Bonsai @ Salon de la Maison et du jardin 2014

Today was the last day for the exhibit for home and gardens in Mauritius. Lots of interesting new stuffs mingled with the usual old stuff at the exhibit. This year I got the impression that there were more nurseries than before and mixed in the lot there were various "bonsai", "pre-bonsai", "mallsai" and "potential bonsai" mixed in.

There were at least 6 or 7 nurseries present but only the three below had bonsai related stuffs.

Serre de Palma
Serre de Palma has been importing mallsai and providing them on the market for several years now. The prices are pretty low compared to other nurseries.
Prices starts as from around Rs900 upwards.

Species sold as bonsai were privet (Ligustrum) and chinese elm (Ulmus parvifolia).

There were flaws typical to mallsai ( bad cuts, poor ramification, poor branches ) and I don't even care to think of the roots states. But the trunk's taper (taper = thicker base getting thinner towards the top) was present and the trunk's movement was already interesting with good movement.

All in all its a pretty decent price for a starter material for beginners.

There were other plants that could be used as bonsai though, like this beautiful Juniper.

There were also lots of other garden plants including bougies, orchids and cactus on sale.

La Main Verte
La Main Verte located in Curepipe has been specializing in conifers and evergreens for several years now.
There's a huge variety of false cypress (Chamaecyparis),various thuja, dwarf holly (Malpighia coccigera) and bamboo for sale.

The prices were relatively steeper here. Rs2000+ for the bonsai ( plants in bonsai pots ) and similar plants in nursery pots were around Rs1500+

There's a huge potential here but I find the plants pretty much shrub like. There's no taper, no branches/ramification work done here. It's pretty much a normal plant placed in a bonsai pot for me but I could be wrong.

Pépinière Exotica
Pépinière Exotica had a huge variety of plants on display (as usual) and price tags for garden plants in general were affordable. There were several adeniums that looked ready for a bonsai pot.

There was this one massive adenium plant for a record price of Rs 19,500.

There were several bougainvillea at Rs 2,500 on display at the entrance of their stand that I though had lots of potential as a pre-bonsai material. The taper was there, the ramification was acceptable. A few wires here and there and you could get some nice bunjin or informal upright bonsai out of them.

The only unknown criteria would be the roots. If the plant was grown in those large containers for a long time and without any root training, I might end up with long lateral roots instead of a compact feeder root system. This part might need some work but overall that looked like a huge promise as a pre-bonsai or starter material.

There was this little plant that also got my attention.

A Scouring Rush or Barred Horsetail (Equisetum japonica).

I'm not sure of its growing habit, but I'm wondering if it could be used as a kusamono ( Kusamono are the equivalent of grass in a pot, as compared to bonsai which are trees in a pot )