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.
Rhus aromatica 'Gro-Low' from Pine Lane Nursery. You can find these in all the nursery. Best to look in the spring for before they leaf out or after they drop their leaves. Easy to grow, good for beginners, hardy, nothing eats them. They do smell though, washes right off. Flowers smell really good!!!!!!!
Acer tataricum s. ginnala 'Mondy' | Red Rhapsody® Amur Maple Found at Nicks Garden Center right after last snow storm. Tree was damaged from storm, new growth damaged. This is a small tree already in the shape of a Bonsai, just to pick and choose branches, develop the roots. Tree was damaged a few days ago by Hail storm, another set back so does not look to good right now.
Broom, can be found at Nicks Garden Center, Pine Lane Nursery, Longmont Tree Farm, Todays Nursery, Tagawa Nursery. Broom in pots need lots of water, I do mean lots of water, water 3-4 times in a row per watering. Your not going to kill them with to much water. This tree was attacked by rodents with long furry tails that climb trees. It was hanging on a by a few roots. It is wired into the pot now. Seems to be doing really well for almost being killed. I will not touch the tree for a couple more years. Will be a Scissors only tree for the rest of its life. I have a huge one from Nicks Garden Center, tree allowed to grow unchecked. It now has a huge trunk on it, going to be interesting to style t his one. Did I mention they love water?
Longmont Tree Farm - Crimson Pygmy Barberry. Found 10 days ago. Look for tall Barberries growing in amongst the others. Check the tall ones out for large trunks. This one is already a Bonsai. Curvy trunk, nebari and plenty of branches. What is not to like, I know thorns. 5 gallon pot.
Nicks Garden Center $16 Needle Juniper/Lace Rock planting. Just planted a couple of weeks ago. Will make a fine Bonsai. Nicks good for several sizes in Procumbus Junipers.
Lowes Boxwood. Lowes in Parker is known for good boxwoods if you take you time finding one. 5 gallon boxwood. This tree is fully developed ready for a pot.
A few trees Acer palmatum 'Ukigumo' from Lowes. Lowes/Home Depot have Japanese Palmatum trees usually for a good price. This tree I have had for a number of years. It has been allowed to grow and then chopped back several times. It now has a big trunk and some deadwood. This is a variegated maple that takes time to develop is white/green/pink colors. My tree is still thinking about it? This is a top Japanese Maple and it came from a box store. Who would have thought? http://www.heritageseedlings.com/page_107_40/acer-palmatum-ukigumo
Thanks Andy! I love the color play as well, and I thought a Nick Lenz pot would be a good fit with Larix Laricina. 😀 Nice honeysuckle! That's one species I haven't tried at all yet.
Here's another. (I posted this in the shohin thread as well.) This is a sumac / Rhus. I believe it may be the variety Tiger Eyes, as that is a regular at the nurseries around here.
The parent plant was gifted to me at Johnny Appleseed, a nursery owned by relatives of ours in Casper WY. It was relatively straight and tall with decent taper.. but unfortunately it blew off the bench (i believe twice!😯) and perished. When I potted it though I found this chunk of the root mass to be interesting and gave it it's own container. The root cutting took amazingly well and has NOT blown off the bench once! 🤣 I potted it into this more appropriate sized ceramic in March, and the plant has grown quite well since this photo was taken.
Here's one of mine. Kintzley's Ghost honeysuckle. I got it at Alameda Wholesale nursery (Denver) on a trip with RMBS. You need a wholesale license to shop there (we went with a member who had one) so I didn't include it on the list above. Yellow flowers in June, red berries in the fall. Training it to keep it's climbing nature. Glazed pot by RMBS potter Bill Sample. I think it cost me $18 after tax...
Oh yes we need pictures in this post Dan. Can't believe I forgot that! Great work! I really dig that cool blue pot and yellow foliage!
Great idea Andy!
One of my favorites to visit on my way through is Ft. Collins Nursery. I have several projects I'm working on from there. They do have a bonsai selection but I generally prefer to search the landscape material for something a bit more unique.
Is it cool if we share photo's of bonsai created from nursery stock here? (If you prefer not I'll edit and delete this part)
Here's a tree I've grown from nursery stock:
This is an American Larch purchased at Lowes garden center in Cheynne WY, I believe in 2013 (I call it the "Lowes Larch"). Unfortunately I don't have any up to date photo's. I'll try to remedy that situation. It was originally about twice this tall and both trunks were alive. I jinned the straightest trunk and also cut the top shorter, wiring up a small branch as the new leader.
October 2018:
May 2016 after it's first potting into a bonsai container (pot by Nick Lenz):