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.

This Melaleuca is a Survivor

When I discovered that my Melaleuca "weedling" had come back from the dead in January, I was so excited that I rushed to write about it, not giving much thought to the fact that there really wasn't much to see yet. Could it be a false alarm?

Fortunately my excitement was justified. Over the last couple of months the tree has been growing strongly:

Growing strongly - 31 March 2018

At the moment there is only very sparse growth low down, which is where I really want it, but I don't want to hinder its recovery by pruning anything yet. Maybe next summer.

For now my main goal is keeping it alive through the winter. Most of my Melaleucas live outdoors all year round, but given its traumatic summer and the fact that it spent its early life in my greenhouse, I'm thinking of moving it back there for one more winter. If I can make space for it!

Progression photos, which will include future updates, can be found here.

I Still Like Small Trees, But...

One of my early posts, entitled "I Like Small Trees", was about a tiny Ficus Pumila bonsai which I grew from a cutting.

November 2015 (with apple to show the size)

I still have that little tree but it's proving to be a lot more trouble than it's worth.

As Ficus Pumila is a creeper, the branches grow out long and twisty with very little ramification and I have to prune this one frequently to have any hope of maintaining its shape.

But the problems don't end there. Branches grow out so thin (about the thickness of my thinnest bonsai wire) that wiring them is a really risky business. In January, while removing wire, the leader snapped off and the remaining stub has since died back, leaving me with two branches growing in opposite directions and no apex. What looks like upward growth in this photo is actually a back branch.

April 2018 - Not looking too good after it's latest haircut!

Two months later the only solution I can see is to change the potting angle to bring the right branch more upright.

I've been trying to work out how to improve the balance of the tree and came up with two options:

Part of left branch removed in Photoshop

Option 1 would require wiring that back branch upwards, something which may or may not work.

Entire left branch removed in Photoshop

My inclination is to go with the more minimalist second option, but I won't be making any decisions until I see what new growth I get.

I still like small trees and hope to create others that size, but using more suitable material. I already have one tiny Ficus Burtt-Davyi in training and I may chop some of my cuttings to create a few more.

Ficus Burtt-Davyi - fatter, but about the same height

As for the plants that were the result of deconstructing my Ficus Pumila houseplant in December 2016, I've already given some of them away but I'm not planning to give up on all of them just yet.

I'm trying to see how much I can fatten up the biggest one so I'm not doing much to it right now. Of course the height will have to come down eventually, and I can already see a potential new leader, but that chop is a long way off.

April 2018 - wired upwards to help with trunk thickening

I'm not quite sure how the one below will work out though because it's always going to be short and fat:

April 2018

The growth is a bit "all over the place" so I guess in time one root and some of the branches will have to go.

Will a massive fig cutting root?

In the footnote to a post I wrote in January, I referred to my attempts to grow a fig tree from a thick cutting off a neighbour's full size tree, only to be thwarted by the need to save water during a period of drought.

Thankfully that drought is now a thing of the past so, when my neighbour pruned his fig tree yesterday, I couldn't resist the temptation to try again. Unfortunately by the time I found them, the branches had already been hacked to pieces, and most of them were pretty straight, with no side branches. Still, I felt I had to try.

I quickly grabbed three large branches of various thicknesses, all far too long for my requirements, so my first job was to cut each in half.

As I began to cut them up I was already starting to fear that I'd bitten off more than I could chew so I began with the thinnest one to see whether I had the strength to saw through them. That didn't take too long so I moved on to the next one, which didn't prove to be too much of a problem either.

Then it was time to tackle the monster, a branch quite a bit thicker than my wrist. Would I be able to pull if off?

There were moments when I contemplated quitting, but once I'd made a start I battled on, unwilling to see all my effort go to waste. Finally, after two hours of hard labour, I found myself with two big stumps and a total of six cuttings to pot.

I left them soaking overnight in a solution of kelp and water.

As space is a problem, today I potted them in the smallest pots that would hold them.

They're now in a sheltered spot in my bonsai area, protected from sun and excessive wind.

I know they don't look like much, just straight stumps with little or no taper, but the two biggest are pretty large - bigger than most of the trees I own. Hopefully in time something can be done to improve their appearance... if they root.

For scale here's a photo of the biggest and the smallest side by side. To give an idea of size, the smaller cutting is in a one litre yogurt tub.

