wa123

Now that we've killed off Nina's sumac, is anyone else growing one as a potential bonsai? I have some Rhus aromatica in pots - I hope to make a forest. I have a weakness for sumac, and my father was very fond of them, too, so it seemed natural to try it. They seem to be doing very well in (fairly deep) pots. Questions: Will Rhus aromatica sucker from roots like our ubiquitous staghorn sumac? Does anyone have experience growing it from cuttings? I'd like to have more for my forest, and would just as soon get them for free. Jay

Now that we've killed off Nina's sumac, is anyone else growing one as a potential bonsai?... It seems to be indestructible; you can yank them out of the ground, push them into a pot of dirt, and they grow. This sounds and looks like sassafras (at least I think its sassafras from the distinct aroma when pulled out of the ground) of quickly growing weeds that harden-off to present woody trunks in my yard.  Guess my mowing leaves something to be desired in yard corners not readily seen from the street.... . I never considered potting them despite the many roots easily recognized as healthy and available.  Now, I will likely have to fight back having Anita or Lynn pay clandestine visits to my yard so as not to be outflanked by Nina in the weird bonsai competition they practice. Speaking of weird, some think the Bonsai inSites competition qualifies.   I wonder if the Japanese Takagi Museum's portrayal of last year's exhibit of Beauty of Bonsai Planted in a Pot awarded at last year's pot competition and only displayed recently on the Internet with new Pot Competition winners would be less weird.  Look at the bottom section of the webpage http://www.bonsaimuseum.org/e/tenji_u.html (Thanks for sharing this with me LuisF!). Some folks are saying the the Bonsai inSites compositions aren't bonsai http://www.baltimoreclayworks.org/bonsai/insitesindex.html.  Are the Takagi's Beauty of Bonsai Planted in a Pot bonsai?  What is the qualitative difference?  While both the Takagi and Bonsai inSites pots have modest continuity with the past, neither appears restricted to merely framing the supported bonsai in their character.  Still, they provide distinctly different visions & options.  Do bonsai enthusiast reject the greater freedom expressed in the Bonsai inSites option?   At some point, will classical bonsai design fail to stimulate.  It originally arose as a fresh understanding of perspective which characterizes an idealized miniature tree with visual devices more effective than actual shrinking of a full-sized tree.  It is kinda' old hat (though nan elegant old hat) which the Nippon Bonsai Association has successfully supported while occasionally offering a wild variant (e.g., Kimura & Kimura-esque trees in exhibitions). I happened to agree with Jim Lewis that the inSites exhibition tree in the hand seemed a little too close to a velvet Elvis in its mawkish reference to well-outdated anti-intellectual artistic joke seen in sculpture and even 1950 or 60's chairs.  If their is a postmoderm punchline to this image, I've missed it. I thinbk the bonsai and pots of today are stuck in their place in history as past bonsai and potting _style_s have stuck in representing their time.  Bonsai styling and containers will move on despite the fashion of the present.  Bonsai styling today is perhaps our truth and beauty, but it is truth and beauty of our time and not Truth with a big T or Beauty with a big B. At the First International Bonsai and Suiseki Symposium this weekend in Washington, D.C.,  I saw the incredible insights of numerous speakers, realizedcx that as some talked of the past they spoke of beauty in bonsai & especially tray compositions that were exacting for their time and appeared timeless, then. A day after the symposium I visited a favorite antique shop.  There I saw a suiban made from weathered wood with feet contructed of wood intentionally worn by termites.  Gosh, I loved it!  Marushima had spoken of mountain landscapes made of wood in the 8th century as preceding acknowledged suiseki

can yank them out of the ground, push them into a pot of dirt, and they grow. This sounds and looks like sassafras (at least I think its sassafras from the distinct aroma when pulled out of the ground) of quickly growing weeds that harden-off to present woody trunks in my yard.  Guess my mowing leaves something to be desired in yard corners not readily seen from the street.... . I never considered potting them despite the many roots easily recognized as healthy and available.  Now, I will likely have to fight back having Anita or Lynn pay clandestine visits to my yard so as not to be outflanked by Nina in the weird bonsai competition they practice. ================= Sassafrass is another I've had in pots for some years

forest, and would just as soon get them for free. According to Dirr it roots quickly

http://www.baltimoreclayworks.org/bonsai/insitesindex.html. Why?  Because those aren't pots as in round-ish or square-ish hollowed clay vessels with drainage holes?  Some definately were pot-ish.  Others were less so, but most seemed to have some concave place (presumably with drainage holes) into which a tree was planted.  That sounds like bonsai to me. I still think it is fun, and like to see people make the edges of bonsai a bit fuzzy.  Bonsaiests (including me) tend to the traditional