Unusual Displays from Last Year's Bonsai Show

With my bonsai club's show only days away, I realised that I still have a bunch of photos from last year's show that I was planning to write about.

Most of the trees weren't quirky, but the manner in which some of them were displayed was unusual.

Ficus with hippopotamus mother and child

Acacia forest with small hut and origami giraffe

Framed juniper procumbens nana rock planting

Junipers growing on a "mountain" - water feature

Juniper procumbens nana in a bathtub

There was also a Juniper in a rusty shovel which I wrote about at the time.

I can't wait to see what our members come up with this year.

Show Details

The show is over but our club meets at this venue on the second Saturday of every month. If you live in Joburg perhaps you'd like to pay us a visit and see if you'd like to join the club. It's a great way to learn.

Three Weeks After the Show

I can't believe it's already three weeks since our club show. Time is really flying and as we move from spring into summer some of my trees are growing like crazy. I decided it was time to see what progress my show trees had made in that short time.

I was amazed to see the change in my Stinkwood tree. This is what it looked like at the show:

Stinkwood as it appeared at the show

Since then the branch structure had largely disappeared behind a mass of big new leaves. (Sorry about the bad camera angle hiding the base.)

Stinkwood with three weeks of growth since show

I might have left it like that for a little longer, but this tree has a crazy idea of seasons, waking up in late winter and going dormant long before my other trees. As I'm hoping to get some better ramification going I need to maximise its growing season so I did something approaching a Walter Pall hedge prune - nothing too dramatic, just reducing the volume of foliage to allow light to get to the inner branches which need it most. I'll do more selective pruning while it's dormant, and by then I hope to have more options to choose from.

I was much gentler on my other show trees.

Schotia - 30 October 2016

My Schotia had hardly put out any new growth since the show. The only useful bud of any substance was this one, though I spotted a couple of other buds which are just starting to swell.

Aside from that it had pushed out this unwanted bud on the trunk:

Removing that was the only work possible on this tree. As it grows slowly, I'm not sure how much more I'll be able to do this summer. Ramification may take a while on this one.

My olive tree is starting to look a bit messy, with lots of little buds pushing out all over the trunk:

Some of those buds will need to go before I lose track of which branches I really want, but I'll leave working on this tree for another day. There's been a change of plan for its future design since I originally discussed it back in April, so it really needs a post of its own.

As for my little ficus, it's starting to look a little untidy too, but I decided to hold back on the next trim for a little longer. I'll probably trim the top growth soon, but I'll let the lower branches grow for a while so that they can thicken up a bit more.

With top branches wired

Meanwhile I noticed that the wire on the upper branches was starting to bite, so I removed that.

After removing the wire

The branches held their position reasonably well so I didn't bother to rewire them for now. There's plenty of time to do that later if required.

Same Artist, Better Tree

In my previous post I discussed a display from my club's annual show which was always likely to spark controversy. Perhaps that was the artist's intention.

Regardless, I only ever looked at the display in its entirety without paying much attention to the tree itself. It was only when one of my Reddit readers described it as "a mediocre tree at best" that I took the time to observe it as he had done, and I realised that this was not one of the owner's better trees. I'm guessing that he didn't want to subject one of his best trees to life in such a harsh and unnatural environment.

Perhaps his critics will feel more positive about another tree he had on show last weekend.

According to the label it's a Dodonia (Sand Olive), not a species I'm acquainted with.

This tree is still very much a work in progress and appeared in the section for trees which have been in training for less than five years, hence its appearance in a plastic training pot. It was collected about five years ago after spending most of its life as part of a hedge.

While the owner has done extensive carving the development of the canopy requires time and the assistance of mother nature.

I'd like to believe that when it achieves its full potential it will be displayed in a pot worthy of its quality. One thing is for sure - this tree is far too large to ever find itself living in a rusty old shovel!

Use Your Imagination

I hate to admit that when I first joined my bonsai club I became so bogged down by the rules that after a while all my trees started to look the same. I guess realising that mistake is the first step towards creating interesting bonsai, though I can't help feeling that mine still have a long way to go. Slowly I'm developing a taste for the quirky though, as can be seen in the development of my fig tree.

Some people have more imagination than others and fortunately it takes all kinds to make a club. Today was day one of our annual show and there was quite a mix of trees there.

Here's one by an artist with a lot of imagination:

Instead of a pot this Juniper is planted in the bowl of a rusty old garden spade which has been wrapped with barbed wire to depict struggle. There were a couple more elements to the display, but it was too much to fit into one small photo, so I concentrated on the tree and its message.

Obviously this kind of display isn't going to be to everyone's liking. You can love it or hate it, but you can't ignore it. I guess that's what makes it art.

One thing is for sure, my own show trees look very ordinary by comparison.

Trees in training for less than five years

It's showtime at my bonsai club this weekend.

In bonsai terms that should be one of the highlights of my year, but unforeseen circumstances have prevented me from dedicating much time to my trees over the past month and this week I found myself totally unprepared for the show. When I looked at my small collection of trees which are actually in bonsai pots, only one looked vaguely show-worthy but not really the way I'd have wanted it to look for putting on show.

Fortunately the club has introduced a section for trees which have been in training for less than five years, and those can be displayed in training pots. So I looked around to see which trees I could display in that section and cut my options down to four on which I did some preparation today.

These are my options:

1. Schotia Brachypetala

Schotia - before tidying up for show

This tree has been growing quite vigorously since its early spring pruning. Initially I planned to do no more than rewire it, but in the end I went a little further and ended up with my tree looking like this:

Schotia - ready for show

Though it appears that I did some drastic work, only one branch was pruned. The rest was merely reducing the volume of the large compound leaves so that the branch structure became a bit more visible. Though I'm not convinced the tree is looking its best right now, removing that foliage actually helped me to notice a few branches that had been wired in the wrong direction. That should benefit the tree in the long term.

2. Celtis Africana

Celtis Africana

This is one of my bigger trees and has quite a nice trunk, with a few secrets which I'll keep for a future post. Unfortunately I haven't put much time or effort into ramification yet, so the top isn't looking that good.

3. Olea europaea subsp africana (Olive)

Olive

This tree has had a bit more carving done since I last wrote about it in April. Since then it had put out lots of new growth all over the trunk, but I tidied that up for show purposes. I'm not totally happy with the style though and plan to let the branches grow out further for the rest of the summer.

4. Ficus Natalensis

Ficus Natalensis

The smallest of the four but one of my favourite trees. This one was propagated from a root cutting and has been grown with very little input from the members of my club, so this more than any of the others feels like 'my' tree. Although the scars may bother some people, I like them and feel they almost make the trunk look like a little person.

Unless I have a last minute change of heart I'll be taking all four trees along to the show set-up on Friday. Hopefully all will be regarded as good enough.