"Thanks Al. I always thought Bonsai was about the trees."

Yes it took a wile, but there is that Mister Miagi line again.


"Just in case anyone is curious, this is what I found for sale at the California Bonsai Societies 50th anniversary vendor area."

Yes nice, so what is your point Al? That you can buy half finest bonsai in the U.S. as well, if you can afford it! So that , even if you maybe don't know how to make one of these your self, you can at least own and even show one? Because it is all about the tree. Making bonsai like making a hot rot, you buy a muscle car from a artist, stick on it a new spoiler you made during a workshop with a other artist. And presto it is your car. You can even show it and win prices with it. And because everybody is telling you(mostly the people that do this themselves), that it is all about the car and not if you can even do this your self or not.
Ones again: offcorse this is don all over the world and that is just fine by me. There are a million way to look or do bonsai! No problem there! But what I do have a problem with is the fact that this approach to bonsai is very counter productive and it leads people who do this beautiful hobby or the interested viewer into the wrong direction. You give of the impression that bonsai art is about the ability to find the best and easiest way to a presentable bonsai and the ability to maintain it. Well then, why would I bother any more, I will just buy a van Gogh, re frame it with a frame I made and enter it into this years show. Nice painting Hans! ....yours? It is all about the painting.... so Yes! It is now a van Meer! I will never go for this! Nor will I ever teach this to any body! You can only decide to go this direction in bonsai, if you are really able to go all directions in bonsai. Not any sooner, no matter how hard they try to convince you that it is all about the tree. It is all about your ability to learn to make the tree. Only than you can use phrases or decide what is bonsai art or not! And If that is called "having a ego" OK! At least I made it myself!
Hans.

Hans,

Sorry, haven't seen the Karate kid movies in the last few decades and certainly nothing was memorable except for the "Wire on, Wire off" adaptation of "Wax on, Wax off"".

Hans, last I checked most of your trees (that you have posted on your site) were not seedlings you started and waited oh, 20-40 years to finish. Yours tend to be collected trees, some you have collected and some that you have purchased, or have been given or have traded for. Then you applied your eye and talent to them and over time yo have developed beautiful trees.

This is exactly what I believe Al is stating- you are more likely to get really good trees when you start with really good material.

Al, I bought a very nice Green Atlas Cedar from Jim Gremel in Sacramento last fall. Yes they are spendy, but the potential is quite good. I thought about taking a second job to pay for it.....

John

Hans, last I checked most of your trees (that you have posted on your site) were not seedlings you started and waited oh, 20-40 years to finish. Yours tend to be collected trees, some you have collected and some that you have purchased, or have been given or have traded for. Then you applied your eye and talent to them and over time yo have developed beautiful trees.

This is exactly what I believe Al is stating- you are more likely to get really good trees when you start with really good material

Hi, and yes off course I try to work with good material, hack i drove 2 times up and down to Italy (5000 kilometres) to buy a yamadori of almost 4000 euros. But I'm allso capable to make a nice bonsai out off mediocre material from a garden centre if necessary though. And that is my point I tried to make in my posts. When i enter the Gingko Awards, my bonsai are shown among bonsai that are made by good amateurs and good pros. Some bonsai are made by them self or made by others, from imported half finished trees or raw Yamadori. To me that is all OK. To style a imported tree is, if don right, difficult enough and will give quick results. And if you are any good in bonsai, not much can go wrong in styling those prefab trees. This is also so because the real artist is matured in the art of bonsai and therefore was/is experienced enough to make his or here decision witch way to go in his bonsai live/career. My point is that you should first reach that point before you can honestly say, it is al about the tree. And I know what Al is saying, and most of it is right! But don't make what I have tried to do so passioned for the last 17 years sound so simple, please don't tell me that I have been wasting almost all of my time to grasp and learn a art form were only the end result is important, no matter how you reached it! Please don't compare apples with pears.
You have to learn all the roads, before you decide witch way you want to walk, or give directions to others.
Hans.

