Beautiful trees!Went to a bonsai show today that the local bonsai club puts on every summer. Always a good show and had some really great looking trees there this year
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They also have a few vendors at this show. I was looking at some of the trees they had for sale and kept coming back to this Elm numerous times that really caught my attention. It has a great start to it and extremely healthy, plus the mere $65 price tag was just a bit too hard to leave the show without it so it came home with me. It has a nice start to it and I think with a few years training it could be a really nice looking tree.
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I've found with my elm you had to work with the branch ends while they were young green and supple,elms can grow very fast too if they have enough to eatYeah I've always been a fan of the different Elm species for bonsai, just always stayed away from owning one due to how stiff the branches on most them are, they don't take to wiring as well as most trees and need to be more of a clip & grow style trained. This one is young enough there are still lots of a supple branches that can be wired yet thankfully.
It's a Jacqueline Hillier species (Ulmus x Elegantissima) the exact lineage of this species is not 100% known for sure in the bonsai world but traced back to England first found in the mid 1960's. Pretty fast grower with real short internodes so should be something nice to work with.
I would probably go for the "fell over but still lived" look.Good thing about getting this tree today is it got my interest back up again. Not that I was not still interested in bonsai, but just I've been so busy lately and being gone on vacation for 2 weeks and all I just let the weeds take over the garden out back the past month or two. Gonna tryin make some time to get out there this week and get rid of all the weeds and get it back in shape so I can do some more bonsai work out there again before fall gets here. Already been looking at this elm and making some plans. Thinking I may repot it at a bit more of a leaning angle / informal upright position to start rather than the almost vertical formal upright it currently is potted at.
Agree with you, as it grows do you plan to give it more defined layers?![]()
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Re-potted with more of a slant style now (slight root prune as well) and gave some of the branching its first light wiring. Much more pleasing to my eye now potted at this angle.