HV66 Bonsai

My Juniperus chinensis ‘Kishu’ as I presented it on the international bonsai exhibition Noelanders Trophy XIII …

Snowdrops are blooming now…

Height: 12 cm – Pot by Carlos Hebeisen. (Takahama pots) Maybe I will use this one as accent for my ‘kishu’ juniper at the Noelanders Trophy…

Best regards,

Hans

With this messsage I would like to wish all the readers of my Blog happy holidays. And of course my Best Wishes for 2012, which will be the year of the dragon in Chinese astrology!!!

2012 - Year of the Dragon

Fifth in the cycle, Dragon Years follow the Rabbit and recur every twelfth year. The Chinese New Year does not fall on a specific date, so it is essential to check the calendar to find the exact date on which each Dragon Year actually begins.

1904 * 1916 * 1928 * 1940 * 1952 * 1964 * 1976 * 1988 * 2000 * 2012

The Dragon is a creature of myth and legend. A symbol of good fortune and sign of intense power, the Oriental Dragon is regarded as a divine beast – the reverse of the malicious monster that Westerners felt necessary to find and slay. In Eastern philosophy, the Dragon is said to be a deliverer of good fortune and a master of authority. The key to the Dragon personality is that Dragons are the free spirits of the Zodiac. Conformation is a Dragon’s curse. Rules and regulations are made for other people. Restrictions blow out the creative spark that is ready to flame into life. Dragons must be free and uninhibited. The Dragon is a beautiful creature, colorful and flamboyant. An extroverted bundle of energy, gifted and utterly irrepressible, everything Dragons do is on a grand scale – big ideas, ornate gestures, extreme ambitions. However, this behavior is natural and isn’t meant for show. Because they are confident, fearless in the face of challenge, they are almost inevitably successful…

So let’s make a lot of beautiful bonsai dragons in 2012!!!

A Happy and prosper 2012!!!

This is a story of a shohin juniper with a lot of changes in its life as bonsai. It was originally imported from Japan in 2003, and it was trained into a fine shohin specimen by Jos Vandeborne until 2009, when he decided to stop with doing bonsai. Jos always made pictures of the evolution of his trees, and now I can show its history from 2003 until now…

The juniper after being imported from Japan in the winter of 2002 – 2003, standing in a fine looking pot by Bigei…

In february 2006 it looked like this:

But in april 2006 he decided to restyle the tree with some help from Hotsumi Terakawa. A new front was chosen…

After he repotted it in the same Bigei pot in its new postion, it looked like this:

A year later it was an eye-catcher on a local bonsai exhibition:

In may 2007 Jos decided to remove the lowest branch…

He repotted the juniper once more in the spring of 2008, but there were no major changes. And at the end of 2009 the tree came into my possesion after he decided to stop with bonsai. It never has grown very well at my place. I never really could control this tree, the foliage grew more and further away from the trunk. Last year (April 2010) I repotted the tree because the roots were already pushing it out of the pot again…

After repotting it, it looked like this:

It gradually went better with this tree. But despite I think it was a very nice and good combination with the tree and pot, I decided to take this juniper on a different path. I found a nice Ibigawa rock at Bonsai Studio Momiji, and after some thought about it, I decided to plant this juniper on this Ibigawa rock. This meant that there was another major surgery on it, only less than a year after the previous repotting, but it did go quite smoothly without any significant problems. I glued some wires to the rock with a 2-component adhesive so I could firmly anchor the tree to the rock. The soil mixture I used was keto, fine Kiryu and Akadama. After this operation, the tree looked like this:

Of course this was a complete change in the life of this tree. But a good half year later I finally felt that the tree was starting to grow good on the rock. There was some new growth, I think the color of the foliage is now again a bit brighter, and the roots have grown very well. Especially on the spots where there were fertilzer baskets fixed on the soil. (see last detail picture)

Next spring I hope to wire the tree again and reshape it a bit. Like I said I never had control of the tree in the small Bigei pot. But the tree has finally had some new growth this year, and even some backwards budding. I hope this will continue in the good direction next year. I think the keto into the soil mixture had a positive influence on the health of the tree. At least I have the impression that it moves again forward instead of backwards. The rock does have some minor defects, such as the flat surface that you see in the last picture above. I hope to mask this by a low growing accent plant or some moss on it. With such a rock planting I also will need a suitable suiban, so I will keep my eyes open for a nice one in the coming months.

Of course I don’t know whether you think this is a positive change in its history, but it was certainly another major one. I probably can no longer place this tree in the shohin category, but that does not really matter to me. I hope the tree will grow strong again, and if it does, I am pretty sure that it will become something ‘special’ on this rock. Now, I’m very curious to hear all your opinions about this change. So don’t hesitate to give comments, positive or negative!

Kind regards,
Hans

A new stone found its way into my collection…

Front view

More from above

Other side

Bird's-eye view

Stone and daiza

Detail on the right side

The origin of this stone is Japan. Width: +/- 19,5 cm. Depth: +/- 4,5 cm. Height: +/- 3 cm.

Hard to put this stone in a suiseki classification, but personally I am thinking of a slope stone or doha-ishi. It suggests the rolling hills of a plain or a slope. Last picture shows a nice detail on the right side. I don’t know who made this dai, but he/she did a good job. It fits like a glove.

