As always, remember you can see the full size image by clicking on the picture.
This is a sitka spruce that I really really love. I think that with a few years and a nice pot it will be, by my standards, amazing. Here's what it looked like earlier this spring:
This next tree is a big western hemlock I picked up recently. It was very easy to collect, as it had been knocked over, probably several years ago, and was growing sideways in a ditch, with most of it's root ball out in the air. Because it was growing horizontal, it doesn't have any branches on the back, but I hope new growth will appear with the trunk chop and the sun. Even if none appear, i will be satisfied with snaking a side branch down and around the back, it will hardly be noticeable once the front branches are established.
Here's a smaller western hemlock, I want to bring the left branch in and down for a small cascade.
When collected it looked like this:
I collected it by sawing off a portion of the nurse log it was growing on, and because of the size of the wood I planted it in this large box. But after thinking about it more carefully, I realized that the wood was probably very easy to remove, so I lifted it out, crumbled away most of the wood, and plopped it into the much more fitting pot that now contains it. The pot it's in now is not terribly suitable, I must admit, but it will suffice for a few months.
The tree above is my little mountain ash. I've modified it slightly since receiving my new concave cutters, but overall I'm very pleased with it. It seems well adapted to life indoors, but it winters outdoors.
This next tree is a mountain hemlock, it's not much to look at right now:
When I collected this tree it was a solid green mass. Both of the trunks you see were taller, many smaller branches were coming out everywhere, and there was a third dead trunk standing in the center. I regret that I didn't take a picture at that stage, but I didn't get around to it.
As you can see the trunk is nice and thick, but the tree looks bad from many angles. I think something close to what is pictured, or possibly the reverse of this angle, is what I'll have to go with.
This is another mountain hemlock. I'm trying to train it into a savannah-esque shape. The poking out branch is a very vertical branch that I made more vertical by wiring it to a dead trunk in the center. I'm trying to train it into another smaller savannah canopy above the large one. If I fail, though, I will just chop it off. I don't expect failure however, it will just take time.
This next tree is a small shore pine. I was nervous about it's survival, since I couldn't save hardly any roots for it, but since collected a month ago it has put on new growth, and shows no signs of dying yet. The furthest back trunk is actually very old for its size, and has some really cool bark and deadwood near the base. In the future I need to figure out how to make it more prominent, which may involve cutting the second trunk away. I'll leave it for now, as it has more needles and the tree needs to recover.
Next is a pretty big sitka spruce:
It has some great bends, a cool deadwood knot near the top, and some really nice bendy branches. The roots underneath are also very interesting, though you can't see them now. For some reason this tree reminds me of witches, and I'm trying to think of the most appropriate way to enhance this image with styling.
This is a tiny mountain hemlock that I picked up to fit an awesome rock I found on a boat trip. I should have taken pictures of the assembly process, but I did not. There are long roots with soil and moss banded down the side of the rock, which is almost as tall as the pot is deep. The needles have a ill hue, which is pretty common for these trees when growing in super acidic bogs. Since I potted it, however, fresh green needles are growing at the tip of each bud. This will only ever be a tiny tree, but it has very cool roots under that moss, and the rock alone is worth looking at.
Here at the end is a small crabapple sucker which seems to be doing well. I want to make small root over rock with it when it grows out more. It probably won't ever be impressive, but it's practice, and it was free.
Last is the very first tree I ever collected. Judged as impossible to bonsai by some, I think it will become excellent in years to come. Imagine a future where this tree is cut before the bend, with a new trunk growing up, and the old stub turned to jin. These roots will look even greater once the stump rots away, and will easily form a root over rock (in my opinion). Root over rock is practically the natural spruce habitat.
Before that I will cut it about halfway up the trunk in the next few years. There are already new buds growing heartily below the stick, so all I need to do is wait for them to become strong enough to take over.
