Mouth-watering Murraya

[Tambrand]

You can do like us -------

[1] Test to see how fast they develop a 3" trunk in the ground
.
[2] Test to see what produces that deep shaping on the trunk

Not a favourite of mine, so I can offer no growing advice.
But they do grow wild over here.

I don't like how the Chinese cut the foliage for display.
Laters.
Tambrand

[melbrackstone]

Agree with Kirky, we need to start developing these plants ourselves, or looking for old hedges that are being removed. You can grow Murraya quite quickly in the ground, so as long as you start shaping early, it's quite possible to get something mouth-watering in your lifetime...

[Charliegreen]

Greatest barriers to Aus Bonsai Growers reaching world class bonsai quality cultivation.
1. "Why oh why cant we have overseas mature stock?" Put it out of mind, waste of time. Aus Quarantine laws will never change
2. "Trees need multiple lifetimes to be great" Learn to grow faster and in contact with the ground.
3. Entrenched woeful styling ideologies from geriatric Bonsai Clubs discouraging innovation and excellence.
4. People who grow Jade
5. Ugly free hand, expensive Australian ceramics
6. The utter drivel I read on this Forum

[Lane]

Love that first one, evil looking!

I've a monster I dug up a year ago with a 30cm+ base similar to Ken's one he worked with Peter Adams.

[Bonbon]

You can do like us -------

[1] Test to see how fast they develop a 3" trunk in the ground
.
[2] Test to see what produces that deep shaping on the trunk

Not a favourite of mine, so I can offer no growing advice.
But they do grow wild over here.

I don't like how the Chinese cut the foliage for display.
Laters.
Tambrand

I personally like the thinning of the foliage to enhance the aged look. And to show more of the branch structure.
Foliage too dense is like an old man, like me, put on a very dense wig Not very convincing
Like these two

[GavinG]

I'd love to see your trees, Charliegreen.

Gavin

[KIRKY]

don't hold your breath Gavin.
Cheers
Kirky

[Paul W]

Maybe Charlie could write a book 'How to win Friends and Influence People in Six Easy Lessons"
Why log on if you do not like the drivel

[Bonbon]

Maybe Charlie could write a book 'How to win Friends and Influence People in Six Easy Lessons"
Why log on if you do not like the drivel

What is 'drivel'?
I only know dremel

[Keep Calm and Ramify]

BonBon,
an example of "Drivel" would be saying something like.... Ugly freehand expensive Australian ceramics are stoping us from reaching worldclass quality bonsai cultivation....
Thanks to Charliegreen, I now know where I'm going wrong - I'm not cultivating my ceramics effectively?

[melbrackstone]

Bonbon: Just a small example for you to think about... I planted a stack of trees 30 years ago, when I first became interested in bonsai. At that time I was newly married with young kids, and my time ended up being used for other pursuits for awhile. I've started to dig some of them out.

Below is one of the trees I planted only 8 years ago, which I dug up last Autumn, and repotted into a drum pot this past weekend. There is a LOT of work to come, but the tree on the right was the same size as the little tree in the middle round pot when it was planted... (and I didn't fertilise or water the tree for those 8 years!)

cottontree1.jpg

admittedly it's only a common cotton tree, but with lots of work it might be worthy in another 8 years, who knows?

[melbrackstone]

a before and after from Harry Harrington's page...collected hedge plants...

hh1.jpg

hh2.jpg

[Nate.bonsai]

Yep, Harry Harrington and, (in my opinion*) to a lesser extent, Graham Potter, do magical things with ugly urban stumps that I would pass by - and that material can be found growing in our soil.

(* Despite the small slight, he still far surpasses anything that I will ever achieve).

Re the other insightful commentary on why we don't have quality bonsai ('because everyone on here sucks'), the phrase 'put up or shut up' does come to mind. I wouldn't ordinarily be so blunt, but my bluntness doesn't even approach the level of the comment in the first place.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[kcpoole]

Greatest barriers to Aus Bonsai Growers reaching world class bonsai quality cultivation.
1. "Why oh why cant we have overseas mature stock?" Put it out of mind, waste of time. Aus Quarantine laws will never change
Yep agree, Stop lamenting it and get stuck in to develop our own
2. "Trees need multiple lifetimes to be great" Learn to grow faster and in contact with the ground.
Yep agree,Grow smaller trees to take less time to develop
3. Entrenched woeful styling ideologies from geriatric Bonsai Clubs discouraging innovation and excellence.
Show us some of tyour ideas and we might take notice
4. People who grow Jade
Nothing wrong with jade, they make excellent Bonsai, Not our fault if you have never seen a good one
5. Ugly free hand, expensive Australian ceramics
Then don;t use them, your choice !
6. The utter drivel I read on this Forum
hmm, Just like this post of yours? If you do not like it then please leave and keep your negative comments to your self. Ausbonsai is a vehicle for people to share ideas and workshop with each other virtually to improve Bonsai in Australia.

[kcpoole]

BonBon,
an example of "Drivel" would be saying something like.... Ugly freehand expensive Australian ceramics are stoping us from reaching worldclass quality bonsai cultivation....
Thanks to Charliegreen, I now know where I'm going wrong - I'm not cultivating my ceramics effectively?

Ken