[man w/ one hand]

Is your avatar a pic of one of your trees or someone elses?? It looks like a tree in Bill Valvanis's collection. He puts out Bonsai International magazine out of Rochester NY. He was my teachers teacher. I was into bonsai for around 10 yrs & finally had to give it up after having kids & well, losing my arm didn't help any. Had around 70-80 trees when I called it quits. Sold them off & gave a few away to relatives, still get to work on one now & then.

 

[Sasquatch]

Is your avatar a pic of one of your trees or someone elses?? It looks like a tree in Bill Valvanis's collection. He puts out Bonsai International magazine out of Rochester NY. He was my teachers teacher. I was into bonsai for around 10 yrs & finally had to give it up after having kids & well, losing my arm didn't help any. Had around 70-80 trees when I called it quits. Sold them off & gave a few away to relatives, still get to work on one now & then.

Sorry, but I have no idea whose Bonsai that is. I have grown a few bonsai, but since I used to move around alot, I never have been able to keep one for very long. I found this pic online, looking for a good avatar. I am an arborist by trade, and a tree hugging fool so I just love all kinds of trees. I have rotated several tree images as my avatars in the past.

Let's see some pics of your old Bonsai if you have any. I would have guessed that if you can ride a bike with one hand, it wouldn't stop you from the "little stuff" but I guess that Bonsai training and care takes a light touch and sensitive application of pressure to manipulate the new growth and place the training wire on branches.

Here's a bigger pic of the Bonsai image. It looks like an elm, or cotoneaster maybe

Later, Sasquatch

 

[man w/ one hand]

Actually

I don't have any pics of the stuff I used to have. With bonsai, your either drawn to it, or your indifferent to it. When I got interested in bonsai I started lookin for a teacher. I finally located one & when I realized it was something I wanted to do my wife & her family said "don't you want get into something you can make money at?". So I was treated like a "black sheep" when it came to trees. So they had no interest in seeing me progress/advance/enjoy my interest. I kept going, I found out my teachers bonsai lineage was one step from Japan. His teacher was Bill Valvanis, publisher of Bonsai International Mag. His teacher was John Naka, from Japan, & considered to be "THE" bonsai man in the USA. My teacher was introducing me to people & out of the blue he says, in ft of me, "he has never had a student with an eye for design like me". Blew my mind. Set me back on my heals. It no effect on my family. I didn't let anything deter me, till I lost my arm. No one was interested in helping me maintain & work with my trees. I was/am in huge learnin' curve and kids were coming along & it sorta killed my enthusiasim. I do have pictures of some of the best trees in the USA, very valuable/old. I'll dig them out if your interested. I was able to find a "student" or 2 over the years w/ a'lil interest, untill they realized it would actually take 10 yrs for a 10 yr old tree to grow. And that you after you get the tree started, all you get to do is clip on it & water it for a yr or 2. O well your avatar has me living "bk in th' day" when I see it. Thanks. I think there will be a return to this kind of "hobby" in the next 10-20 yrs or so, if/when technology gets old to everyone.