Hi-- I'm new to the forum. I've tinkered with bonsai a bit over the years but never very seriously. As of now I have two little trees that I collected from my yards in upstate NY, and Maryland when we moved down here. The first is a small Barberry that I found growing wild near the foundation of our house. It already had a twisted bonsai kind of shape. I had it in a flower pot for one year then potted it in its current bonsai planter. I've had it for about 3-4 years. It easily survived 3 severe upstate NY winters with its pot buried in the soil beneath a Yew shrub (for snow protection). Last winter was its first in Maryland and something,rabbits perhaps, "pruned" it for me, pretty severely. Barberry is very tough though, and it came back nicely. I've never done anything to it other than pinching back unwanted shoots.
The second one is a Mulberry I found growing wild in the chinks of a small stone wall on our front lawn. It was about 18" high and pretty gnarly-- perfect for a bonsai. I had to dismantle much of the stone wall to get it out, preserving as much root ball as I could. I put the whole root ball in a plastic bag and saturated it, placing it in a shady location. Within a couple of days all of the leaves shriveled and died but the trunk still had its yellow color, and scratching the bark revealed green underneath. I waited and in about 2 weeks I noticed little green shoots. I potted it in the 6" pot that it's in now and once I was sure what parts were dead I trimmed them away. No other training apart from cutting back the many new shoots which keep popping up.
Any comments or suggestions for these trees? Thanks!

Hi Paul,

welcome to the forum.

WIth regards to your trees.. They are a bit too small for me. I prefer something with a bit more age & trunk to it. So for me, I would probably chuck them in the ground for 5 years. But maybe sme of the small tree fans can give you some ideas what you can do with these now already.

I would say let the barberry grow a little more. They can turn into very nice small trees.

See? This one, too.

Let some of the shoots grow for a year or two until you get more choices for branches to use. A google search for barbery shohin (small bonsai) will give you a lot of great examples of impressive little trees.

Best of luck!

JesseCutler wrote: Welcome this forum.I am also newbie in here.

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