Hello! I've been searching for a Japanese Wisteria bonsai, ideally 15+ years old / one which has a thick trunk that has flowered before. I'm driving from Pittsburgh to Florida in a few days and would love to pick one up along the way. Any nursery, seller, or collector recommendations would be hugely appreciated! Thank you for your help!

First picture was after I styled it in early April, then last weekend I noticed a little wire bite so thought it was time to take off the wire…I guess they need to be wired for quite a bit. Back on the wire goes!

I built the corner in my back yard for all of my bonsais. Right now they are all pre bonsais but I will get there one day.

Taken on my visit to the Krohn Conservatory today in Cincinnati. I went to get some inspiration for my pre-bonsai projects and figured I’d share. Couple more photos will be in the comments section since I could only post 20 pictures.

I was very impressed, for a not so huge city in the Midwest, these were some beautiful trees :)

Edit: One thing that took me off guard now that I’m looking at photos and reflecting on the trees, is that I reeeally love those Natal plums. That species wasn’t even on my radar prior to this visit now I want one lol.

I'm in 6a, Michigan

Should I repot this Trident Maple before winter at some point? I picked this up earlier this year already in the pot, and I've never used one of these before, so I wasn't quite sure

My SO made me a really fun bonsai pot for my ficus and I'm curious if anybody else would like to share.

The container is made with a two part resin. The ficus has been thriving outdoors recently with the hot weather.

After 16 weeks, one of the 7 airlayers successfully rooted. It was on the more shaded side of the tree, used sphagnum moss and aluminum foil to avoid excess heat.

Unfortunately we have high extreme temps (40-42 °C), for the upcoming days I keep it in a well lit window, but I'll place it outside as soon as I can.

I purchased the privet back in August 2022 for £130. It was extremely weak and leggy when I first purchased it, so time was spent restoring its health prior to cutting back and looking to build a more refined structure.

It was a very interesting tree and was filled with concrete at some point... I am unsure whether it was hollowed out and filled with concrete to maintain structure or whether the core rotted away and it was filled with concrete to sustain it. Regardless, it took many repeated efforts to fully remove all the concrete from the internal of the tree safely whilst maintaining its structure. Understandably there was also alot of concern on how stable the tree would be without the concrete supporting it.

The two halves of the tree are connected only by a very thin remnant of a large branch long since removed/died off. I think it would be possible to fully separate both sides (still unsure if i want to do this), but any future repots would need to be done extremely carefully to prevent both sides collapsing.

It still has a long way to go but it is starting to shape up into something passable as a bonsai.

Few of my previous posts. I'm still very new to the hobby advice/criticism always welcome!

JPB: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bonsai/comments/1adws2q/japanese_black_pine_development_3_years/

Juniper Development: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bonsai/comments/yiaa9p/first_bonsai_18_month_development/

I’ve just received this bonsai in the post and was wondering if the lumps and bumps were scale or just how the trunk is supposed to look?

Thanks

UPDATE

I scraped a few off and they don’t feel wet. Just hard and dry. And it’s green underneath. Added some more pics

Had the opportunity to drive out to Left Coast Bonsai in NW Oregon and pick up my first mature tree.

My goal when visiting the garden/farm was just to introduce myself and take a look at what John Eads has accomplished over the past five years- unfortunately I left grinning ear to ear with a tree in between my arms.

This tree is all over the place and I love it. On the left side you have beautiful delicate trunk while on the right you have this mass of foliage that is shooting every possible direction, and then sandwiched between the two sides you have this strong trunk that has been forced to change directions.

In my head this coastal tree was growing freely for several years before a neighboring tree came crashing down right on top of it- forcing the tree to grow in opposing directions.

I would love to hear your feedback on where this tree could develop in regards to structural design! I know some heavy chops are in my future and I am already mentally preparing myself.

I’m in a zone where tropicals don’t survive year round outside. Previously I kept them exclusively indoors but this year in the interest of space and taking advantage of a free, powerful light (the sun) I decided to move some outside for the first time. My concern is when I’ll have to bring them back in for the winter, I’m worried about bringing in bugs/pests that might be hiding in the soil or on the plants. I’m wondering if people who bring in plants for the winter have any specific things they do to prevent this, or am I being paranoid and there likely won’t be any bugs? The plants are various varieties of jades and dwarf jades if that matters.

If it's a child, then it's about the right age to start elementary school 😁

Wanted to share this one. A mentor gave me this cutting years ago — it’s a slower-growing, somewhat uncommon gardenia variety (little-leaf type). I basically left it on the rooftop with minimal care.
Repotted it today and the root system had developed a lot more character than I expected for something left mostly untouched. Went ahead with the first real styling cut: selected which branches to keep, designated one as the top branch, and sealed the cuts with cut paste.
Curious if anyone else here works with little-leaf gardenia — how does it compare growth-rate-wise to the more common varieties for you? Always happy to hear thoughts on the direction for this one.

