One of the most famous trees in the Western mountains is the Aspen (Populus tremuloides) tree with its white bark and golden yellow fall color of its leaves. The changing leaf color of the Aspen trees is used to predict when winter is coming to the Rocky Mountains. When the leaves change to golden yellow snow is not far behind them. Aspen trees generally do not make great Bonsai trees. They are extremely hard to collect in the wild because the roots are all interconnected with the other trees. One of the articles below states there is an Aspen clone in Utah that is over 80,000 years old and weighs in at 6,600 tons. An Aspen Bonsai tree won the Best In Show award at the 2012 International Bonsai Convention held in Denver, Colorado. So it can be done with a little luck on your side. I happen to have a small Aspen Bonsai tree that started off as a grafted tree by famed yamadori collector and miniature tree propagator Jerry Morris. Jerry is also a member of the Rocky Mountain Bonsai Society. Jerry found an unusually more white Aspen tree growing somewhere in the Rockies and he brought home some cuttings from the tree and grafted them to root stock. Jerry gave me one his grafted trees and named it “Snow White”. My tree is rather small and it will stay that way. The trunk is crooked and goes off in different directions. It is also scared from some type of accident much like wild trees. It does seem to kill off branches for no reason to. It will be slip potted into a bigger pot. Aspen trees like to sucker and that is how they spread up in the mountains and it is also how they spread along the front range in peoples yards. You plant an Aspen tree in the front yard and several years latter you have Aspen trees coming up every where.
Aspens by Golden Arrow Bonsai
How Aspens Grow by US Forest Service
How to Identify Tree Galls in Quaking Aspen Trees by Garden Guides
Tree Profile: Aspen – So Much More Than a Tree by National Forest Foundation
New 06-07-2021:
The Denver Botanic Gardens has an Aspen tree in their Bonsai collection. I did take a photo of it the other day. It is a very tall curvy slender feminine tree. The tree is sitting on the ground which is helping to keep the pot cooler then the trees sitting on benches. The tree was donated to the Gardens by Jerry Morris.
Denver Botanic Gardens Populus tremuloides – Aspen Bonsai
New 05-10-2021:
The tree loves its new pot and looking better then ever. All it needs now is some nice green moss to make her smoking hot.
New 11-12-2020:
I had to repot my “Snow White” Aspen tree so I slipped potted into a Tony Remmington porcelain crack pot. I think it is going to look very good in the pot after a few more growing years. The first pot for the tree was also a Tony Remmington crack pot right up to when I broke it. The new pot color and cracked surface of the pot does go better with color of the tree trunk. I love this little tree especially since it was created as a graft by legendary Jerry Morris. I changed the style of the tree in the fall and I do not like it at all. I am going to restyle it in the spring and return it to its former self.
As of 10-21-2020
My little tree 04-29-2020:
Gallery Updated 11-14-2020
