Description
Escallonia are a group of flowering shrubs that are native to South America. The ones commonly used in UK gardens are mostly quite hardy, tolerant and make good bonsai although not that frequently seen.
All bonsai or potential bonsai will have originated from garden or garden centre material and many if not all will be hybrids of the handful of actual species. They are quite easy to develop into pleasant bonsai so more should be tried. This example has, we would guess, been dug up from the previous owners own garden and has been cut down from a larger bush. The cut ends have been carved to in effect ” naturalise ” the cut stubs into a deadwood feature. The branching that can be seen has grown in a really short time which indicates how quickly a convincing canopy of branching can be created to complete a tree type image of the storm or lightening damaged trees often seen in our landscape. It will make a nice chunky bonsai with a height at the moment of only 29cm. and a spread of 24cm. The impressive trunk and root spread is 13cm. across at soil level with a trunk diam. above this of 8cm. A clump stle would seem to be the way to go with more growing and pruning of branches. The oval plastic bonsai trainer is 37x29x12cm. A nice slightly unusual project.
