bonsai apprentice

This week spring has sprung full force in Lake County. Temperatures have been way up – hitting the mid 80s! Unfortunately, there is still alot of work at the nursery that should have been done during dormancy. But now there are buds, flowers and candles everywhere.

Today I was working on up-potting some more of the white pine/black pine grafts. Because they don’t like their roots messed with outside of dormancy, there was not alot we could do except try to loosen up the root ball a bit and then slip them into the next larger size pot. Hopefully next winter we will get back to these and work on the roots a little more aggressively. I didn’t take any pics of the process, as it’s pretty much the same process I outlined previously.

I had to take off early, because of a meeting I had to attend at the hospital. So that was all I got done that day. However, my parents came in to visit that weekend, and I brought them over to meet Brent and see the place. They liked it – and even bought a few trees.

This week we started out with the usual scut work – stuff that has to get done. We potted up 477 trident maple seedlings before lunchtime.

After lunch, we began working on some Luma apiculata trees, otherwise known as peruvian myrtle. We had 16 1 gallon sized trees that were pruned back basically to just a trunk and 1 or 2 branches. But they apparently grow pretty fast, and may be ready to sell later this year. They were so pot-bound that I had to chop at their rootball with an ax! Here are some pics of that process.

Here is one of them before any work.

Here is the batch after initial pruning.

Now to slip it out of its can. Wow – pot pound!

After using the ax to remove the outside layer of roots, I used the hose and the root hook.

They were then re-potted back into their 1 gallon cans.

After that, we began working on a giant Luma that Brent has had there for quite awhile. It was definatley a 2 man tree. It was also very pot bound,and the leaves had reduced to less than half the size of the smaller trees.

Brent actually used a maul while I held the tree (yikes) to get through the massive rootball. This tree is going to be fabulous once the branch structure is refined. Here it is.

After that, I did some more work on my big elm – cleaning up the stubs. I will need to get it in a new pot soon. Always more work to be done.

Last Saturday evergreengardenworks hosted a half-day workshop featuring Walter Pall, a well respected bonsai master from Germany. He called it a “bonsai inspiration” session, as we did not actually work much on the trees. We spent the time talking about the trees each person had brought in – discussing different ways to style them.

Mr. Pall’s mission is to spread the gospel that there are several different ways to style a tree. When he says “style” he doesn’t mean informal upright vs. semi-cascade. Those are what he refers to as “forms.” He defines style as the “overall spirit of the tree.” He has broken it down into several different styles:

Classical Style – the traditional style of the Japanese – the idealized image of a tree

Neo-classical Style – the cookie-cutter imitations of the classical style

Modern Style – also called abstract – trees that are highly stylized with exagerated features – looking more like sculptures than trees

Natural Style – trees that are made to look more like a tree found in nature

Of these four main styles, obviously the neo-classical is discouraged by serious artists. But other than that, he believes that the other styles are all valid ways to design your tree. He is personally partial to the modern and natural, and feels that this is where the cutting edge of bonsai is.

In addition to the time at the workshop, I was lucky enough to get to have 6 hours alone with him as I picked him up and drove him back down to Oakland. He has a great, dry sence of humor. We talked about everything from bonsai (obviously) to German politics and American culture.

Here are a few pics of the afternoon’s activities:

First is a shot of Walter and I discussing my crooked scotts pine. I thought it was too crooked to be a bunjin. He said, yes it’s crooked, and by traditional standards would not be a good bunjin. But you can make it a modern bunjin, and accentuate the crookedness.

Here he is showing us a technique to minimize the appearance of tool marks from carving on jin. He uses a blow tourch on one of Brent’s junipers, lightly charring the jinned area after protecting the foliage with wet paper towels.

Does Brent look skeptical?

Here’s a close-up

He then used a wire brush to remove the charred material, revealing a smoothly textured jin underneath, with no carving marks. Very cool – bonsai with fire!

Next is Walter inspecting Brent’s massive Siberian elm, “Big Bertha”

And here he is snapping a shot of some of Brent’s big junipers

His comments about my big elm centered on the fact that focal point of this tree should be the trunk and bark. For that reason, he recomended keeping the foliage and crown of the tree to as minimum of a size as possible. He also strongly encouraged resisting the temptation to style this tree to look like a pine, with a triangular shape. It should be a more natural elm or oak shape with a rounded canopy.

Anyone who gets a chance to see a demo or attend a workshop with Mr. Pall should definately take advantage of the opportunity. He is an excellent bonsaist, and is entertaining as well.

He liked the nursery so much that he is planning to return in December. We are certainly looking forward to that.