Busy times.

May 15, 2012 in General Bonsai | Tags: | 4 comments

It is looking like it will be a busy week. I have just moved offices for my day job and have also been preparing trees for exhibition. Between the two I don’t have a whole lot of time to post.

Freshly mossed.

This weekend is the AABC‘s annual national convention which is being hosted by Bonsai Northwest here in Melbourne. I have spent my last couple of weekends wiring, defoliating, cleaning pots, re-potting and mossing up trees as well as preparing accents for the exhibition. I am showing two trees and I wired a third for a friend. For such a small number of trees they have managed to take up nearly all of my spare time.

Once the exhibition has concluded i will share a few pictures of the trees, the displays and some of the things I did prior to the exhibition to get the trees up to show condition.

For those not already booked into the convention, I think you may be able to get a late registration via Bonsai Northwest. It should be well worth coming along to as Boon Manakitivipart (USA) will be doing demonstrations as well as workshops. The exhibition that will accompany the convention will showcase some of the best trees in Victoria if not Australia. The exhibition and sales area is open to the general public so I would recommend that if you cannot make it to the full convention you at least try to get along to see the show and sales area.

Hopefully next week I will have a full report.

New Tools.

May 7, 2012 in General Bonsai | Tags: , , | 3 comments

Let me start by saying I like tools in general. I like going to hardware stores, searching second-hand markets and looking through garage sales for spanners, wrenches, planes and all other host of hand tools.

Needless to say, I also like bonsai tools. Recently I bought two new tools to add to the toolkit. I like old-fashioned tools, made from good steel. This carries into my choice of bonsai tool aswell. I like the black steel tools over stainless. Stainless steels are great but i like the older feel of the black tools. The black tool’s steel is good, the price is usually cheaper than stainless and they need maintaining.

Now most people don’t like to maintain tools but I enjoy the task. I like inspecting the edges, cleaning the blades and oiling them.

The two tools I bought were black steel Masakuni cutters designed for working on trees that are getting to a ramified state. Now a lot of people say that Masakuni make the best tools…. I dont agree with this 100%. It depends on the tool and the user. I like certain brands for certain tools. For example, I really like Masakuni’s No.9/No.8009 wire scissor yet use kikuwa pruning scissors.

The two tools are essentially two different sizes of branch cutters, or so i thought. No.216 (left) is a small set of branch cutters good for removing small branches up to about 3-4mm thick that are growing in amongst many other twigs. It’s a fairly standard tool but its spring-loaded handle makes doing a large amount of pruning a breeze and it’s tapered head allows you to get it into small places.

No.216 (Left) and No.61 (right)

The blade profiles

No.61 is the interesting tool. I had imagined that it was a larger version of No.216, but I was a little shocked when it came out of the box. What I was use to seeing in a branch cutter was a concave blade, this one had a convex curve to its blade profile!

Concave No.216 (Front) and the surprisingly convex No.61 (behind)

After the initial shock of seeing the unexpected profile I decided to try the cutters out. To my surprise they performed really well. They are narrow enough to get into dense ramification and make cuts which standard concave branch cutters are unable to do. The cuts the tool made were also really flush and clean. Usually on these hard to get to cuts I use a pair of scissors as they are the only tool able to get in amongst the ramification and make a cut without cutting surrounding branches. The cut stubs that the scissors leave however are always a little ugly and leave small lumps in amoungst the twigs. This tool can make cuts in similarly dense places yet leave perfectly flush cut wounds.

Below are a few pics I took while playing around on a branch removed from a white pine I have recently styled. It’s not really the perfect example as it’s not part of a dense canopy and I can easily get the tools in to make the cuts, but it shows the resulting cuts nicely.

Test branch. Notice pruning stubs at the first fork and just after the second fork.

First stub removed. The tool leaves a nice flush cut. I would have previously used scissors for this cut which would have left more of a stub behind.

