AusBonsai

The collected plants are small eventhough over 20yrs old. I tried to arrange them in a few different ways but they still don't look pleasing the eyes (my first attempt with group). Should I separate all of them and replant?

I included a few photos of the ones collected earlier to show what they look like with leaves and flowers.

the problem is you have an even amount as a general rule you should do groups in odd numbers as its meant to be more pleasing to they eye some how allso tallest straightest to the middle and picture the rest bending out around them for the light even bend the stock to suit

try having the clump of three and two of the bigger trees in one group and the smallest one by itself towards the back, this will give you a feeling of depth, i will do a birds eye mud map if need?

To me the trunks are all saying something different and don't look cohesive. The biggest clump has more than enough character to stand alone without fighting the others for attention. The thick single trunk has obvious reverse taper. I think you have the makings of several individual bonsai with these trees and need trees with less individual character to form a compatible group. It's like getting 5 leaders on a committee... it won't work...

Great find kvan64 i love the three together we be good to see what you do

heres a top veiw DK try this as a place ment, it will be a bit more dynamic i think, mel brings up a good point that they all have merit to be singular trees but they also have some great possibilty to be a group, take a look at the groups Craig coussins makes in his books. different plantings, a small group then a single tree, of a small group of three then a larger group of 7 or so.

keep things at different laterals in the pot, use the different sizes of the trees and i think you can come up with something good. bit of imagination can go far in this art mate


jamie

i just noticed how big these leaves are DK have you tried to reduce them at all? on such small trees it will be hard to pull off a convincing setting with huge leaves???

Thanks every1 for your advice. I will rearrange them and try to see if group still work for these trees as I already have a few single ones of this species.
Jamie, the original leaves on the trees were very small but most got eaten by some sort of small lady bugs (brown in colour and can jump very fast) so I removed them. I guess the leaves I have on the two plants collected earlier are due to over feeding with seasol and fish emulsion

i just realised i didnt post the pic
i would try something like this, you may need to move the three in a little towards the centre and the other two left or right a bit but i think something like this can look rather dynamic, try and change the surface levels aswell, building up mounds and different levels will add more drama to the setting


if the leaves were small thats good as it means they will reduce

Jamie wrote:i just realised i didnt post the pic

No wonder I thought I was blind
Thanks for the mud map jamie. Will try this too.
DK

cool mate

remember to build up the soil, it will add dimension, i think thats the biggest thing i seen that wasnt working in the pics you put up but couldnt put my finger on it, the trees are gnarly but the seeting was dead flat, dead flat is fine for forrests with dead straight trees but not so much with gnarled i think.

the gnarled trees call for a group setting more than a "forest"


jamie