As I look at the two thickest stumps now, I have to wonder how I'll cope with them if they grow. When I grabbed the biggest branch, what was I thinking?

Update:
Only one of the thickest cuttings rooted.

Photo progression including future updates can be seen here.

Autumn Colour

Spring is my favourite time of year, so I'm really jealous of all those bonsai growers in the Northern hemisphere whose deciduous trees  are just starting to bud and will soon turn green while many of mine will soon be bare.

The one consolation is the sight of these beautiful red leaves on two of my Trident Maple "weedlings", rescued at a workshop a couple of years ago when they were about to be consigned to a friend's compost heap.

The trees themselves are nothing more than sticks in pots right now:

With so many trees to care for, however, I'm planning to keep them really small, so the taller tree will soon be getting a serious chop. Not right now though, because I'm enjoying that colour far too much!

The Six Month Challenge

Although I'm disadvantaged by living in the Southern hemisphere, I'm hoping to enter the Reddit bonsai group's nursery stock contest this year. The challenge - transform an untrained nursery tree/shrub into a bonsai by 22 September.

I've started my search for suitable material but I fear I've been overambitious with my first purchase, so the hunt continues. But I won't be writing about my chosen tree (if I find the right one) until after the contest is over. That wouldn't be fair.

Instead I've challenged myself to see what I can do with my own untrained trees over the next six months. For the purposes of this challenge I'll limit myself to trees I've propagated - cuttings, air layers and "weedlings" (trees that I've rescued after they took root uninvited in the pots inhabited by my established trees). Sadly I'm forced to rule out my Trident Maple weedlings and other deciduous material as they will soon be going to sleep for the winter. If this challenge proves successful I might try using some of them for a summer challenge.

Entry to the Reddit contest only closes on 21 June, allowing entrants time to experiment with any number of trees before committing to the one they feel is most promising. I may choose to follow the same path with my challenge or, if things go well, I may continue with more than one. Time will tell.

I just hope that at least one tree will perform adequately given the constraints I've imposed upon myself. It would be embarrassing if this experiment proves to be a total failure.

For now I need to get out among my trees and search for some suitable material. I'll be introducing the candidates soon.

New Ideas for an Old Olive Tree

When Rob Kempinski did the initial styling on one of my olive trees in late 2013 his plan for its future was to create a tree with short, tight pads of foliage. It never even crossed my mind to question his design at the time. But as the tree developed I've always felt something wasn't quite right.

It was only after I wrote my first post about it, however, that I started to see a different way forward. It all started with an illustration I received from one of my Reddit readers, -music_maker-:

Sketch ©-music_maker-

He envisaged a much fuller tree, an idea which really excited me. There was only one problem - two dimensional photos tend to misrepresent trees and as a result he'd put a branch on top of a small jin. I figured his design would need a little tweaking but I was up for the challenge.

With my new plan in mind I allowed the branches to grow, doing only minimal pruning to get rid of misdirected growth, shortening the bottom branch once it had fattened up, and getting rid of the new buds that continue to sprout all over the trunk. But the top remained unchanged.

The next breakthrough came in July 2017 when Kathy Steyn did a demonstration on a much bigger olive at our club. I took my tree along to that meeting for a critique and Kathy also felt that the tree needed a live apex. At the time she suggested I allow a bud coming off one of the back branches to grow and I kept that one for a while. Fortunately the tree produced a better bud coming straight off the trunk, enabling me to remove the poorly positioned one.

My new leader is now growing strongly and I'm really looking forward to the day that I can shorten it and start developing a proper apex. This photo was taken a few days ago:

March 2018

I'm still not too happy with the cluster of branches high up on the main trunk though. They seem rather cluttered and poorly arranged to me and perhaps in time one or two will have to go. Photos from all four sides may give a clearer idea of the true situation:

View from all four sides

And while rotating the tree to get these photos, I started to wonder whether I've been working with the right front. The current one was chosen by a senior member of my bonsai club and is slightly different from Rob Kempinski's original front.

I find myself drawn to this option:

Potential new front

Some will argue that it has less movement than the current front and that the base appears narrower from that side, but I'm not too happy with the appearance of the wide gap between the main trunk and the big jin when viewed from the current front. I find my attention pulled in two opposing directions with no real focal point.

Of course a change of front would mean that the branches will need some tweaking, but I can live with that. I'd rather spend a bit more time regrowing branches if it means developing a better tree.

More photos (and future updates) can be found here.