The stub inside the first fork neatly cut. It looks like this stub was left over from a cut made previously by scissors. If this was a branch on a well ramified tree it would have been difficult to get a standard branch cutter into the foliage to make this cut.

Overall they are a pair of really nice tools. Could I live without them? Probably. They are specialist tools which limits their usefulness but its tools like these that really come into their own when you do actually need them. I can see them getting a fair work out this winter when it comes to pruning the deciduous trees.

If you are after some tools to pad out your already full tool roll and you have trees that are either ramified or beginning to become ramified then these tools might be a good option.

Just a quick heads up for my readers…. the smaller No.216 tool was imported directly from Japan and I paid accordingly. I ordered the No.61 tool from an Australian supplier who has a limited range of specialist Masakuni tools that were almost half the price of buying and shipping direct from Japan. Check out their site beebonsai if you are in the market for some tools. They are worth having a look at.

The things we do……

May 7, 2012 in Bonsai Maintenence | Tags: , , | 3 comments

It’s been a busy week and looks like it will be also busy this coming week.

On the 18th, 19th and 20th of this month is the Annual AABC convention which this year is being held in my state, Victoria. I have been lucky enough to have been asked to display a couple of trees and also prepare a friends white pine for the show. I spent the last weekend wiring the White Pine and it has come up well and hopefully I can share a post about its transformation some time after the show.

The trees I am preparing are both deciduous (with one conifer as a back up). It’s a strange time of the year to be exhibiting deciduous trees as they have not started to colour yet unlike trees elsewhere in the state (Some trees from good friend up in the foothills) so I am left with a dilemma, do I defoliate and display bare or do i leave the leaves on?

The leaves are in-between colouring for Autumn and the summer’s growth. Some years we get mild Autumn temperatures and the leaves don’t really colour at all and instead just go brown and fall off. This Autumn is also warm so I don’t like my chances of getting any colour before the show.

At the moment I am leaning towards defoliating and displaying them bare but as a last dash effort to force some colour i am keeping the smaller of the two trees in the fridge every night to try to force some colour. If this doesn’t work I think I will defoliate.

Hopefully the winter temperatures of the Kelvenator region will induce some colour.

I havent tried this before but I guess I will see how successful this technique is over the coming week or so. If it isn’t showing colour by next weekend I think it will be defoliated for the show. Let the waiting game begin.

Needle work.

April 30, 2012 in Bonsai Maintenence | Tags: , , , , | 5 comments

It has been a busy couple of weeks. Autumn has begun and with it a range of seasonal tasks. I have been madly plucking Japanese black and Red pine needles. Here in Melbourne we have a convention coming up for which I have to prepare a few trees so I tried to get my needle work out of the way early on.

It took a long time this year. What hadn’t really dawned on me until now was that needle pruning takes more and more time each year. Now this is not a bad thing, its more a by-product of a successful technique. As ramification increases, so does the amount of needles you have to remove. Where last year I was removing needles from one candle there are now two candles at that location that need needles removed from them. Not only are there more needles to pluck, but also the space you have to pluck them in becomes more and more cramped forcing you to use tweezers to negotiate the cramped conditions.

2008

2009

2012

2012 after needle plucking.

The above tree has wholly been grown in Australia and has come great leaps and bounds since I learnt how to properly care for it during my first trip to Japan. It is becoming a nice little tree although it is not perfect and it bears the marks of many of my early mistakes. That being said it has taught me a lot and although I have though about selling it on a couple of occasions I think now I would find it a little hard to part with. After all I have invested a huge amount of time into it.

Perhaps this is something to keep in mind when deciding on how large your collection should grow. How much time do you have, and will this time be enough to maintain your trees to a high level? Bearing in mind that as your trees improve and refine, in turn their maintenance times increase. I really enjoy growing pines but I am very aware of the time I have to spend on them each year. Needle plucking, pruning, wiring and candle work all add up. On a tree that is starting to get refined I am guessing I would be sending 6-10 hours on each of them over the year. When you add up all the pines you grow and then the time you spend on them, combined with the tasks you have for all other species you grow you begin to realise that there is a limit to how many trees you can look after to a high level. I lean towards keeping a smaller collection that is well maintained rather than a larger collection that doesn’t get the attention it deserves. That said it is hard to turn down a good tree.

