Les's trip to Japan pt1

A good mate of mine,Les had the good fortune to somehow wangle a all expenses paid trip to Japan this year,about the only good thing to say about him is that at least he gave me the pictures! So over the next few weeks i'll try and put a good selection of pictures,starting with kimura's garden,then kobayashi's,followed up with a satsuki show,and then a few of the vendor's garden's,anything to declare in that hand luggage Les?

blast off!!!

I'm going to sand blast my kawabe juniper on fri morning,this tree will go to the prestigous gingko show this year,i'll put some pics up here after that,i've already enhanced the carving,tommorow i'll prep it all up so none of the live gets damaged.

Sabina juniper

This is one from a earlier post,i've decided to show it on this stand this year instead,i think it looks better.This is it before i worked the foliage,and afterwards a few weeks ago,i've since enhanced the carving,but you'll have to come to the show to see that,or wait till i put some pics up next week.

Wirral bonsai society annual show

It's our local show this weekend,i've just finished getting a few of my tree's ready for it,a few shohin and a sabina juniper,i'll put some pics on here and the ibc etc

The twisty one pt4

So the mid branch came off,the scar will be carved later.I dont see much point in detail carving a hawthorn,the wood rots too easily where i live due to the amount of rain we get.Far better to put a few woodlice in there pack it with sphagnum moss and let them do their job!

i carved the stump left from the upper trunk,and reduced the height of what remained of the "apex"

This is not a apex at all as the tree will be further reduced in height so the apex can be composed of upward growing branches,nothing is worse than deciduous tree's rushed along with branches manipulated to make it look as though it has a apex,if your going to do some thing do it properly!

The twisty one pt3

So this is the result after hacking that part of the trunk off,it had to go too straight,no taper and the bark begins to lose character etc.

Working with the front of the tree,with lower branch pointing towards the right i set about limiting my problems,so next year i should be able to wire it properly.

The next big problem was the 2nd branch,it comes straight towards you,then turns back on itself,i could never use it in my preferred front,so after thought's of tilting the tree and using it as a apex which didn't work it also had to come off.

The twisty one pt2

A few weeks ago i decided to hack this one down to the dimensions it needs to be approximately. This would have been better done in febuary,but time as always was a issue,and i wanted to check first that it would bud as strongly as in the previous year.This tree is only in it's 2nd growing season,and normally i wouldnt work on them this soon,but it's very strong,so sword(or saw)in hand i had a great day hacking away!