Finding the Bonsai Inside the Tree

At last Saturday's BRAT meeting we saw two talented artists at work. Both are recent winners of the national new talent competition.

As is the case with the new talent competition, the artists were supplied with material they'd never seen before. This time, however, they were working with vastly superior material - two Juniper Procumbens Nana "shrubs" which had been grown specifically for use as bonsai. Yet to the untrained eye they might have passed as simple nursery stock.

Here they are at the beginning of the demonstration:

Tree 1

Shaundre's tree

Shaundre Craukamp is a member of Eastern Bonsai Society (my club). He won the national competition in 2015.

Attracting young people to the art of bonsai is a huge concern. Most of my club's members are well over forty. Shaundre represents the future of my club. He's still at school. We desperately need to attract more members of his age.

Tree 2

Stefann's tree

Stefann Pretorius, a member of Suikerbos Bonsai Kai, won the national competition in 2016. Here he is assisted by Hannes Fritz, an experienced bonsai artist who represented South Africa when he did his own demonstration at the 8th World Bonsai Convention in Japan in 2017.

Stefann and Hannes

Stefann's tree

FOR SOUTH AFRICAN READERS

If you're not already a member of a club and would like to join one, visit the SABA website to find a club in your area.

Styling a Juniper

Last week was another BRAT meeting - a meeting at which all the bonsai clubs in my province get together.

Among the speakers was Stefann Pretorius, a member of Suikerbos Bonsai Kai and winner of last year's national new talent competition. For that competition participants work on nursery stock - totally untrained Juniper Procumbens Nana. For this demonstration he used far better material, an older Juniper which had been propagated specially for bonsai use. This is what it looked like from Stefann's chosen front.

Before styling

Stefann had taken some time to study this tree and had done several sketches of potential styles, before settling on this one:

With a slight change of slant required, the first thing Stefann did was tie the tree firmly to the turntable.

Then it was time for a little pruning.

Nothing too major as Stefann says it's best not to remove more than 40% of the foliage in one go. I guess that explains why the Juniper I attempted to style at our club's new talent competition a few months ago seems to be dying. Well that and the fact that I decided to move it from the nursery bag into a pot at the wrong time of year!

The biggest job was wiring all those branches. Luckily Stefann had a very able assistant for that - Hannes Fritz, also from Suikerbos Bonsai Kai, is an experienced grower who recently represented Africa on stage at the 8th World Bonsai Convention in Japan, styling a tree belonging to Masahiko Kimura.

Stefann and Hannes wiring the tree

After wiring the tree looked like this:

After styling

It will take a while to develop the pads, but the structure is in place for a very nice bonsai.

When I see trees like this I wish I had the skill and patience to style a good Juniper bonsai, but they're really prickly and they require far too much wiring for my liking.

Transforming a Giant Juniper

About four times a year the various bonsai clubs in my province get together for a day of talks and demonstrations. It's a great opportunity to meet some new bonsai enthusiasts and learn some new techniques. The most recent of these meetings took place on the first Saturday of May.

Among the speakers was Org Exley of Pretoria Bonsai Kai who brought along this massive Juniper Chinensis.

Juniper Chinensis - before

When I saw the tree I assumed that Org was planning to create a literati bonsai but I soon discovered that he had other ideas. This is an illustration he showed us before he started work.

On a tree of that size this was not going to be an easy undertaking. Simple wiring was not going to be enough to get any significant bends into a tree that was far from flexible.

Org showing how far the tree would bend

In order to add flexibility and create the two trunks shown in his illustration it was necessary to split almost the entire trunk.

Here's a shot of the carving - a long and difficult process during which the centre of the trunk was hollowed out.

Sawdust was flying everywhere.

Eventually the carving was done and he now had two much more flexible trunks to work with.

At this stage the tree was taken outside for wiring as the meeting moved on to another topic. Unfortunately there was too much work to do in the time remaining so the last I saw of the tree was this view, wrapped in raffia with a lot of wire applied.

Org kindly agreed to send me a photo of the completed styling. This is what it looks like right now.

I hope he'll bring it along to another meeting when it's had time to recover from its ordeal.