This is a maple I have been working on for some years and you might have seen on the blog before (2021 update, and 2013 update).
It came into the workshop recently (where i forgot to take before pics) and I gave it a structural prune. It really needs a full re-wire but overall I am pretty happy with the branch structure and development.
The Maple post pruning looking a little moth eaten.
If you compare the tree now to some of the previous posts you can see quite a bit of development but then again i think I first started working this tree in 2013 so 10 years have passed so i would expect some change (and perhaps more development).
It had been somewhat neglected the last little while and particularly last year where it was overdue for re-potting and i ran out of time to do it.
Neglect and too much sun = dieback.
As a result in the heat of summer I had some root issues and the tree suffered some die-back on the nebari. It was not a good result and entirely my fault. Well, lesson learnt and now i will have to spend the next few years healing the scar and will consider wrapping the roots in a towel or cloth to give some sun protection on our hottest parts of the year.
The tree still has a way to go but each time i work on it i can see the improvements. I am looking forward to giving it a full re-wire this Autumn.
A number of years ago we visited Onomichi in southern Japan as a bit of a side trip during a family visit to Japan. I fell in love with the town for some reason. While i cant really put my finger on it, something just ‘clicked’. Its ocean setting, industrial history, creative new industries side by side with their traditional counterparts and of course the amazing shimanami kaido (well worth riding the bike trail if you are so inclined), the hilly landscape, querky old buildings, yellow trains etc all played their part I suppose.
While staying there, we walked to the peak of one of the small hills in the area and managed to stumble across this red pine.
Onomichi Red Pine….. so nice.
I really liked it, and again, while i cant really put a finger on why i liked it, it again ‘clicked’.
…….Cut to this week, I am looking through some travel pic and stumble upon the above red pine again. As fate would have it I was also trying to think of what to do with one of my black pines.
The black pine in question
I had another tree that was styled very similarly and I was never quite sure that my collection was large enough to have two very similarly (and kinda of poorly) styled trees, so I would often catch myself staring at this black pine trying to figure out what i could do with it.
When I came across the Onomichi pine picture I had a light-bulb moment and wondered if i could capture the ‘vibe’ of this pine in the (now desperately needing styling) black pine on the benches.
…….. Now vibe is an interesting concept. Bonsai is a whole lot of different things to a whole lot of different people and that’s OK. In fact i think the myriad of different ideas and approaches is what makes it interesting.
For me, i am not really about making miniaturised, scale models of trees. I think what i like to do is try to capture the feeling of trees and or what my sub-conscious is drawn to in trees. It might be an element of a tree (canopy shape, branch movement, strange feature) a feeling that you get (hugeness, ancient-ness, calmness etc) or just somehow trying to reinterpret the spirit of a tree that i am drawn to. I amso am drawn to graphic shapes in the trees i style which is probably from my Landscape Architecture background. I think in summary I’d call it capturing the ‘Vibe’.
So One night I set myself up in my workshop and set about working towards imparting some of the spirit of the Onomichi pine into my black pine.
The starting point
I’d anticipated a restyling at some point and had pruned and thinned back the foliage last autumn. The tree had been let grow freely the previous season and i think the above image reflects how desperately it needed work!
Now it’s probably on the late side of timing regarding styling black pines. We are entering an El’nino weather phase and the growing season has arrived much earlier than usual so i was caught a little off guard. Candles are extending so i had to be super careful when wiring so as not to break any but think I got away with it.
The process was fairly simple, I chucked on some tunes and switched between looking at the original Onomichi pine image and trying to impart some of it’s ‘vibe’ into the black pine. It was a fun exercise although I’m not sure how successful it was. You are always limited by the material in front of you so of course the end result is not a mirror image but it certainly has turned out being styled in a way i wouldn’t normally have approached the tree.
The ‘finished’ resultThe muse
I quite like the end result but something still bothers me about it.
I think I am going to put it in a spot i can look at it each day and try to work out whats not quite right about it and tweak it over a period of the next few weeks (or leave it as is potentially).
It was a good exercise to go through and I’d recommend it for those with favorite trees and bonsai that share the basic structure. I had to actively go against my baseline styling urges in a number of instances and I learned a lot by doing that that will likely be part of my future work.
