Big Bonsai on the Herons Nursery

Any visitors to our nursery in Surrey will be greeted by a collection of large bonsais. Within the collection you will find many species including garden pine, European hornbeam, English field maple, scots pine and more all grown at our nursery.

If we take a look at this first large bonsai, you will see its trunk is a least two feet in diameter. As most other large bonsai here, this tree has been in the care of our Herons nursery for the last 30 years.

Our large scots pines, all grown at our Nursery.

Although these large bonsais are verging onto garden trees, we have many customers with large gardens who love to display dwarf trees such as these.

An example of an English field maple with a large trunk.

A large European hornbeam.

A large Japanese larch.

An ordinary scots pine.

Another example of a beautiful, large English field maple.

This large bonsai is a Siberian elm.

This tree is a particular favourite of mine: a trident maple that we imported back in ’93 from Japan. In 1993 this tree was no more than a humble stump. We imported it along with 50 other stumps of the same kind. For the first fifteen years of their time at our nursery, the stumps were grown in our field to help them develop thick trunks. The trees were then dug out and their branches were grown again. If you walk around Herons nursery today you will find around 10 or so of these trident maples, grown from stumps. Over the years we have sold around 40 of these beautiful trees.

Another example of a trident maple, developed and refined at Herons nursery.

This is a juniper I created for my second book ‘bonsai master class’.

I’m very fond of large trunk maples, this is another fine example, developed from a field grown tree.

A couple more examples of large trident maples

An ordinary Japanese maple with a thick trunk

When we create large Japanese gardens for clients, we use these magnificent large beuvronensis pines.

We also have a collection of large junipers.

This is a large San José juniper, the trunk of this tree is at least 6 inches in diameter and has the potential to be a lovely large bonsai.

We have around 100 large pines and junipers

Another large Juniper… this variety is called Grey Owl.

Another San Jose Juniper, this would make a beautiful bonsai with wonderful driftwood.

Another large juniper. We will air layer this tree and eventually dig it up.

This is a beuvronensis pine that has been trained for the last 30 years or so. This pine has been kept in a large pot as it will most likely end up as a large garden tree.

A large Siberian elm. As you can see we are air layering this tree at the moment so that we will get another bonsai from the top section. The lower part of the tree will also end up as a very nice, large trunk bonsai.

Just below the Siberian elm you will find a forsythia stump. This stump is covered in bud and there lots of carving to be done.

These four large garden pines were planted in the ground back in 1991. They are ordinary scots pine, but as you can see they are just as aesthetically pleasing if not more than the Japanese white pines, which are often imported as garden trees. These field grown trees have been created using special techniques at our nursery.

I have been training this Juniper here for a long time. It’s quite a large bonsai. All this natural driftwood has developed from parts of the tree dying. There is no artificial carving to create this tree’s look, it is a cause of dieback. It has also never been shaped by wire. Its shape has been achieved by using simple, yet effective cutting and growing techniques. This tree will eventually be purchased and further refined into an even more beautiful specimen.