Amazing specimens. The waterside setting is also very nice!

Will, also looks like a witches' broom in the cedar pics 13 &14.

Indeed Stephen. Good eye.

Very enjoyful Will.

Dax

These are incredible and a nice way for others to consider if they lack space. Thanks.
Cher

in my zone... the guy at hidden lakes.. has to bury his for winter ...

any idea what they do with them in your version of winter???

thx for the pix

ken

I think it's the camera angle fellas. The cedar behind the plant(that is planted in some dirt on the rock) is a large specimen, while there is a tree bonsai'd in the rock in the forefront. Hope I didn't break any hearts - lol.

Ken, as far as I know they leave most/all of the plants on their display stumps. I am guessing this because I saw two Cedrus atlantica bonsai's that were about 100 years old, 5' tall and they had very serious winter burn and were barely hanging on.

Now ordinarily this wouldn't be a problem, but this last Winter we had a stretch of weather that ended up being the coldest week in recorded history for many cities in our state. Otherwise, typical Winter lows here average in the upper 30s and we rarely see teens most years.

-Will

indeed, beautiful trees and the proprietor is an artist. I had the pleasure of watching him mentoring a bonsai student when I was last there.

However I have an issue with one of his admitted practices. He goes out into the wilderness to dig/hack and blast old and magificent trees out of what is sometimes nearly solid rock. He then brings these ancient trees home for "finishing." Obviously many of these compromised trees don't make it and will suffer if suddenly exposed to garden soil and a pampered life.

Me, I'd rather go out to the wilderness and see natural bonsai in nature. Here's an example:

I'd be really ticked off if I were to do this hike in the future and find this tree "missing."

Robinson also does a large display garden at the big flower show in Seattle every year, where he sets up a podium off to the side and works on specimens while the show is open to visitors. Since he's been doing it for years - and I once read other contractors were typically spending about $10,000 on their display gardens - but got much more than enough business out of them to pay the cost - Dan must have been getting a substantial response also.

I've never been through the garden at the nursery, not my cup of tea. Apart from the bonsai moss, boulders and twisted conifers are the extent of it.

>However I have an issue with one of his admitted practicesOne time I noticed he had a block of the locally quite rare (I have never seen a native patch myself, despite decades of driving and hiking this area) giant chain fern (Woodwardia fimbriata) in the sales area. When I asked about it, I was told he had seen them growing natively over at such-and-so and helped himself. Looking at them again I saw that they had, in fact, just been stuffed into the pots.

I once got a small pot with a bonsai juniper and liberated it into my front yard. It is enjoying its freedom now for many years.

That garden must employ a full-time water man considering that those pots sit in full sun with little soil to store moisture. That water man gets sick, there go all these 100s of year old plants on artificial life support.

Really enjoyed the fantastic photos Will. It sounds like it was a fun day. Thanks for sharing the pics.

Dan

Great pics!

Josh