All very intersting and valid points. It points out that some people are "collectors" and some people are the "creators" of this art we call bonsai. I have several customers who are "collectors" meaning they only will buy a tree that is already worked and potted and looks good to their eye as a "finished" bonsai.
I have done trees for them and they ask me to maintain their trees as bonsai for them.

So what I am getting at here is that some people will be strictly collectors with having no desire to get their hands dirty but yet wanting to own nice trees to enjoy.
Incidently neither of the two people I refer to here ever show their trees.
But I am sure to their friends those trees are their trees and not something that so and so did for them.
I know several other experienced bonsai people who maintain bonsai collections for those who "collect" bonsai trees. So I believe there is room for all of us in some way.

Hans: Thank you for writting this, it is right on point and exactly what I believe. I find that for me bonsai is like sex. Sometimes the process of getting there is more fun than the big finish at the end.

Hans, the value of what you do is something that only you need to be comfortable with. My ascribing value to your work is really of little value to you.

John
(repotter based on what you have said Kimura, Suzuki and many others are principally "collectors". Hmm.)

"I find that for me bonsai is like sex. Sometimes the process of getting there is more fun than the big finish at the end."

How to put this delicately....??

I guess I find this process more enjoyable if I'm working with a partner that's attractive (spiritually and physically). If that person is a whiner, with really bad teeth, a mean drunk and has little concern for me and lacks any inclination to improve themselves , personally I'd rather look elsewhere for a more rewarding relationship...Same for bonsai.

Duhhh?

Duh aside, if you're working with a tree that's not worth the effort, why do it? The majority of nursery trees aren't reasonable partners in a bonsai relationship. They're mostly pigs with bad teeth. I've tried with a substantial number of them. They can work out, but most don't. I've moved on to trees that are more attractive from the beginning. That means more up front, but in the long run, it's more satisfying, rewarding and alot less frustrating.

The journey is fine, but who wants to travel with a pig with bad teeth that needs constant attention and in the end is still a pig with bad teeth?

That all comes back to my original argument. Regardless of the source of the material it all comes to choices. It is not determined by cost, by source, by collection, or by price, it is determined by the eye of the chooser. I have said it before but it bears repeating: I have seen some really butt-ugly collected trees that will not make a good bonsai in a life time. But because the tree was collected the seller was able to demand a high price and someone else was willing to pay the price. Thinking that a tree will automatically make an excellent bonsai just because it was collected is as wrong as any other scenario you could come up with to prove the opposite.

I think that some think that I do what I do with nursery trees by just grabbing any old nursery tree and hacking away at it. This most certainly is not true, I have told people many times how I select my Mugo Pines so I will not do so again here, but there is a clear purpose to what I do and it seldom fails me.

I have three trees in my collection that were obtained as pre-bonsai. One of them I selected myself and paid $70 for it. It has turned into a first class bonsai. I have one Shimpaku that cost me $70 that was obtained by lottery in a workshop in Chicago a number of years ago that was known on my web site as the ugly Shimpaku. Years latter it is still an Ugly Shimpaku. I also have a Korean Hornbeam that was acquired as work shop material by lottery that cost $45 dollars. It is more a source for cutting than anything else but will take many more years to make a decent bonsai. So the argument that you should choose pre-bonsai material from professional growers does not provide the magic bullet either.

The defining argument regardless of what side of the fence you fall off of, should be this: If you cannot see a bonsai in it you should not buy it, collect it, or accept it in a work shop.

Your wrote: The majority of nursery trees aren't reasonable partners in a bonsai relationship. They're mostly pigs with bad teeth. I've tried with a substantial number of them. They can work out, but most don't. I've moved on to trees that are more attractive from the beginning.
If you believe this I suppose that is your business, I could say the same about a lot of collected trees I have seen. If I see a good collected tree worth paying good money for I might grab it, but collected and good are not necessarily synonymous, any more than nursery and bad are; the same can be said for professionally grown pre-bonsai.

If you are picking bad nursery material it is because you are not looking for the right things in the material you are searching through. If I may use Mugo Pines as an example, I will go through an average of maybe fifty trees to find one that fills my requirements. The real problem with nursery trees is in being over whelmed by the number of choices and the work involved in searching through them all.