Evergreen Gardenworks
2024
Specimen Catalog
Conifers

PLEASE NOTE: THE DECIDUOUS SPECIMEN TREES HAVE BEEN MOVED TO HERE

YOU MAY CLICK ON ANY IMAGE FOR A FULL SIZE PHOTO.

Scroll Down for Species Listed (updated soon!)

Specimen plants are one of a kind offerings. These are larger plants and/or more fully trained plants for bonsai, or plants so rare that they are best sold individually. Each plant is individually described, identified, and pictured. Prices vary according to the degree of training, caliper, and sheer potential for bonsai. This list will be constantly changing, so check back often for new listings. Plants are organized in the same fashion as our regular catalog, alphabetically by genus and species. Please refer to the Plant Catalog for the general species description. Be sure to use each plant's individual name and code number for ordering purposes.

Prices do not include shipping. Please request a shipping quote to your Zip Code Area. Shipping is via Priority Mail. Your shipping quote will be very close to the actual UPS cost plus a small charge for materials. All shipments are guaranteed to arrive safely. California residents will be charged 7.5% sales tax. Some of the specimen are very large and are too big to ship safely. These will be labeled Nursery Pick Up Only.

This is a very exciting development for our nursery. We have been growing most of these plants for many years just to be able to offer exciting potential bonsai. You will find them fully described, including size, shape, caliper, nebari, trunk movement, etc. The strong and weak points of each plant will be listed. Often there will also be a tentative plan described for future development. We hope you will enjoy exploring them!

Juniperus chinensis 'Shimpaku'

Most of these Shimpaku were photographed in October 2024 following a heavy pruning. This leaves a lot of them a little naked, but allows you to see the trunk and branch structure, and is not necessarily how the final tree will look. I try to leave as many useful possibilities as I can rather than locking the trees into one final concept. This makes these large 'Shimpaku' excellent workshop trees. In most cases, I will only point out the obvious 'tree' that can be created, but nearly all will have multiple possible designs. The photo is what I consider to be the best front, but it is up to you to decide ultimately. Some have not been pruned recently making them a bit harder to see the structures, but in general they will cost a bit less.

Shipping is problematic for these trees since they are so heavy. This is best for growing them out and they put on caliper very fast, but their weight makes them expensive to ship if not altered. The usual procedure is to remove the pot and cut two or three inches off the bottom; a clean cut with the sawsall. They can then be repotted in something shallow and wider such as an Anderson flat or a cut down 5 or 15 gallon can. They should be slip potted only to make sure there is no trauma to slow them down. The outside roots can be very slightly combed out, but there should be no significant root pruning. They can be repotted again in a year or two. This procedure, if followed precisely, can be done at any time of the year, but the best time if Fall and Winter. We ship in the pot that you see, securely anchored in the box. Your are not paying extra for heavy ceramic pot that you would probably change anyhow. We have done this many times here at the nursery, and we have never had a customer complaint about the procedure. It results in lowering the shipping costs EAST to about $100 to $200 UPS 3 day. You can request an exact quote by sending an email to Brent with your zip code.

In some cases, the 'Shimpaku' are photographed in winter, and are therefore showing their winter color display of yellowish bronze foliage. Do not be alarmed. This is perfectly natural and they will green up very quickly in the spring.

Juniperus chinensis 'Shimpaku' #16, Very old, very rugged over 30 years old. Single trunked with 3 inch caliper. . The number of possible finished trees is mindboggling; I have left all the possibilities.The 24 x 24 inch tall tree is in a cut off plastic pot.
Tree in pot $2000

Juniperus chinensis 'Shimpaku' #07, Very old, over 30 years old. Triple trunked with 3 caliper at the base. Size is 24 x 24 inches. It has been thinned to show the possibilities with no branches selected. A good project. The tree is in a cut off 15inch plastic pot
Tree in pot $2000

Juniperus chinensis 'Shimpaku' #03, 25 year old tree, 3inch caliper. Size is 36 x 28.
Tree with pot $4000

Juniperus chinensis 'Shimpaku' #13, 30 year old tree, 3inch caliper. Size is 22 x 24.
Tree with pot $4000

Pinus parviflora, Japanese White Pine

We live in a climate that is not favorable for Japanese White Pine, which are native to cool mountain air and cold winters. After losing many beautiful trees we finally discovered how to grow them in our hot dry climate with endless brilliant sunlight. We keep them year round in outdoor 50% shade cloth houses. Our winters are cold enough, usually around 20F or lower on the coldest nights. The shadecloth cools the pots during the summer and prevents leaf scorch. We will be having a few specimen plants for sale, but I caution you that unless you have successfully grown them in your area, you are probably going to kill them.

