On 26 Jan 2005 at 3:39, synex wrote:

Incidentally - is it worth my while heading out into the wild and
trying to pick up some young trees? Obviosuly things like Scot's Pine
and other attractive trees will be available in my area - but if they
haven't been attended to from the beginning, will they be worth working
on?


Arguably, the best bonsai are from collected material. But you
only collect material that has potential because you cannot
change the basic shape of a mature plant -- dwarfed or not --
and why bother to dig young material?

How do you recognize the potential in a scraggly, runted tree?
Experience. Neophyte collectors should go with experienced
bonsaiests the first few times out.

ONLY collect with PERMISSION of landowner. (Unless you're happy
in jail.)

And another question I forgot to ask - someone mentioned the "natural"
germination - leaving them out in the frost and gradually progressing
into summer. Would this be worth trying now? And if so, do I just put
them straight into the ground and let them fend for themselves? Bearing
in mind it's getting several degrees below zero, at the moment.

As with some many things in the bonsai world, "it depends."

You are asking questions whose answers properly are learned
after formal training and years of experience. It will depend
upon the species. It will depend on how fresh the seeds are.
It will depend on your climate. it will depend on your
experience. It will depend on you ability to tend the seeds, it
will depend on . . . the list of "depends" is almost endless.
There is no one-size-fits-all answer.

Except, for someone with as little apparent experience as you
have at present, "no."

This is yet ANOTHER example of how the I'net is a poor place to
learn bonsai (or, more properly here, horticultural) techniques
from scratch. Once your questions move from the shotgun to the
rifle (general to the targeted) we can be of tremendous help.
Until then, you are asking for a 500-page book on plant
propagation to be typed out for you by someone. (?!)

You need to find a local bonsai club and pick up a local mentor
who can guide you though the plants that grow where you live in
your climate, etc.

Sorry to be so blunt, but . . .

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Nature
encourages no looseness, pardons no errors. Ralph Waldo Emerson

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