My wife was returning home from work and noticed a local winery had ripped out a line of trees . Big Bonsai was the first thing that entered my thoughts , so i shot off down the road to have a sneak peek at what was happening to these trees .On investigation i notices that the elms in the front of the winery had been destroyed .So with no hesitation i located the office and asked if they would mind if i could have some of the trunks . The head gardener said they were all smashed up by the excavator but i could help myself to as many as i wanted . Like a big kid in a lolly shop i took a good look and noticed that although the tops were snapped off the trunks were usable . I immediately began loading trunks after removing most of the soil. Elm after Elm went into the trailer, then i spotted Japanese Maples they too went on board . Continuing down the row i came across a Golden Atlas Cedar , yes I’ll have that too . Very content with my quick work , 7 Elms , 4 Maples and a Cedar i headed home .
Out of the corner of my eye i noticed at the rear of the winery more trees had been removed . The next morning i returned to gather more big Elms ,2 hours later i had collected 2 Dozen trunks . These were the easiest trunks i have ever collected , no need to dig these out just remove the excess soil and load aboard .Now all i had to do was to plant them into the ground .Root trimming was required and
into the ground they went. At the end of the day 31 Elms , 4 Maples and a Golden atlas cedar were collected in 3 hours . A new chainsaw will be next on the list of “must haves” to carve these big trunks into something resembling big Bonsai trainers.
Urban Yamadori Elms
I just realized that you are the same Alpineart as on Ausbonsai.com . Your story about collecting these trees from the winery inspired me to get back into this hobby of mine last year and eventually led me to the Ausbonsai forum. Love your work, and thanks for the inspiration!
James