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The Rewards of Exploration

Large review of the Google G1 cellphone coming – with which Husband and I gifted each other before Christmas – but for now, please enjoy the newest addition to our bonsai collection. 

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That is a 12″ crepe myrtle.  Yep, 12 whole inches tall.  The bonsai enthusiasts in the audience have just experienced increased salivary gland activity upon viewing the fine twigging on this little beauty.  It’s not often we buy a finished bonsai – because half the fun is creating them yourself – but I’ve wanted a crepe myrtle for years, and this one is a spectacular example of early-years training.  All we will ever have to do for it is maintain the shape.

We found this lovely off of I-10 in the panhandle of Florida, between Pensacola and Tallahassee in a bitty town called Cottondale, at a place called Bonsai by Dori.  There are multiple billboards on either side of the exit announcing its presence, you can’t miss it.  Nice folks, too.  Dori’s husband (whose name I regrettably do not recall, because I suck with names, yes) showed us around the various greenhouses jam-packed with stock, trees-in-progress, and the not-for-sale specimens.  These are not the rocks-glued-on-top type of bonsai people, they’re the real deal.