Pinus parviflora 'Hagarumo' #05, Japanese White Pine. One of the smallest dwarfs, if not the smallest. Base caliper is 2 1/2 inches. Size is 21 x 24 inches. 1999 low graft. Ready for bonsai pot.
Specimen in 3 gallon pot $3000

7428 Pinus thunbergii 'Hachi Gen' (Nishiki Kuro Matsu)

The following selection of pines are very special. They are all low grafted or cutting grown, started in 1996. They have always been in pots and have been grown slowly to allow them to develop mature bark quickly, although the full corking scales will not be fully mature for another decade. 'Hachi Gen' does not form corky wings like the more familiar Nishiki black pines, but rather forms enlarged and thickened scales similar to "turtle back" ridging. These pines are already considerably 'rougher' than species seedlings of their size and age. The beauty of these individuals cutting grown trees is that they are not grafted, and thus do not present graft union problems. In addition, cutting grown black pines form an enormous enlarged root base, evident in some of the examples below. These swollen nebari and surface roots will also have bark scale ridges eventually.

The leaders were allowed to grow on these trees for twelve years to develop trunk thickness and were just chopped back the winter of 2010-11. This hard pruning has left them somewhat naked for the moment, but it has revealed the trunks and the presence of the low branches. Please don't look at these as finished trees; they are far from it. I have grown the basic structure for you and have given you branch selections for final and sacrifice branches. Now that the leaders have been removed, the lower buds will be released in spring and summer. A new leader will not have to chosen but branches demarcated as either final or sacrifice branches and treated accordingly, although on some of them this has already been done. If none of this makes sense to you (and welcome to the club!), then I strongly advise that you read my articles on pines at the website and in the blog.

Now is the best time to analyze the trunks and branching for potential. Except where noted, these trees are all in two gallon and larger black plastic nursery pots. Many have had sufficient root reduction and are potted in cut off five and fifteen gallon pots about 4 to 6 inches tall.

Pinus thunbergii 'Mi Nishiki' (Nishiki Kuro Matsu)

Please see the notes above for 'Hachi Gen' for a general description of these cutting grown trees. 'Mi Nishiki' is quite similar to 'Hachi Gen' except that the bark corks up a little faster. Unless otherwise noted, all the 'Mi Nishiki' below were grown from cuttings in 1997 and 1998. They have always been in pots which enhances the bark and helps maintain the low branches. The origin of these trees is from a single tree owned by Chuck Shane in Sebastopol CA, now of North Carolina. Chuck obtained his tree from his sensei probably about fifty years ago. As was common among Japanese bonsai masters in year's past, they would select a tree with outstanding characteristics and propagate it for themselves. Thus, these trees became cultivars, although they were not always named, other than to attribute the tree to the master and designate as a Nishiki Kuro Matsu, or Yatsubusa for example. So, Chuck began calling this cultivar "his nishiki". On a whim I suggested he name it 'Mi Nishiki' and the name stuck. Like the 'Hachi Gen' above, these trees have exceptional bases because they were cutting grown and not grafted. Thus the corky bark extends all the into the nebari and the surface roots as well. They also exhibit the swollen bases common to cutting grown Japanese black pine. These trees are extremely rare, and there is nothing else like them in the world. Once they are sold, there won't be any more. I don't have the setup for growing pine cuttings any longer, and it is exceptionally difficult.

The photographs were taken in 2024 right after they were pruned, so you can really see the trunks and the structure, but they will look a little naked. They are loaded with buds that will explode the spring of 2013. Most were root pruned and repotted the winter of 2023-24 and are fully established in their plastic cut off nursery pots. They should not be root pruned and repotted if purchased in early spring of 2025, otherwise you may slip pot them and repot during the winter of 2025-26.

