Collecting in North America

Urbansai

I'd like to know what everyone's favorite collected trees are here in the U.S./Canada. I read all the time in books and online about people in europe collecting hornbeams, larches and many other local varieties. I guess i'm mainly interested in Deciduous trees available on the east coast, however any other suggestions are very welcome as well.

What are your favorites?
_Urb_

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TreeBay

Here in California, collecting from the wild means mainly California Juniper, Redwood, Sierra Juniper, and Oak. If you're collecting from the CA urban and suburban areas, there are other options in commonly planted landscape plants, like Bougainvillea and Needle Juniper, Olive, Pyracantha, Holly, Wisteria and Pomegranate. Those are the ones that come to mind, but but there are quite a variety of potential plants and trees to be collected.

Regards,

Matt

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erubeck

URB:

Here in south central Kansas the most common tree found is the Eastern Red Cedar or Juniperus virginiana which is obviously no cedar at all. It's spread in this area is almost epidemic. Many pastures are covered with hundreds of them from new seedlings to three or four feet high. They are fast growing and withstand the extremes of temperature and high winds here. I have seen some of them as bonsai and they are quite interesting. The ones I have seen look like old pines you woulld see in the Rocky Mountains. They have been shaped in a tall and slender fashion with many of the branches removed. The remaining branches have been trained downward giving the very old appearance. Some of the branches have been cut short and jinned further adding to the old age look.

Other native trees include the Cottonwood and Osage Orange, neither of which I have seen as bonsai.

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Regards,

Ed

Tony

Like Nipper in Kansas, here in central Oklahoma one of the most common trees are juniperus virginiana. Anywhere the birds fly or perch you're sure to find tons of these trees. They mostly grow straight uninteresting trunks but every now and then you'll find one worth collecting. We also have many Chinese elm and cedar elms in the wild that can make nice bonsai.

conor

Here the best species to collect are alder (a lot of work to reduce the leaves), spruce, jack pine, birch, American hornbeam, red cedar, larch, hemlock and bitter cherry. However, I often find hawthorn and oak as well.

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-Conor