This Cotoneaster horizontalis started life as a £1 sale plant, bought in 1994, to plant in the garden of the house I had just moved into.

After a couple of years I had grown to dislike the natural herringbone branch pattern of this species, so the Cotoneaster was dug up and foisted on the mother-in-law's garden!

In 2003, with my mother-in-law moving house, I had a look around her garden to see if she had any suitable plants I could use for bonsai. I discovered that the trunk of this same Cotoneaster had fattened up while growing in the ground and might well have some potential. It was time for the tree to move on again!

This picture was taken not long after the tree was dug up from the mother-in-laws in 2003.

The tree had produced 5 or 6 tall (6ft+) trunks/branches while growing in the ground. Unfortunately, all were useless for bonsai as they were too straight and lacked taper.

I chopped all of these tall branches and trunks right back to stumps, leaving just one thinner branch that could be used to create a new trunkline in the future.

June 2004. Just over a year later and the tree has recovered and development of the new trunkline has begun.

The new trunk is wired upwards with a guy wire.

January 2005. The trunk has been chopped back again in order to prompt plenty of backbudding close to the base of the tree.

The hard pruning during early 2005 prompted plenty of new buds to appear during the Spring. These new shoots were then given an initial wiring during the Summer of 2005.

April 2006. Having been planted into a more shallow mica training pot in February, it was now time to fully style the tree for the first time.

The left hand side of the trunk had died back over the years after the foliage it had previously supported had been chopped back.

After establishing the live vein of wood supporting the remaining foliage, I carved the newly exposed deadwood.

After I had finished carving, I wired and repositioned the branches.

May 01 2006: The current height of this Cotoneaster bonsai is now 5"/12.5cm with a trunk base diameter of 4"/10cm.

March 2007: The tree has now been planted into a pot from Erin Pottery and I decided to turn the tree anti-clockwise a few degrees to take advanatge of the slightly wider trunk base at this angle.

Current Height is now 5.5"/14cm with a 4.5"trunk base