It's very common here. I had the opportunity to grab a mother plant used for cuttings in a patch of a tree nursery that was bound to be replanted. It stayed in a pot too long and the top died but like many Prunus, taking root cuttings is easy. I do it either in February, before budbreak, or after flowering. Here are two I took last year, March 2020 and today : I also have one that I made a few years ago, the trunk is still rather thin, but it's about 2m50 (8 1/2 feet) tall and beginning to flower : More photos when the flowers open...
Thanks, Alain. I hope you'll come back to this thread every year with photos. Will you be planting this in the ground?
The situation is : I have dozens of trees, and hundreds of seedlings, cuttings, air-layers, bonsai in a space which is reasonably comfortable in a suburban area of Orléans, for French standards, 700 sq metres, including the house, the alley way to the garage, etc. but not enough to start an arboretum. That's why most of my trees are potted, not planted in the ground ;-) What I like is giving trees to my friends, or people who can take good care of them. I really enjoy propagating trees, whatever the technique, but I end up with so many that it's hard to keep them and I hate to kill a tree. It's a pity you live so far, I would have been glad to exchange it for a box of chocolates, a tee-shirt, a spare bonsai pot or a cup of tea... ;°)
Totally a pity. I'm sure your friends would be so envious of your Vancouver tee-shirt. But I only have a balcony, with only a half day of sun, which brings me to the reason I asked. There is a recent thread, Can you grow a cherry blossom tree in a pot | UBC Botanical Garden Forums in which the original poster is new to gardening but wants to grow a cherry tree in California in a pot. I tried to discourage the idea, since the southern California climate is not very good for cherries, but I wonder if you would have anything to contribute there regarding how long you can keep your trees in their pots. You mentioned one that was in its pot for too long.
Not only should I have replaced the soil earlier, but it is in a very shallow container and because of these warmer and warmer summers we're having now, it was stressed. It's still alive though, new shoots from the base - no photos today, too much rain, but this is what it looked like in 2014 (the pot is about 60 cm/2 feet long) :
It looked a bit miserable last week, but still has a lot of flowers. Years ago, I saw a big one in Kew Gardens, they can push out new shoots from anywhere on the trunk, even at the base. When the flowers have fallen, I will prune it to get it more compact. ... and the root cuttings are developping nicely. In about 20 years, I might be able to replace it... ;-)
The cherry was uprooted from a field at a nursery, it was used as a mother-tree to take cuttings or scions from. The first photo, in 2005 : The forsythia is self air-layer like you can often see. It's easy to keep it in a small pot and enjoy the flowers. Since "bonsai" means tree in a pot, yes, it could be qualified as "bonsai", even if it's not really spectacular, except for the flowers.
I confess I've neglected it in the past years. Here's a photo taken on March 30th. I might remove the second trunk on the left when I repot it :