 

Scouting.

April 23, 2012 in General Bonsai | Tags: | Leave a comment

I am always on the hunt for new material. I don’t necessarily want a bigger collection, but I do want a better collection. I try to sell a tree for every tree I buy or dig. I get rid of the tree with the least promise and replace it with something with more promise. Simple in theory but difficult to put into practice. Somehow the collection always seems to be growing bigger, pun and all.

I Australia we don’t have the yamadori available to dig that other countries have. Unfortunately we don’t really get the snow loads or really have the altitude to produce the volume of material such as the deadwood junipers you see in europe, Japan and the united states. Some native material can be found with nice features but I tend to think that our native species should be left to grow in their natural environment for all to enjoy. It would take hundreds of years for nature to replace them in those alpine ecosystems so I think it’s a little selfish to want to take that for yourself. As a result, i look for introduced species to dig of which there are many.  Elm, Oak, Hawthorn, Pine, plum and olive are just a handful of the species that are strewn across the country. Most of these species become a weed once they establish themselves outside of private gardens and farms.  Being interested in Pines I tend to focus on areas around timber plantations where self-sown escapees can be found.

A nice place for a walk.

Autumn is the season I like to scout these plantations and ear mark potential trees for collection in early spring. I choose autumn for a number of reasons. It’s not too hot so I don’t have to water the trees at home as carefully which means I can go away overnight without worrying. It’s also not too cold so walking around the forests for a few hours without heavy jackets is possible and then of course autumn is also a good time to scout for other things as well……

Most of the areas I walk into are good for numerous thing that I am interested in. I look for bonsai material, fishing spots and also mushrooms.

A little on the large side but interesting movement for its size when compared to its bolt upright neighbors.

I have been into a number of forests already this autumn and have not found any trees worth digging yet, but i did find a lake worth fishing and most of the trips we have come home with mushrooms!

A nice bonus from a day where no dig-able trees were found.

Most of the young pines i find could be easily grown from seed with better movement and better roots so I don’t bother digging them. What I look for is movement and old bark. Bark only happens with time so by digging trees with good bark you are putting yourself ahead of the game, and if you find good bark and good movement you have found a tree worth digging.

It seems others also like this spot, unfortunately it seems they don't like it enough to clean up after them selves.

Even though most fo my outings don’t produce trees they do get me out of the city and into fresh air and great views. Hopefully in the coming months I am able to get out some more and collect some mushrooms, catch a fish and maybe even find a tree worth digging. I always enjoy the trips away even if you come home empty-handed, the day never feels like a waste.

A nice view.

If the scouting trips don’t reveal and trees worth digging I do have a couple earmarked from last year that I might try to liberate.

Korean Bunjae Museum Part 3.

April 17, 2012 in Bonsai Shows, Nurseries and Events | Tags: , , | 1 comment

This is the final post about the Korean Bunjae Museum in Seoul (Part 1) (Part 2). The following photos are from the largest green house on the site which was mainly filled with the trees belonging to the owner of the Nursery.

There were literally thousands and thousands of bonsai inside the huge green house.

A glimpse at some of the trees.

All the trees were sheltering out the winter under cover due to the low temperatures the area experiences. As a result the green house was quite cramped, In a strange way this was quite good as you really had to hunt around to look at all the tree.

One of the wings full of bonsai.

Throughout the collection there were many trees that were a little unusual. Some of these unusual characteristics were due to the fact that they were collected trees and others were grown in ways I was un familiar with.

An exposed root forest.

One such tree was this exposed root forest. I can’t remember seeing a tree like this before and as a result I spent a good amount of time in front of it soaking it up.