As far as the tree’s merit as a bonsai…………. the jury is still out…….. It’s certainly a more interesting tree compared to what I started with and the fact it will now trigger memories of a great family holiday and a favorite place I think will cement it place on my benches for many years to come.
This pine was one I dug (liberated) locally. Essentially a weed in our native forests i was happy to stumble across this one with it’s strange movement and old bark.
It has taken a number of years to get it out of the heavy old clay it grew in and into a better soil mix.
Last year i stripped off the site soil and put it into a shallow bonsai pot (all i had).
The tree in it’s first bonsai pot in 2022. I’m still not sure on a front but i do like looking at its movement from multiple angles. I placed 4 or 5 white pine grafts on the tree in Autumn and they all seem to have survived the winter. Fingers crossed they grow out. A potential front. With tight white pine foliage, i think this tree could be pretty interesting.
This year i put it into a much more suitable container (thanks again Ken). It should be able to stay in here for a few years as it establishes a dense root ball. Once it’s solidly rooted i will hopefully be able to remove the support sticks.
I may post an update once i see if the grafts live or die. The variety of pine is the same as THIS one, so i think i should have a decent chance of grafting success. Fingers crossed.
This is a tree i have been working on for a couple of years.
It was given to me by a good friend (thanks Kris) who was clearing out in preparation for a house move. At the time, it was a mass of foliage and while having some good movement, had been grown as a stock plant with many whips being grown long then later wired and then finally air-layered off as separate trees. It worked really well as a method of producing stock and also did a great job of thickening the trunk on this tree but it was in need of some direction.
I used it as a demo tree at Bonsai Society Victoria in October 2022 for it’s first styling. Unfortunately i don’t have any pics from that time but it underwent a basic program of branch and trunk line selection, reducing it from a huge mass of foliage down to its base structure.
It (and myself) were invited back in June this year (2023) to give it a second pass where i was able to massage things into a much more considered form.
During the 2023 demo. Note the large pot it is in.
The tree came up pretty well and was a good example to discuss changing the flow or direction of branches as i worked. Towards the end of the demo there was a lot of concern about the chances of ever getting it into a bonsai container as it was in a large growing pot………
Cut to a couple of weeks ago when i finally got around to re-potting it.
Post re-potting
Another good friend gave me a pot that he thought would suit it (thanks Ken) and I went about reducing the root mass to a point where they would fit.
I also cut a shari on either side of the trunk to begin forming two live veins that will hopefully make the trunk much more interesting as it continues to develop. I will enlarge these each year until i am happy with them.
It’s a bit of a strange tree but i really like it. The only problem is it hangs down so far below the base of the pot that i will have to weld up a stand for it so it can fit comfortably on my benches.
A quick post to show this little juniper. This re-potting I have stood it up to reveal more of the fantastic trunk-line and will fully re-style it once it settles into the new pot and shows positive signs of growth.
Its a nice little tree that has been with me for a long time. Its not the ideal foliage for shohin as it is much more course than some others and gets ‘shaggy’ quickly. That said with the right amount of work it will be a nice tree.
Its new pot, is one i picked up last time i was in japan and i think suits the tree well. I love its grey tones and always think these colours go well with junipers.
Hopefully in a few months I will share the re-styling with you all. Until then……
This small olive was a gift from a friend who dug this lump of wood when digging a handful of single trunk trees. He thought this one would be right up my alley!
It’s the second year I am growing it. Last year I cut off all the original trunks and branches and let it recover from being ‘flat bottomed’ (essentially cutting it completely off at the roots and growing it like a giant cutting). During this re-potting i was pleased to see a good spread of surface roots all around the base of the cut, allowing for planting it into a very shallow container should I ever want to.
The pot was also a gift from a friend and is a really well made container of Chinese origin. Sorry Mark, i have forgotten the potters details…..
This year I will begin to start building some branch structure and filling it out. I’m starting to think I have a thing for clump style…………
Another quick update for the trees shown in THIS post.
