In this video we take a field grown Oak tree and turn it into a bonsai. To stay in touch visit Shop: www.herons.co.uk instagram: herons_bonsai facebook: @herons.bonsai twitter: @heronsbonsai
What I like most about Peter Chan is he mixes traditional with innovative and the unconventional stressing that IF YOU like it then do what pleases you and ignore the criticism. I have learned so much from him and have done bonsai for almost 30 years, but was more traditional. I have changed my attitude and thinking considerably because of him. BRAVO!!!
I really respect that you can adapt your ways even after 30 years of traditional bonsais. So many people become conservative and don't change because they think everything they've done before was wasted energy. Adapt, overcome and do exactly what feels right in the moment.
what a great comment! even after 30 years! you can still learn more... traditional bonsai methods have always been a little intimidating to me... but Peter Chan has inspired me to give it a go again! I love bonsai so much.
Come to Upstate South Carolina, I have 38 large trees in my 3/4 acre backyard. 3 types of oaks, poplar, cedar, holly, maple, sweetgum, crepe myrtle, pine. the amount of seedlings that come up every year are astonishing.
@@greenvilleobserver9431 I have 1/3 acre in Minnesota and I can't keep up with all the babies of my large oaks and sugar maples, that are about 100 years old.
Please tell Padmapriya hi from me. My name's Jack and I used to work in the health food shop with him. I watch your videos and what a coincidence to suddenly recognise him!
I have half a dozen oak bonsai in training and your video has been very helpful in understanding how much root pruning they can handle. A couple are 28 years old now and I got them as seedlings from my fathers garden after he passed away suddenly at age 59. He was from Portsmouth in England and having these trees makes his memory stay alive.😊
do you mind making a video? simply in the state they are now - i know many people with forrests and am thinking about salvaging one young tree to try and make something out of it - so i know what i should look for maybe?
In my country (The Netherlands), birds do this. At different spots they burry the nut in the ground, for a winter reserve i believe. The burying spots are being forgotten by the birds, because they made so much. And then in spring you see wild little oak sprouts comming up in your garden or balcony garden. There native to the Netherlands, latin name is Quercus robur (summer oak). There are more varieties. UK has old ones, also native and you have many squirrels, they can spread the nuts. Funny quick little animals. I got now 5 trees from the birds they are young and vigorous. Hope they make good bonsai. Good bye.
I really love Englsih oaks ! As well as they two oak shoots that Peter dug out for me in November, I also took about 10 acorns from the massive tree in front of the nursery car park. Of those acorns, 8 are now growing beautifully. so I have ten English oaks well on their way to becoming future oak bonsai, thanks to Peter and Herons!
I just love oak trees. I live in Northern California and in the park behind my house there are 300 year old oaks. There are huge and the branches come down to the ground to give shade to their roots. With temperatures 100 degrees or 40 Celsius on summer they don’t die. They are nature’s cathedrals! They are spectaculars!
Did anyone else's mind explode when he's like turn the tree ightly counter clockwise and boom its like 1000 times better and you have no clue how thats possible
Thank you for showing us some of the more practical side. I would love to see more of this. Especially how you cut and develop the trunks of field stock like this.
Don't clean your gutters for awhile, you'll have all the little trees you want👍 (Ps: I have a lot of respect for the talent this takes, before anyone thinks otherwise)
I start to develop oaks now that I have my two maples. I belive that Peter and me are connected because every time that I ask question to my self, Peter answer to it in a video fews days later... 😍 Love you little tree lovers 🇲🇫
I read the comments before i started the video and I was confused by yours in particular, I really didn't now if you were making fun of the video content.... but a few hours later I finally got around to watching the video......and towards the end I am sitting here thinking "wow, I have about a bazillion little oaks on my property that I could do this with..... and I bet i COULD do this. And Tomorrow is a great day for scouting potential candidates!" (i won't dig anything up until after I find a suitable pot of course....) and that's when I remembered your comment. It suddenly makes sense! Weird how this works.... i'm brand new at this art and trying to decide if it's really worth the investment. but as I learn I'm starting to realize the only investment is a little money for pots and my time. I already have everything else. I just didn't realize it. And oaks are pretty forgiving trees. You can cut them down to the ground and they will just sprout new branches almost immediately.
I never use akadama ,it's just too expensive here. I use pumice and lava. Sometimes I add some decomposing wood if moisture retention is an issue. Of and a tiny bit of charcoal. I'm surprised you kept the bottom branch 😊
So I started caring for a baby Oak from an acorn from 2018. I love it its so healthy and gorgeous looking. I never want to get rid of it, but no space for it to grow fully. I want to banzai it, it's about 1.5 foot tall, when can I start to bonzai it?
Same here.. I have a beautiful little oak that I planted 15 years ago.. it's still only around 1.5ft tall probably due to it being in a smallish pot. I'd like to bonsai it but I'd probably kill it :(
Hi Mr Chan,I thought it was to late in the season to lift or pot on trees,I only ask as i have an oak i am waiting to lift. Will your oak stay in the greenhouse until spring now for protection from frost. Thank you ,it is a very beautiful ,natural tree.
Loved that your doing a video on oaks. They're some of my favorites and don't get enough love in the bonsai world. Also the resolution looks much better in this video!