Some of the other trees were unusual due to their size, which in some cases was outright huge!

A massive hornbeam.

I couldn’t help but wonder how much time it must take to maintain a collection of this size.

A few pics of some more of the tree are below.

For those travelling through Seoul or thinking of visiting i can thoroughly recommend it. I would actually love to come back some time not in the heart of winter to see the trees in leaf and outside the green houses on display. The day we visited the owner of the nursery was not around but instead his daughter was looking after things.

She had just graduated from a Bonsai University degree and spoke near perfect english. She had many ideas for how she would like to promote bonsai within Korea in the future and I am sure she will achieve them.

So if you are ever in Korea I think a trip to the Korean Bunjae Museum is well worth the effort.

Korean Bunjae Museum Part 2.

April 12, 2012 in Bonsai Shows, Nurseries and Events | Tags: , , | 1 comment

It’s been a busy few weeks so I apologise for the lack of posts. Hopefully I can post a bit more regularly now.

This post I will share a few more photos from the Korean Bunjae Museum. You can see in my earlier post, some of the amazing man-made stones that were on the outside of the massive green houses in which the bonsai were sheltering from the sub-zero winter chill. In this post we will explore one of those green houses.

Inside the green house.

What was interesting about this nursery was how it was run. In the Japanese nurseries I have visited the trees that were living within the nursery either belonged to the nurseryman or a customer but nearly all the work was done on the trees by the professional nurseryman.

Here in the Korean Bunjae Museum, hobby growers could rent bench space and grow their trees as they liked while enjoying the luxuries of a nursery such as misted green houses, regular watering, and a professional grower on site to call on for advice and or lessons etc. It seemed like a really good system and one I could see working well at other places. To imagine the ease at which you could take holidays without having to organise someone to water or without having to move the collection to a friends backyard makes this nurseries system seem like a great idea.

Now just because the growers in this green house were hobby growers it didn’t mean the trees were of a sub standard level. In fact there was a whole range of standards of trees many of which were very high leveled.

Some amazing Nebari!

The tree above was one of the first to catch my eye with its excellent root spread. I am sure that most of those roots will fuse into a solid plate at some stage but for now the individual roots look amazing!

Thee tree in the round.

And I guess I couldn’t make post about a Korean bonsai nursery without having a picture of a Korean Hornbeam.

A nice hornbeam.

A more feminine hornbeam.

There was also no shortage of junipers.

Juniper

What was particularly interesting was all the raw material that was growing between the more finished bonsai.

My wife posing with a large hornbeam in-the-making

A trident maple (I think, maybe a korean maple of some type?) with a thread graft.

A few more pics and in the gallery below.

The next post will be on the second, larger green house which is where the Korean Bunjae Museum collection was sheltering out the winter. It was a huge space, packed with trees so stay tuned.

Korean Bunjae Museum.

March 13, 2012 in Bonsai Shows, Nurseries and Events | Tags: , , | 2 comments

During our recent stay in Japan we managed to get a couple of cheap flight / accomodation packages so we could spend a few days in Seoul. The purpose of the trip was for my wife to stock up on Korean cosmetics  (Korea is a shopping mecca for the Japanese) but I managed to squeeze in a quick visit to one of the local nurseries, The Korean Bunjae Museum.

The Korean Bunjae Museum

This visit was my first experience with korean bonsai so I wasnt sure what to expect. What I will be covering in this post is what initially grabbed my attention.

We visited in the middle of winter. Most of the lakes in the surrounding parks had frozen and the top daytime temperatures were not even making it above freezing. When we first entered the nursery I wasn’t sure we were at the right place. I could hardly see any bonsai! We soon learnt that the whole collection was sheltering in huge greenhouses for the winter but that’s a whole other post.

What caught my eye was some huge rocks with trees planted upon them that were assumingly too big to be moved inside for the winter.

One of the massive rocks.