Everything is slowly improving year in year out and I am becoming particularly fond of the one in the Bikou pot. This tree was one of the original Chojubai in the country (a cutting from one of the plants imported in the 90’s).. It belonged to the late Richard Salvado, a friend and proponent of mini and shohin bonsai in Australia at a time when big trees were all the rage.
He originally found chojubai in someone’s backyard, planted as an accent in an imported tree. He took a cutting (which i think out survived the original specimen) and later spread the variety to those who were interested. He was ahead of the curve in regard to the small bonsai craze and its a nice memento of him and his broader influence.
This group was split in half and stretched out a bit into a larger clump. Pot Reiho.Probably due for a re-wire but this clump is slowly improving year in year out. Pot Yamafusa.This tree has had a fair amount of re-styling over the last growing season. It needs another wiring. The red flower really matches the pot well! Pot Bikou.A pic from last summer just after i had made some styling changes. It has come a long way if you compare to the last time i posted it.
Wow, it’s been a while since last posted. Life has been busy but bonsai has been still been ticking away in the background (mostly after dark / kids bed time). At the moment, re-potting is in full swing with the first warm days hinting at springs approach.
I re-potted it into a new shaped container which i think suits it more and gives it a little more root room, which in turn i hope converts to a season of healthy foliage growth to further fill out the silhouette.
2022 on the left and 2023 of the right. The grafts certainly seem to have taken well and are now thriving! I think i can comfortably say this is a (grafted) Itoigawa juniper now.
I have a bunch more re-potting posts to come which should give updates to some previously featured as well as some new to the blog trees. Until then……
It seems a consistent theme is me not updating my blog. Well, it’s been a long time between posts again so figured I should make an update…..
I’ve been fairly active doing various things within the garden and have recently been involved in a local bonsai gathering with some bonsai mates which has spurred my passion for bonsai along again.
During one of these catch up’s I brought along and worked on the tree features in this post. It has featured on the blog before (2012) as per the post below. That said, it has changed quite dramatically since then.
I was never entirely happy with the procumbens foliage on this tree. It could be made to look good but it grew quickly and needed a lot of up-keep to maintain at its best. So I decided to graft it with Itoigawa.
It turns out that this was a long process from which I’ve learnt a few things.
Probably the biggest take away was the size of the scions to use. I had originally used small pieces of scion foliage on the belief they would perspire less and therefore have a higher chance of success. This was the case and they were successful, but they took forever to build up enough strength to grow into something I could think about styling and or cutting the original foliage back to (think several years post graft success).
The next round of grafting I used much larger whips as scions. (probably in the 150-200mm long range.) I found that the extra foliage, almost immediately, built up strength and vigor and as a result could be utilised in much shorter time frames post grafting.
It took me a few years to learn these lessons so the ‘changing of clothes’ process took a lot longer than it might have otherwise. That said, I am now using these learnings on other trees and benefiting from the previous errors. You will see from the image below, I am growing out some whips on this tree to be used as grafts on other stock.
To cut a long story short, I finally got around to doing a structural styling on the new foliage on this tree and I am pretty happy with where it stands. It has a lot of growing to do to fill out and develop secondary and tertiary structure but its now on a good path.
The first styling
The questions remains though, is this a procumbens juniper (sonare) or an itoigawa?
The last few weeks have been pretty interesting. Our area has been under covid lock-down limiting movement and socialising and shortly after, a family member was exposed to a covid positive person at a local shopping location and we had to put the whole family into 14 day isolation where we couldn’t leave our property. Luckily we all tested negative but we still needed to complete the 14 day period of isolation…
Without being able to get out to exercise and walk off some of the kids energy we have been trying to come up with ways to occupy them (and ourselves).
Bonsai has been a good distraction and my daughter wanted to help out so we grabbed some things lying around the house and messed around with a few versions of a bonsai display. Its a pretty modern interpretation with a couple of monsters from ‘Ultraman’ showing up but was a fun exercise to do together and really all the same considerations around placement, scale and colour / texture remain.
I was hoping to use some of the other coloured figures but my daughter is going through a dragon phase so switching them out was out of the question.
Any way, they were a bit of fun and killed some time, I hope you enjoy them. Let me know in the comments your favorite version.
Nichigo Bonsai 