melbrackstone wrote:I definitely have the same problem, with not enough room. I suspect there's a graph somewhere that shows how the newbie starts off with one or two plants, then acquires a few more after reading about different species, then goes to a bonsai exhibition and finds a stack of 'bargains....."
Before you know it, there are so many trees to look after, you wonder what on earth happened!
From here, I'm hoping my graph starts going down again, so that I clear out the too small plants I bought, that'll probably never grow large enough to do anything with in my lifetime, and I keep only those that are suited to my climate, and will reward me with good growth and behaviour patterns...
I'll still hanker after those autumn colours though.....
I followed the same path - acquired trees from everywhere in the early years. Some died (white pine in northern NSW?
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), then over the years as some trees and species started developing nicely, I started to jettison stuff I knew would never amount to anything so I could focus my time and attention on the good stuff - gave some away, even threw some in the bin.
What hit me this year is that 30+ years on, not one of my current collection originated from nursery stock. My current collection and trees in development were all grown from seed, cutting or tube stock, or collected.
Mel, I live not far from you, and have found tridents still give me good colour. Over the years I have grown hundreds of seedlings (mainly for grafting purposes), and about 5 years ago I stumbled across a strain that germinated in a batch of seedlings that loves the weather up here - it flourishes like a tropical in spring/summer and gives good colour in autumn.
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