Thuja occidentalis

Northern White Cedar

Height from soil: 32"

Collected autumn 1984 in Michigan's upper peninsula.

This tree has been featured in many publications, including Randy Clark's book Outstanding American Bonsai.  It was collected from a floating peat bog.  As cedar grow in the bogs they continually air layer themselves as the bog advances and the weight of the tree pushes the original root base into the highly acidic water.  Bog collected trees typically have a length of dead trunk beneath the surface that must be cut off to fit the tree into a shallow pot.  I counted over 100 growth rings on the trunk portion I removed from the base before reaching rotten and missing wood.  Based on the diameter of the wood section I counted and the size of the rotten area in the center, I extrapolated that the tree was approximately 170 years old at the time of collection.  The tree is featured in the winter 1988 issue of  the American Bonsai Society Journal, and in the second 1998 issue of Bonsai Magazine, the official publication of Bonsai Clubs International.

One week after winning "Best of Show" with the tree at the 1997 annual Mid-America Bonsai Exhibition in Chicago it was intentionally poisoned by a mentally ill neighbor who was upset with the way I had pruned a limb overhanging the lot line of my property.  Fortunately, the tree survived, albeit with some permanent damage.