Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Nordic Bonsai Summercamp 2012

Ole Claefer very kindly invited me to help out at the Nordic bonsai Summercamp this year. I was asked to create a bonsai during a demo on the first day, workshop the second and to work on some of Ole's private collection on the third. As part of the weekend there was also an exhibition which I was asked to judge and a Gala dinner after the demo to present the awards. The first set of pictures will be on the demo.

                                                     Ole's nursery as we approached



The material for the demo was a Scot's Pine from Sweden and had been in the pot for about 4 years. There were 3 live trunks and some old dead horizontal trunks. Being quite a feminine tree with some excellent movement in places, it was decided that the styling should look like the Pines we see in the North of Europe. Rather than cover the tree in Raffia to bend the tree into an unconvicing short image, I went for a more graceful bunjin.
I have to thank Peter Landerloos for the photographs and he also helped with the wiring and deadwood work. My appreciation of his sneaky camera work.
Straight areas of trunk were removed or made into deadwood. There was a very intersting twist at this section but it went across the front of the tree and didn't fit in with the design.
Peter prepping the tree before wiring.
Some of the old bark was quite stubborn to remove so I used the Makita.
Yvonne having a closer look.
The pair of us busy wiring.
The central trunk was removed to a lower branch as the movement wasn't great and it helped to simplify the design of the bunjin.
Work on the reduced trunk........
.......With the Makita again.
Sawdust was the order of the weekend.
The first design of this lovely Pine
The first steps to becoming bonsai
















Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Summer leaf pruning 2012

 That time again already and has to be one of my least favourite jobs. Manged to leaf prune 5 trees today. 4 English Elms (Ulmus minor) and a Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) For all the trees histories follow each link.  http://wildwoodbonsai.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/semi-cascade-elm.html
The deadwood on this Elm had a good coat of wood preservative. Ramification is coming on really well if you compare it to the pic on my home page that was taken  Winter 2011.http://wildwoodbonsai.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/development-of-english-elm_816.html 
 Big Elm airlayer and the bottom branches had been alllowed to extend by several feet to thicken the branches. Areas with leaves are left to get some good extension on thinner branches.http://wildwoodbonsai.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/big-ol-elm.html 
 Elm raft also received a thinning as well. Branches at the back are weak so they will be left to     grow.http://wildwoodbonsai.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/english-elm-raft.html 
Never seen so many berries on my Blackthorn.http://wildwoodbonsai.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/prunus-spinosa.html 
 There are too many on the tree and just after I took the pictures I thinned them by more than half