AusBonsai

Hi guys,

My wife and I bought our house a couple of years ago, the previous owner was an elderly woman who could no longer look after the garden. Having recently gotten into bonsai I have been looking around to see what is around I can use. I had never really considered jades and the like as I prefer pines and deciduous trees etc. but having seen the post Jade time! by Matt S (viewtopic.php?f=130&t=25247 ) I realise how amazing these can actually be. My back and front yard has a plethora of succulents that have never really seen much attention apart from supplying my kids schools with cut off for fetes and the like. I'm wondering if these are still workable or are they too far gone? The trunks would be up to 100mm wide with some being at least 1m tall.
There are a lot more but I thought I'd just see first before I get too carried away. I'm under no illusions that I'll achieve something likes Matt's but I'd hate to see them go to waste, my wife wants them eventually cleared out anyway.

Thanks, Russ

Keep the ones with good thick trunks, flog off the rest...don't even need to put them in pots, gumtree people are often prepared to take newspaper wrapped pieces, especially if they're cheap.

The small leaf jade is better for bonsai. I don't think the larger leaves look so good as bonsai but you might like to play with them for experience.
I'm pretty sure that jade will shoot on older trunks if you need to prune any of these back really hard to get a good size and shape. I know that Don Deluca was making jin and shari on jades a couple of years ago so you may even be able to make deadwood to disguise some chops.
Large cuttings are also possible so even if the stumps are not good looking you may find some potential further up the trunks.