Mr.Chan, if i may? Those thick roots is there any use for them, if one can grow a tree of them? When do u think is the best time for Yamadori the oaks?
Love this video. I found an oak 3 years ago in my garden as well. A squirrel brought it from the neighbours yard with massive several hundred years old oaks in it. Instead of wasting it for lawn I decided to put it in a pot and hope for a nice tree in 30 years as well.
Nice. I have about a few thousand baby oaks from two years ago, when my white oaks went insane. I have gotten rid of a few other thousand, or at least it seems that way. I can now try practicing making a few oak bonsai. I live in the US, in Minnesota.
‘This pot looks a bit big, mmmm, but the tree will be more comfortable in this pot.’ That’s why i love this hobby. It can be seen to be brutal and harming, but experts down to the general hobbyist gain through this interest a greater respect for nature/trees.
Bout a year ago I picked up an oak tree seed amongst hundreds of seeds. Thought it looked cool and figure why not throw it it some soil. I paid it no mind since I planted it in one of my mother’s pots (since she waters her plants everyday). To my surprise I noticed a little plant sprouting months later. I was shocked the seed sprouted given the unfavorable conditions. Just soil and water with no prep work whatsoever. Really made me think a lot about life and it’s will to persevere. So here I am to prepare it for a long winter and hopefully a healthy and prosperous life.
My son had put some acorns in a plastic bag one day we visited a garden somewhere. The bag got thrown in a coat cupboard. A year later I tidied the cupboard and there were two oak saplings bursting their guts out in the bag! Life is strong.
Hi if I had the money I would buy A forest from him he makes the beautifullest plants I have ever seen or banzai trees and one of his forest all my God I would love to have that Have a great day keep making videos I love them
Thank you for showing this procedure. Many of us do this for our bonsai at home. First grow in the yard then to a pot. I enjoy seeing what they will do in 10 years if i take care. Happy Holidays!
Que hermoso roble!!!! es mi preferido ....!!! No se ven con frecuencia bonsai de ellos ....!!!! Me gustaría saber mas sobre sus cuidados según su experiencia??? Muchas gracias...
I can reccomend oak trees to anyone who might not take perfect care, they are allmost unkillable!, I have left it without watering in a heat wave when there were family circumstances, and I thought it was dead, but it had only dropped its leaves and became lush green again in just a couple of rainy days. Oaks don't die in droughts, they just drop their leaves! I have a small oak in a deep pot filled with broken bricks and when it will have enough roots will cut out the bottom and put it on top of another pot and slowly remove the pot on top, in order to create bricks held together by roots. Will probably take a couple of decades.
I am surprised at such successes because letting what's called hair roots get dry is not a good practice. I make every effort towards a tree's shockless comfort by using a spray bottle to keep them wet. Humbly submitted to the Master. Thanks for your vids.
Most of the North American native oaks where I live will not tolerate bonsai culture. Infact prior to the 'Whitcomb' system came along 60% transplant success was hard to achieve by commercial landscape nurseries.
I love your videos so much, I have been trying to do my own bonsai for the last few years, one is now getting long and sparse, so I will now be taking it out of its pot for the first time, it's 7yrs old. I'm going to cut it back, tease the roots and hopefully it will come back better than before. I don't find any of your videos boring, I'm now I'm my 40s but have loved gardening since my teens and adapting large plants and trees to pots as my gardens is small. My biggest problem has been the hot summers we've had here in the UK the last couple of years, our garden is fully south facing, the only shade coming from a hardy twisted willow but it doesn't give much shade. The last two summers hit my plants hard, especially my bonsai maples; burning the leaves and killing a lot of branches of my favourite one. I cut them back and 75% was saved but it's now lost its lovely shape. I've started watching your wonderful insightful videos and hope to make it into a better bonsai than previously. Many Thanks
We got a dark red (more burgondy) maple in our garden wich is a verry slow growing tree. It is about 7 years old and is about 1,50 meter high. Is it possibe to turn it in a bonsai shape without putting it in a pot ?? We need to move it anny way so putting it in a pot is not a big problem but i would love for it to be just in the garden on a small mount. I would love for it to grow ontop of our future out door celler.
I had a brain "fart" looking at you working on the hornbeam ?? (We call them beuk) thinking it looked a little like a old rose bush i had to remove long ago. (I allreaddy wached too much bonsai video's 😅😅) Have you ever seen one made or made one your self from a rozebush ?? I wanted to save the rose bush but the owner did not so he killed it and so there was nothing to save annymore sadly. They are prone to grow pretty "wild " so that could be verry intresting. But getting a thick trunk could be a challenge 🤔 Thinking of it.... Is there anny "woody" kind of plant you can't turn in to a bonsai ???
Thank you for this video. I was wondering why the tiny oak you showed was cut at two points? Surely it wasn't for the purposes of achieving taper as it looks too small and thin for that.
Thank you for sharing you talents and gifts with us! I learn so much from your instruction. Could you please share what the cut looked like, that you administered to this tree those few years back, to induce the new growth? Did you have to protect that cut in some way?
On the topic of recording everything even the mundane... this is a video I have been hoping to find for quite some time and I was searching your channel for oak bonsai. So thank you for recording this moment!
Was there no tap root on this beautiful oak? How did you handle it? Or was it grown from acorn?! What is the age then? Fantastic video, thank you very much for sharing!