Hey RMBS,
Tis' the season of evaluating and acquiring nursery stock material for bonsai! This year is clearly unique, and I imaging that local nurseries are seeing less foot traffic. This may play to our advantage. Before you head out to find your next diamond in the ruff, please check with the store to see what restrictions they have on shopping and visitation.
Quite a few RMBS members develop trees from nursery stock. Mike Horine is regarded as our local master in this regard. Mike often posts wonderful trees he has developed from this material, and he clearly has skill in evaluating a choosing appropriate stock. I will post a blog on my method for evaluating and hunting for this material next week, which is based heavily on Ryan Neil's approach to the same (as always thank you to Ryan and the Mirai team for the knowledge dissemination).
One thing to consider is that the fall is a great time to get stock, as a lot of places will heavily discount their remaining trees in anticipation of the next year's shipment.
To start with, I thought this might be a good place to rep some local nurseries that have been tried and true sources of local material with a couple notes. PLEASE ADD TO THE LIST BASED ON YOUR EXPERIENCES!
Local nurseries for stock material for bonsai:
City floral (Denver): I have found one or two good trees a year here. Not a hub for bonsai stock, but its close to me so I tend to find myself there. CF tends to be on the more expensive side (1/3 more than other places). They occasionally have half off stuff at the end of the year. Worth a look if you are in East Denver
Walmart (Anywhere): If you find one with a garden center, trees are cheap (especially if you get half off at the end of the year). Pretty standard stuff tho, nothing special. Easy to get junipers to learn to wire.
Home Depot, Lowes and the like (Anywhere): See Walmart above. Plenty of selection, but really nothing special. Good material to cut your teeth on and learn the techniques without dropping a bunch of cash.
O'tooles (Westminster): They had 40% off last year and I took a look around. Got a nice maple. They have good stock for bonsai, a cut above HD,Lowes etc... Definitely worth a trip.
I will leave some of the better nurseries for other to comment on, as I have not shopped there! (Nick's Garden Center, Togawa Gardens etc...)
Here is a little juniper I bought at Lowes in 2013. I bought it for the trunk which has some nice rough bark. At the time I didn't know enough to realize that all the foliage was at the end of long bare branches. So all work since has been to compress and push back the foliage. Still a ways to go. Fortunately it is a pretty vigorous little tree. It did survive my lack of knowledge.
Rhamnus frangula ‘Columnaris’ Buckthorn from Longmont Tree Farm.
10 years in development. Campsis radicans – Trumpet vine from the Longmont Tree Farm.
$5 Cotinus coggygria – Purple Smoke Bush from Lowes in Castle Rock end of year sale. See what 11 years, one severe snow storm and one really bad hail storm this spring can produce!
Mike!! Thanks for the comprehensive tour! This is super cool, and really appreciate the advice about local nurseries. Always happy to help move trees also!
Hydrangea anomala petiolaris - Climbing Hydrangea make good Bonsai if you can find a nice one. Big ones are expensive. Nicks Garden Center have them and that is where this came from. I have spent years trying to get branches to grow on the right side of the tree. Likes east side shelter or shade cloth. This a big and heavy tree. Might need
some young member like Andy come over and move it for me.
Chaenomeles japonica ‘Moned’ or ‘Super Red””quince. This is a around a 10 year old quince found at Nicks Garden Center. Nicks has a lot of quince varieties there. You can find some really great trees if you take your time and look. I keep buying quince from them. I bought a few more a couple of weeks ago. Good tree to learn on, good for beginners, very hardy if kept in Garage or cold frame. Best to grow under shade cloth 30%. Here is another quince from Nicks. Nicks best place to go for Quince.
Parthenocissus quinquefolia, known as Virginia creeper. This one came from the Longmont Tree Farm, it was out in the middle of no where growing in a pile of them. I selected this beat up and almost dead one and brought it home. Grew it in the same pot for years went into this pot last year and given to the Botanic Gardens. You can find them at almost all nurseries, trick is to find one with a big trunk.