Kind regards from Belgium,

Hans

Was a bit bored today, so I made a suiseki display called “The lizard’s lair”…

Lizard's lair view

Lizard's lair items

Presented on a bronze doban. The stone is hollow, and I added a bronze miniature lizard by Nikita Fedosov…

Hope you like it!

Regards,
Hans

Soldanella montana (Alpine snowbells) in bloom…

Soldanella montana

Soldanella montana

Soldanella montana

Soldanella montana - close-up flower

This is a case story of a bigger yamadori Scots pine, at least for my norms. I bought it in april 2008 at Bonsai Studio Momiji. This tree was blessed with a firm base, some nice movement in the trunk, and a very nice rough and flaky bark. Just the way I like them.

Raw material april 2008

Other side

My future plans with this tree were pretty simple. I was going to use only one branch in its design…

To show you what I mean...

And with the help of my teacher Jean-Paul this plan was executed…

After removing most of the branches...

Applying raffia to protect the branch

Triple 6 mm wiring

This should be enough...

Now it was time to pull down the branch. We did this in steps, each time securing the new position with a guy-wire…

Some brute force was needed...

Far enough for now...

After the bending process, I also used my concave cutter to take a bite in the aerial root. The reason for doing this was simple, I wanted to remove this aerial root in the future, and by doing this I wanted to force other roots to take over slowly. In october 2009, I did a first styling of the foliage, which resulted in this…

October 2009 - first styling

Possible front

In 2010 I started working out some of the deadwood features, and I decided to cut off the aerial root completely…

Removing the bark...

Not finished, but already looking more natural...

And last week I had a workshop with Mario Komsta, and together we decided to repot the tree in another position. The reason for this was simple: the old soil was always to wet, so it was necessary to change the soil. With the new position we wanted to achieve a better trunk movement, with a better and stronger nebari. Mario told me it was not advisable to style a tree before you know what’s beneath the ground, and after repotting I have to agree…

New front

Rightside

Backside

Leftside

Wide base at the frontside

Big wound at the backside!

I think repositioning the trunk has improved this tree a lot. The trunk is now much more powerful, and the base is also quite impressive. The choice of pot can be debated, but it was the best fitting pot available for me. Of course we will have to work on the large cutting wound on the backside in the near future, and restyling of the crown is also necessary. But now it is time to take a break with this tree. I placed in the cold house, where it will stay for a couple of weeks. Regulary misting the needles should help the tree to recover, and if all goes well it will be placed outside again, to continue its life as a good potential bonsai tree…

Regards,
Hans

Yesterday I did my first repotting of the year. It was time to place this yamadori pine in a crescent pot I had lying here for some time now. This crescent was made many years ago by Andreas van Kerckhove, a Belgian potter.

I’d rather have seen it slightly more tilted up, but this was the utmost upwards position I could get this tree in this crescent. More inclination upwards would place the large root (along with the smaller roots hanging on it) higher into the air, and that’s obviously not the intention. The foliage mass is not really 100% in proportion with the rest of the tree now. I think the lower branch is too heavy now, and more than likely I am going to remove it in the future. (See the virtual without the branch) But for now I will leave this branch where it is, until I am sure the roots are well strengthened again. I think this branch still can be useful to activate some extra rootgrowth. The looping on the top of the tree – which is holding all the foliage mass of this tree – is still flexible enough to bend, and thus the position of the foliage mass still can be changed easily in the future.

On these pictures the crescent pot is maybe looking slightly too heavy for this tree, but in real life – where you have a bit more depth perception – it is certainly okay. I myself am quite satisfied with it, and I am very pleased this tree fitted in this pot like it is now. One small downside is that I had to use a small piece of wood to support the tree. Hopefully the tree will get firmly anchored in this pot after some growing seaons, so the piece of wood can be removed later on. This tree was not blessed with many roots, and they were quite far away from the base, so I had to use a solution like this. Now it will get some time to recover again from this repotting, but I’m pretty confident about this, because there was virtually no root pruning performed. The piece of dead root on the right side of the trunk – which is extending upwards – will be shortened in the future. The other piece of dead wood root on the front will remain the same as it is now. In the future, I hope to intensify the landscape feeling by adding some moss and a small plant like a fern or a dwarf-cotoneaster. But that’s for later on. To conclude this story, here is a more detailed picture of the root base…

To be continued!

Kind regards,
Hans

This weekend we had a photo session in our club Eda Uchi Kai. Members were allowed to bring some trees for a professional photo shoot by Jan Dieryck.  After he finished setting up his studio, I created this shohin setup for a picture. While he was taking pictures, I quickly made some pictures myself. Of course this picture isn’t the professional picture Jan made. It isn’t as sharp as I would like, but I am also not a professional photographer. I am sure the picture Jan made will be a lot better. But anyway, trees in this shohin display are a Juniperus chinensis, an Acer buergerianum, and a Zelkova serrata.

I think these trees are getting ready for display purposes. I do realize the world of creating shohin displays is very complex, and I still have very much to learn about this. But it would be nice to hear some of your comments or remarks about this display. Do you like it as it is? What would you change, and why? Etc…

Regards,

Hans