Monkey Puzzle trees as bonsai?

Further to my collection (and my favourite kids, perhaps) are the monkey puzzle trees. There is one in my local park back home in England, and I guess I immediately fell in love with it's peculiar, "Alien-Christmas tree" like appearance and got my hands on some seeds as fast as I could. I had no luck germinating initially, as they seem to be quite temperamental things but I found success in both a few live specimens as well as seeds provided by a wonderful online nursery.

Here's the family, not including a few seeds which are just now poking their heads up, fingers crossed for them



I understand that this is not conventional, but I was wondering if anybody has any direct experience with, or has heard of monkey puzzle trees being trained as bonsai. I was told by somebody that being a monocotyl, if it is cut or coppiced it will try to grow again from the base, however I have seen pictures of various other pine trees being trained as bonsai, the most relevant being a close relative of Arucaria Arucana: http://houseofplants.co.uk/Resources/400temp/AraucariacunninghamiaBonsai.jpg

Would it ever be possible to pinch/prune this to achieve a desired dwarf effect? Or should I just leave them alone in the hope of one day having the most exotic x-mas tree in all of Hungary

 

I don't think there are many members with Bonsai experience PuzzledMonkey. But if anyone can help you I'm sure they'll spot your thread here.

 

Hi Ric,
I've done a bit of research for you...

Apparently the Norfolk Island Pine (Araucaria Heterophylla) is s better choice for s bonsai.

Here are two sites for you to look at


www.bonsaitreeforums.com

www.hollowcreekbonsai.com

Hope I've helped

 

Hey there, thanks very much! That's very kind of you. The Araucaria Heterophylla is certainly a very interesting looking tree. I actually have 30 or so seeds from a miscellaneous pine tree in the area I foraged myself. I've got my fingers tightly crossed with that one because I was a bit late getting to it, the cones had already begun to drop but I was lucky enough to find many seeds that failed to release. Beautiful tree too, if I germinate even one I'll be happy.

Re: those websites, I don't know what's going on with the bonsai tree forums site but twice I've tried to register, have received no verification email, and sent about 5 emails to the admins as well as two posts in the chat box over the course or a week and I've received no reply! Very frustrating because it seems like my one-stop-shop but they aren't very proactive with resolving registration issues... Will look at the other site hoping I have better luck.

 

Best of luck with the seeds, don't forget the pics when they do germinate.


I guess all you can do is keep trying with the bonsai forum, is there no phone no you could try?

I suppose not every forum hss the high standards of GC. I'll receive my payment by cheque thanks admins