Hey JoshJosh wrote:Hi Hugh,
I should have elaborated a bit more, sorry. In European countries you can go out and collect a 200-500 yr pine, juniper, cedar and put it a bonsai pot and within a very short period you have an A grade bonsai. Our trees that are 200-500 yrs old are 50-100 feet tall and dead straight or 20 foot across.
Don't get me wrong there is plenty of good/great stock out there but not like in Japan. Our Flora is very different to overseas. Some of the native members have some incredible coastal tea trees and I think these are as good as it gets in matching Juni or pines collected on a mountain in Japan.
Having said that I would love to get into some of the old forests in Tassie as I think there would be incredible stock in there.
There is definitely a need for native yamadoori particularly considering some species are difficult to collect. I would love to see a native specialist nursery to promote our own trees.
Josh.
i understand where your coming from mate, i had the same view point a while back ago. Like every other country out there though whom practice bonsai, they all have there own native material that is really very very good and you see alot of high quailty trees coming from all over the place of different species and forms. All are different though and have different qualities. Australia is no different! there is a tonne of really amazing material out there, alot of it small and compact and very very old, you just have to do a lot of ground work to find these places by knowing the right people and the right locations by reading the environment that contain these kinds of trees. our landscape has trees that are world class and worthy of collecting that would go up against those 200 - 500 year old pine quite easily in a competition if worked right and designed with there inherent Australian characteristics taken into acocunt.
Now when referencing japan, i think its important to consider that japanese trees are japanese trees and are styled like Japanese trees. I dont think it is really fair to say that we dont have the trees like they do in japan. Yes its true they have been doing everything we do bonsai for a while and have great set ups for ground grown stock, collected stock, highly refined finished trees, which are really top class. I think though its important not to compare our own material or any other countries material to japan in such a way that lowers the sense of quality of a countries native material. different trees and different species have their own unique qualities, bonsai aims to show this sense of uniqueness and antiquity in these trees. Like i said before the japanese style and create trees that are reminiscent of there own local material in their own country. this is the same for and should be the same for each country. american style american trees like american trees. europeans style european trees like european trees etc.
i go by a few very simple points when collectingJaseH wrote:Fixed for you JoshJosh wrote:
Don't get me wrong there is plenty of good/great stock out there but not like there used to be in Japan.
Just a bit of note on this - yamadori juniper is now virtually extinct in Japan with no hope of ever recovering - not for hundreds of years anyhow. Its now illegal to collect from the wild.
I'm all for native yamadori collection here in Aust. but I think we need to tread very carefully and respect area's where growth is slow and very old - such as mountain areas in Tassie. This growth does not just bounce back and probably never will once its removed. I'd rather see this stuff in its natural environment than in someones backyard.Having said that I would love to get into some of the old forests in Tassie as I think there would be incredible stock in there.
But there is plenty of common species in not so delicate environments that I cant see a problem with
1. collect sustainably
2. only collect material of high quality for bonsai, that which is worth collecting
3. only if almost certain of successful collection
This means that not many trees are actually viable to be collected and if trees are collected, an area is not devastated. there may be only one tree that fills all these factors on each acre of a collecting site = minimal impact.
Nigel i collect trees quite a lot now days, if i were to start selling these, even better! It would mean that more collected material would be circulated and used in the bonsai community which would in my opinions raise the level higher. It is true that collected material would be at a higher cost than your usual bonsai nursery tree, but considering the attributes of collected material vs. a nursery grown tree you can understand why. there is only so much age and ancient character that can be given to a tree grown in a nursery. this is where i believe collected material is superior to nursery grown. both types of material though do have there place in bonsai of course. Id hate to only have 1 type of source to get bonsai material.NAHamilton wrote:I'd definitely be interested in a couple.
Obviously the right way of going about it is important in terms of where they are coming from and by the sounds of it you (Hugh) are confident in your abilities to collect and keep alive.
Reading between the lines I'm assuming this is an idea of a business venture? Factoring in your time to collect, cost of petrol, tools, ferts, water, soil, space pot and time, whilst establishing, could put the cost out of many peoples reach (I may change my interest into just one ) I say this given the fact that native bonsai is still somewhat of a new frontier and am extremely large one at that. Personally my spending has gone into the low hundreds for individual trees, but things like Tridents, Figs and Junipers that there is a wealth of information surrounding.
Still in saying all of that, I'll happily pre order a nice thick trunked Baeckea from you.
Cheers
Nigel