The joke is on me

Well, my collected plants are doing very well. However, some of them are not what I thought they were when I dug them up and potted them.

I was so pleased to find a grape vine that was small enough to dig, while being of a sufficient diameter to make a show. It had no leaves ,of course, when I dug it in January, but what else could it be? It sat in its pot for four months with no sign of back buds, then in late April I saw tiny nubs of green.

I have been away from home for five days and have come home to rampant growth on my 'grapevine', which now appears to be a Gelsemium sempervirens with a one inch diameter trunk. Does anyone have any thoughts on how to train a Gelsemium bonsai?

Beth

Hmm...I did not know that you could use vines for bonsai. Would you know of a link to a couple of photos of any type of vine plant used this way?

Google wisteria and grape bonsai. There are others but these will have the most photos on the web.

Beth

I have seen wisteria Bonsai but I did not realize that that was a vine plant. I will find some photos of grape bonsai...I just think that sounds like it would be a nice odd little bonsai and for me the less common the better!

Vines make great bonsai and are so easy to train into a cascade!
Post pictures!! lol

Im going to write another tutorial for the article section and you just gave me the idea to do one entirely on vines.

Help! I just got my first Bonsai plant,a Brussel's Crepe Myrtle. It's not what I expected. The soil is mostly tiny stones & there are tiny roots sticking out of the stones. I tried pushing them back into the stones,but they don't stay. Please tell me what to do. I have a book coming through the mail maybe tomorrow. I know someone here can help me. Thanks much!!

Sending you mail mommie.

I just got back from the Rendevous at Brussels. If you want to learn about Bonsai, this is the place to go. Each year, they have a weekend of teachers, and I learned so much. The trees are beautiful, and the classes are very worthwhile.

hey herby, regarding vines as bonsai, check out this little english ivy i've been training as a mame for two years now: http://www.flickr.com/photos/metrokip/2565876550/
it's a micro leaf variety PLUS it's leaves are stunted even further.
also, it's very young but i'm training this little bittersweet as well. Bittersweet is another vining plant. http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g294/Kpinette/Bittersweet.jpg