After spending some time with the owners daughter she explained that the rocks were actually all man-made by a close friend of her fathers. Now I don’t know about you but I think these are some of the best fake rocks I have ever seen! Even up close I couldn’t tell they were not natural.

Another rock and planting.

An upright rock with a small pine perched a top.

This last rock was my favorite. It was large rock that had a great little hornbeam forest on top of it. It made me wonder just how difficult it must be to trim it and keep it looking so good.

A small forest on top of one of the rocks.

A close up of the forest.

I will have a few more posts from this nursery as it was full of interesting trees and was run quite differently to the Japanese nurseries I was familiar with so stay tuned.

It is well worth a visit if you are ever in Korea. Their web page can be found HERE and their facebook page can be found HERE

 

shochikubai

February 27, 2012 in General Bonsai | Tags: | Leave a comment

Shochikubai is a type of planting sold at New years time in Japan to bring good fortune for the coming year. The below example was one a friend had bought and was on display in their apartment when I visited.

Pine, Bamboo, Plum.

Shochikubai (松竹梅) is a chinese reading of the japanese kanji: matsu (pine), take (bamboo) and ume (plum). The pine represents strength, the bamboo longevity and the plum stands for beauty and optimism. Around the New year you would see these pop up at businesses, department stores and homes across Japan.

This is probably the closest Japan comes to ‘Mall-sai’, although I think that this pine has a lot more promise than any I have seen for sale in shopping centres here.

How long these plantings survive outside of the new year period is hard to say, my friend’s planting is still alive but I am not sure for how long. They don’t have a history of green thumbs and they live in a small apartment with a small balcony, not ideal bonsai conditions. Come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing any really established ones anywhere else which might suggest their survival rates are similar to the expected survival rates the mall-sai we get here.

No matter what the future holds for these plantings, I think that any year starting with a black pine bonsai is going to be a good one!

Antique Chinese Pot.

February 20, 2012 in Bonsai Pots | Tags: , | 2 comments

Below is a pot I picked up from Mr. Tanaka at Aichi-en in Nagoya. It is an antique pot and I think it is from the Nakawatari or middle crossing period.

I am by no means an expert on antique chinese pots (this is my first) but from what I have been explained Chinese antique pots are roughly divided into 3 categories. Huruwatari, Shinwatari, and Nakawatari. These correspond to periods of wars between Japan and China during which time many pots and other goods made their way to Japan.

Beautiful patina.

Ever since seeing the antique Chinese and Japanese bonsai pots in the  Kokufu exhibition catalogues I had wanted to own one. I was especially drawn to the white or cream containers that have become in some cases almost black from the layer upon layer of patina that builds up on them.

You can see the imperfect warped edges.

When I was pot shopping this last trip I had a rough list of pots that I was interested in buying. I had also made a deal with myself that I would buy usable sizes instead of falling in love with pots that would only ever be mantle piece ornaments like some of my previous purchases.

While visiting Aichi-en, Peter Tea and I searched the nursery for a pot that might fit my needs. We came up empty-handed after a 30 minute search. Peter then asked Mr. Tanaka if there was anything that might suit and he headed out to the piles of pots we had just searched only to return a minute later with the perfect pot in his hand.

A detail fo the glaze, patina and surface inperfections.

The pot I ended up buying was a good size for the bonsai I like to grow. I guess it would fit trees in the Chuhin range. Also being of this grey/ white colour I think it will go well with a range of different deciduous species.

The pot itself is full of imperfections and it is a little wonky. If you look along any one side you will notice that they are slightly off square and or bowed. I really like this. In most of the high-end Japanese pots the geometries are perfect so it is nice to own a pot that has some rustic character to it. I am very happy to own this pot and I hope to give it some use in the near future.

If anyone knows more than my basic understanding of Chinese antique pots or would like to make any corrections to my description please post in the comments. I am interested in learning more about these pots and the times that they came from so please comment if you know any more.

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