About Treevaset
European specialist in Acer palmatum cultivars for bonsai. We grow our trees; we don't trade them.
We grow, we don't trade
Most bonsai shops in Europe buy trees and sell them on. We do the slow part ourselves. Most of what you find on this site was raised in our own nursery in Lombardy, northern Italy: from seed, from cuttings, from air layers taken off our own mother plants. We know each tree’s history because we were there for it.
That is why we don’t sell hundreds of species and why we rarely have hundreds of anything. Production is small on purpose. When a batch sells out, the next one is a season away, not a phone call away.
What we grow
Our heart is Acer palmatum. We grow the species from seed (Yamamomiji) and a growing list of cultivars chosen for bonsai, not for the garden: compact internodes, strong back-budding, good autumn colour, cultivar stability. Beni Chidori, Deshojo, Kotohime, Orihime, Seigen, Arakawa and the others are propagated on their own roots, never grafted, never imported.
Around that core sits a short list of other species we believe in and can grow well: Japanese flowering quince ‘Chojubai’, Itoigawa juniper, trident maple, and the classic European conifers for pre-bonsai, such as mugo pine and larch. A few rarer selections are on the way. We would rather add one species we can grow properly than ten we would have to buy in.
Young Pre-Bonsai: the stage that decides everything
Most of our trees are sold young, at the stage where the important decisions are still open: trunk line, first branches, root base. A bonsai’s quality is decided here, years before refinement begins. We do the early work in the nursery, one more season per development stage, and hand the tree over with its structure started and its future still yours.
Older trees from the same nursery, with several years of work already in them, are joining the catalogue as specimens.
Learn with us
Everything we know about growing these trees is written down in Bonsai Essentials: care guides by species, techniques we actually use, and the mistakes we made along the way. It is free and it is honest.
For your own tree, Luca offers 1-to-1 sessions online: one tree, one screen, a clear plan to take away. Because anyone can play bonsai, and it is easier with someone who has already made the mistakes.
Luca
Treevaset is run by Luca Valagussa, who grows every tree we sell and answers every question that reaches us. His conviction, and ours, is simple: anyone can play bonsai. The trees are not the hard part. Knowing what to do with them in the first years is, and that is exactly what we are here for.
The nursery is a real place, not a warehouse. A few times a year Luca opens it for workshops and takes trees to local events around Lombardy. If you are nearby, come and see how the trees are grown.
What to expect from a living tree
Every tree is unique. Leaf size, colour and branching change with the season and with your climate. What we promise is the material and the honest state of it in the photos; what it becomes is the work of the years ahead, and that part is the whole point.