Hello!
Got a few new bonsai trees. One of my neighbors passed away, and the relatives cleaning up his house told me I can take whatever I want. The garden was a scene of horror. Amazingly beautiful bonsai skeletons, some of which were very old... I knew the neighbor, and several times asked him advice with my bonsai, and will miss him and his advice. He was in his eighties (?), and had been working on bonsai for most of his life. He and his wife both were hospitalized about a year ago, and I guess nobody touched the trees in about a year. I found two that still had some life in them, and will do all I can to keep them going. A few (bad) pictures below. Will put more pics along the process. One of them seems to be a Kuromatsu (Jpn black pine), and the other one perhaps is an Ezomatsu (Ezo Spruce).
The Ezomatsu looks dead from one side, but the other side is not at all so bad. The lower branches are all dead, but I guess they will make nice jin. My intent is to pull the upper branches down. This tree was behind the house in the shade, which probably kept it alive.
The Kuromatsu is more challenging. There's only a few live clusters of needles here and there. It used to be a beautiful upright pine, but now mostly dead. I guess all I can do is wait and see.
Any tips and suggestions in how to keep these alive are most welcome. My plan is to keep them away from hot direct sunlight, obviously water them, perhaps moderately fertilize them, and just wait and see.
PS. The garden was full of bonsai pots, and amazingly beautiful volcanic rocks, many of which now are in my backyard... This neighbor's specialty was pine trees (some exotic Hokkaido short needle pine) planted on big rocks, but unfortunately none of those survived. I'll have to create my own root-over-rock bonsai with his rocks and pots.