American Bonsai Society

A beginner’s guide to collected plant material

By Randy Davis

Once you’ve been doing bonsai for a while and have the urge to get a really fine specimen to work on for your collection you will be tempted to move into the arena of collected trees. This is the way many of the outstanding bonsai have been obtained.  Sources of collected material can be from the urban landscape, a bonsai supplier that handles collected trees or, for the adventurous, collecting directly from the wild. 

The Urban Landscape – Collecting from the urban landscape is the most common form of collected material because of closeness or opportunity.  Plant material can be found in your own back yard, in a neighbor’s yard, a construction zone or just about anywhere you can imagine.  Collecting is usually quite easy in spite of the obstructions of buildings, sidewalks and the like.  Do not be crazy! Get the permission of the landowner and be responsible enough to clean up after yourself.  Professional gardeners who are not into the bonsai hobby are often a good source of material when they are upgrading an existing landscape and will often let you haul away plants they have removed for free.  Because I mingle in that crowd of gardeners, I have had many of them show up at my door with material in the back of their truck that they want to get rid of so they don’t have to pay a dumping fee at the local landfill. Opportunity shows up when you least expect it so keep your eyes and ears open.  The azalea shown here was gardeners throw away.