Other cultivars of Pinus thunbergii

Nearly all of our specimen black pines are cultivars. Chuck Shane and I obtained many of these cultivars from the collection of John and Sandy Planting who lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. There are several that are completely unknown to the United States. We started low grafting of these cultivars in 1994 to develop enough wood to propagate them commercially. Many of them are corked bark (nishiki kuro matsu), and two of them are particularly outstanding dwarfs! These are Brocade, and Hayabusa. These remarkable little trees begin corking almost immediately and have mature needle length of about 2 to 3 inches, which is easily reduced to 1 to 2 inches. They break buds EVERYWHERE, including even on old wood and for us at least, are very vigorous. All of our trees are low grafted which is especially important for cork barks, so the winged bark goes right down to the base and disappears into the species understock nebari.

Some of the trees were unnamed and we had to resort to a descriptive name such as 'Two Ribbed'.

Pinus thunbergii 'Hachi Gen' #11, 1996 cutting grown tree with the characteristic swollen base. Massive 6 inch caliper trunk at base. Size is 17 x 20 inches. Tree is in 10 inch cut off plastic pot. Ready for bonsai pot.
Specimen in pot $4000

Pinus thunbergii 'Hachi Gen' #12, 1996 cutting grown tree with the characteristic swollen base. 2 inch caliper trunk with massive 5 inch burled nebari. Rooted in 10 inch cut off plastic pot, ready for bonsai pot.
Specimen in pot $2500

Pinus thunbergii 'Mi Nishiki' #09 2000 cutting grown tree, 3 inch caliper trunk. Size is 16 x 10 inches. Ready for bonsai pot.
Specimen in 2 gallon pot $2500

7428 Pinus thunbergii 7430'Hayabusa' and 7428 'Brocade' Kuro Matsu)

These are very rare dwarf cork bark Japanese Black Pines that form cork early and form wings within just a few years. Full needle length is about 3 inches but can be easily reduced to 2 inches. Unlike other Kuro Matsu, these pines are very vigorous and will break buds all over, even on old wood. The budding is so prolific you will have to rub out excess buds each year to keep them from getting too crowded. All of our cork bark pines are low grafted, right on the roots of the understock. No Flying Nun wings.

Pinus thunbergii 'Hayabusa' #04, 2002 low graft, 2 3/4 inch caliper trunk. trunk and branches fully corked. Needles have been trimmed to reveal the structure. Ready for bonsai pot.
Specimen in 2 gallon plastic pot $2000

Pinus thunbergii 'Brocade' #02, 2006 low graft, 2 1/2 inch caliper trunk. Size is 12 x 10 inches.
Specimen in 2 gallon pot $1500

Pinus thunbergii 'Thundercloud' #01 2006 low graft, 3 inch caliper trunk. Size is 16 x 18 inches. Some people say Thundercloud is not suitable for bonsai, looks good to me. Ready for bonsai pot.
Specimen in 2 gallon pot $1500

Pinus thunbergii 'Two Ribbed' #19, 1996 low grafted tree nice low turn in the trunk. 4 inch caliper trunk. Size is 30 x 22 inches Ready for bonsai pot.
Specimen in 3 gallon pot $3000

Pinus thunbergii arakawa #17, Seedling grown arakawa with typical deep green needle color and rugged bark. 4 1/2 inch caliper trunk. Size is 28x 28 inches. Needs one more root reduction to be ready for bonsai pot.
Specimen in 7 gallon low plastic pot $4000

Pinus thunbergii 'Yatsubusa' #24 2006 low graft, 2 inch caliper trunk. Size is 15 x 13 inches. Ready for bonsai pot.
Specimen in 2 gallon pot $2000

Pinus thunbergii 'Kyokko' #25, 39 year old low graft , 4 inch caliper trunk. Size is 21 x 20 inches.
Specimen in 2 gallon pot $3000

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Pinus thunbergii 'Mugo' #26, 25 year old cutting grown tree, 2 inch caliper trunk. Size is 13 x 16 inches. Ready for bonsai pot.
Specimen in 2 gallon pot $1500

MORE COMING!

Evergreen Gardenworks 2024 Specimen Catalog Conifers

Evergreen Gardenworks
2024
Specimen Catalog
Conifers