Getting A Tree Ready For A Show

bonsaial1

This is a little juniper that I will show in the Hanford Bonsai Society show this month. I needed to do a little pinching and pruning to get it in shape. I went a little overboard, and took off some wire, did some more wire, bent a branch over the top, removed a branch, and converted some branches to jin. Worked on it most of the morning and early afternoon. This is the way it looked in Jan, 2002

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bonsaial1

This is the way it looked this morning before the makeover.

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bonsaial1

Now all the work is done. I hope I improved it. Tah dah!

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Carl_Bergstrom

Wow, Al - stunning transformation in one year. I'm really impressed. I think it's a great improvement, and I just hope eventually I can learn to get that sort of growth and density out of my trees in a single year. This pot - way back from your January picture - was the first crater pot I'd ever seen that I liked, by the way. Now I'm almost starting to develop a taste for them, though I don't own any.

My only suggestion is that I don't like the viewing stone directly in front of the cascading part of the tree. It might work if it were a more rounded form, but as it is it conflicts with the crater pot.

Cheers,
Old Mister

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In love with trees

ripsgreentree

Al: The first photograph is exelent and looks very natural the tree has good movement and well spaced foliage.

The second photograph shows the great growth that you have acheaved.

In the third photograph this new work I think that you have lost the natural flow of the tree. It now looks forced and the foliage pads look like a poodle cut. It no longer looks natural.

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ripsgreentree

It requires an open hand to give and to recieve.

bonsaial1

Rips you are right to a degree. This years fertilizer regimen has made some of my trees respond way past my expectations. the tree will regain some of the look it had in the winter, when I prune it back hard in Jan. Three of the branches on this tree were turned to jin. They were shaded by larger branches, and had not responded like the otheres in growing foliage. Now that the tree is more healthy, ie. it had not grown foliage for two years, I will pinch all year to maintain the more rustic shape. I would prune back now, but the tree would really look like cr@p for the show, it would be all brown and yucky looking.

bonsaial1

Preview time! I went ahead and did the virtual that I wanted to do at later time. The big pad at the second level is really two branches. When the show is over, I will separate the two and begin developing them in to the shape you see in this virtual. The pads are more thin like they will be. You can see in the picture before the virtual that I had lifted the second branch, pruned part of it off and made it the apex of the cascade. next year I will go for the more pyramid shape and voila!, it will look like this virt.

Any questions. Bonsaial

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GaryS

I like the look of the first photo too. There's more space between the foliage so the birds to fly through.
The foliage pads on the show tree picture look a little too formal and tight. Can you thin them out without too much brown showing, Al?

I have the same problem with procumbens nana. I prune them hard in the Spring and they grow like a ...........they grow very fast and dense.

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GaryS

bonsaial1

Nah, they have grown too big and dense. I took them to the ragged edge now. I mist all I can now to keep from browning. The show don't start till next wednesday. By then they ought to look pretty crispy. This tree was a last minute dicision. I wanted a cascade to show, and this is the only one I have. You are right on procumbems, when they are healthy the produce. Take constant pinching to look good. Funny, everyone liked the tree when it was on its last leg. It really looked battered by the elements, cause it was. The other thing you can't see in the two dimensional picture is the depth of the foliage. The tree has a rather nice looking 3/4 view that does not translate well to pics. There is also a branch behind the big one that adds depth. When seen at table height on the stand, the tree is rather wide, the planes are not only at different levels but vary from front to back.

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