How to Turn Nursery Stock into a Shohin Bonsai Creation 

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Right, helped get through Covid lockdowns

Exactly. It’s amazing to see some of the material bonsai professionals have access to and wrk with. However, I would love to see them do more demonstrations with trees that the majority of beginner and intermediate bonsai hobbiests have access to. Here in australia there really isn’t access to the kind of typical yamadori you see from Europe, US and Japan. If you want a juniper, you’re going to be developing it for years in the ground or large containers yourself or buying it from someone who has. More than likely, you’ll be getting material like this.

@@wabisabi3619 These nursery stock videos are a big deal for EVERY bonsai hobbyist in the world. Even in the US, sourcing quality yamadori is extremely difficult. You typically have to build connections with land owners in places where trees are naturally stunted. Most of our stunted trees are protected within national/state parks with “leave no trace” policies. I have a hard time believing that access to quality yamadori in Australia is much more limited than it is here. The material is gonna be super different but it’s definitely out there. People just have to put in the work to identify where stunted trees are growing and build relationships with the local landowners. I bet there’s a ton of untapped potential with native species in Australia.

Unfortunately, 99.9% of bonsai enthusiasts aren't the people Mirai and Ryan Neil want to work with. That's why he won't do demos at bonsai clubs and his classes are thousands of dollars and his trees start at $5k but many are $10k and $20k. It's intentional.

You’re talking about a needle in a haystack. In south Australia there are quite a lot of olives, which are a weed, growing in the wild. People do collect those, but it’s a few thousand kilometres from where I live. Additionally, not many of our natives are going to survive being dug up. It is so dry here that most natives have very long roots not a nice clump of feeder roots at the base. Virtually everything is protected so you’re limited to private land. Also, personally, I fundamentally disagree with taking a beautiful tree growing in its habitat because you want to ‘own’ it. Ethically, I’m against collecting except in certain circumstances such as the olives as they are invasive species. It’s also not possible to import trees here. The options are, grow your own or buy from someone who grows. In my situation I am a grower. I have hundreds of trees in development.

Additionally, juniper are perfect for digging up as you can have them survive the process with very little roots if you apply the right aftercare. We also do not have native deciduous trees which are also easier to dig at the right time of year.

Yeah! It was from our 2022 holiday steam.

Lol why comment that