I have a love in bonsai I regreted that I removed T. Hmm, let see, possible that my luck to remove it that time, otherwise it might have invaded my yard completely ;-)).

In this past summer, I found another tiny T popping out from my yard (not from the site I digged it out in 2002). This time I let it grow as you can see in pictures. Only in 5 months from the time I found it, it is growing aggressively. I had to cut its leader twice. Now its trunk base about 1.5 cm and height about 60 cm. with lot of pink flowers as you can see. I can see lot of tiny red seeds. Because of is tiny seeds, T can emigrate from one place to another place easily. The interesting thing about T is that when I cut some of it branches in 11/2007, then I put them into the water (this is the propagate way for T which I was taught by my teacher Mr. Richard Ota. By the way I consider I am very lucky enough to have Mr. Ota who is a great Japanese bonsaiist in California as my mentor). After 3 weeks those branches have lot of white roots with some budding even though at this time, temp. went down to 35 degree F at night.

I 'm planning to digged the T up in 2/08 and place it in trainning pot.

* First pic: the T in right side of pict. with my best favorist in the background: the MINIATURE LANDSCAPES ( Ho`n Non Bo^.) with mountains, waterfalls, miniature trees and the sea with koi fishes.
* Second pic: closed up T with pink flowers

Merry Christmas to everybody. Bonhe

Attached Images

	tamarix 002.jpg (72.8 KB, 90 views)
	tamarix 001.jpg (70.1 KB, 84 views)

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Ang3lFir3

Tamarix have been suggested as useful in bonsai for some time. however many people don't use them and its difficult to determine why. They do have an attractive flower and interesting foliage.

I believe it is Tamarix pentandra that is most commonly used tho i could be totally incorrect (this bears no weight against using tamarix parvafolia I am mearly attempting to add additional information).

I do know that there are two large tamarix trunks that Vic and I will be air layering from one of Daniel's landscape specimens as he is only interested in the main trunkline.

Finally I have attached my favorite example of Tamarix as bonsai. I do not remember the artist's name but i am certian it was once on the cover of Bonsai Today.

Attached Images

25106053.jpg (58.3 KB, 64 views)

candywhitevdub

looks like a really good candidate for a weaping style