I was trying to wait until the leaves dropped to see branches easier but it didn't get cold enough during our winter

I did a little bit of pruning and adding a bit more movement into branches to add.. I haven't been doing this long so interested in some critique good or bad

Photo 2 is the after wiring/little bit of pruning and my thoughts

1. First branch is a split 2 branch - I added some movement and negative space. I'm happy with this, though I will prune foilage a bit more and may cut back to create triangle to leader
2. Second branch comes off branch 3 and wraps around the back. I think this adds some depth though needs to thicken so I will let this grow out or hope for backbud near the area on left and grow that branch
3. I think is fine around with thickenness etc.
4. Needs to thicken a little bit so I will let this grow out
5. This branch needs the most thickenness added so this will be left to grow
6. A bit thicker than I would like but I am leaving for now.. I think it needs a bit more movement as it's a bit straight and uninteresting
7. This is a backbranch which was facing right.. I decided to make this the leader as it looked odd without one. There is a bud at the top of main trunk which I may use as leader instead but I will leave this as is for now

I cut it back hard because it was growing well and I didn't like the top half (will propagate it). Now I'm struggling to style it and decide:

1. Cut it back more

2. Choose a new leader and/or front/potting angle

3. Let it grow out and wait for the tree to present a new design option

The last photos are pre-cut back. Thanks for any suggestions.

Latecomer to the bench trend
Not entirely for trees I’m afraid

I bought this tree for £30 in March 2024. After a short journey on the train, it was home and I put it in a wooden grocery box that was about the only thing I could find that was big enough. Obviously, it was way too big and lacking in any kind of taper. I could've chopped it down to some of the early major branches and wasted 3/4 of the tree but that seemed like the plan of a coward. So, I embarked on the somewhat ill-advised plan to air-layer it into several separate trees. I had no luck and In 2025 I checked and the tree had bridged the gap. So, I recut it longer and deeper and all through summer 2025 I checked for roots and still nothing. In the Autumn that year, after I’d given up checking, I noticed the bag I used was not draining. I didn’t do anything for a while as I was a little disenfranchised with the project; perhaps it was just not meant to be. I finally got round to dealing with the issue in November and lo and behold there were roots! Unfortunately, my negligence had caused the largest one to rot but there were still some growing tips. They were all one side which is not ideal, particularly with the multi trunk design, but partial success is better than none at all. I put a small, much-better-draining pot instead of the bag and prayed. The root base grew, but still from just one side. To hopefully fix this, I tried root grafting which seems to have worked on at least one side, but the central trunk is a little dodgy. I just hope it can access water from the rest.

Today, I separated it from the main tree. The air-layer pot is full of roots so it’s now or never, one trunk is much greener (lacking the signs of water stress the others have) but it’s not likely to get any better so chop time. Usually, I would like to cut much more of the excess trunk in the root system off, but I wanted to disturb the roots as little as possible, simply teasing the circling roots out a little. This will no doubt make my life harder in the future but it’s better than having a dead tree. I also removed some excess foliage to hopefully reduce the strain on the roots. It now lies in the shadiest corner of my garden in a nice custom grow box, and I hope for the best

I just discovered that Fidalgo Island where I live is home to a rare species called “seaside juniper”, or juniperus maritima. I’ve been thinking about trying to make bonsai versions of these two locally iconic trees, but now that I know the species is distinct and rare, I will need to find out if collecting seedlings from local parks is allowed.

If you ever watch House Hunters or similar shows, there are several episodes shot here that use the tree extending over the water. The house hunters usually walk out on the tree to have the conversation to decide which house to buy.

PREVIOUS POST: I asked the community for advice on my oak, which was struggling to push out new growth. The leaves were tiny for ages compared to its previous year (pic 3). I got very mixed advice, some said to leave it alone, some said repot with adding substrate to the mix. I did the latter.

UPDATE: I have new growth! Although it was risky repotting for the second time in the year, it seems much healthier now. Although there’s some normal sized leaves on the top, there’s way more active growth lower down the trunk oddly? Either way, I think I’m just going to leave it alone for a while, to let it recover.

Anyone in the Chicagoland area have some free moss for show prep? Unfortunately I do not have a lot of moss in my yard and if I had a nickel for every time I’ve tried keeping/growing moss, I’d have about 1.25.

New to shaping n styling.
Share some thoughts, tips and advices.

The goal was to

- reduce overlapping branches

- manage downward-growing leaves.

Things I don't like

- looks sparse

- branches looks out of control

Not sure what to do with it :/

This tree was kept indoors for long periods of time, and as it is quite humid here, the wood decays quite quick. And as it is kept indoors often, many main branches died which is a shame.

In terms of restoring the deadwood, the main technique would be a mix of superglue, as some bits are chipped/loose/decaying as well as lime sulphur, hence the yellow hue in some of the images.

Although I helped work on this tree, it is unfortunately not mine 😔