The Bonsai Blog of Hans Van Meer

The story of “BIG RON”.

Some were in November 2000, my friends: Teunis-Jan Klein, Carlos van de Vaart and I made the long drive all the way to Milan (Italy) to look for some Yamadori material. After visiting some bonsai friends gardens in Milan, we arrived at NIPPON EN bonsai garden. There were some amazing bonsai on display and for sale and the yamadori material the had there was of very high quality! Some were lost among all this super yamadori I discovered the very old “Mugo Pine” of this story.

Pic. 1: In this picture, that is a still shot from a poor video, you can see this amazing “Hawk” like roots of this Pine, that looks if it is lifting the earth. I fell in love immediately, but was scared of the leg of workable foliage on these almost “Octopus” like long branches with only some scares foliage on the end!

Pic.2: Here you can see the backside of the tree. There is not much to work with here either! Only those few long branches you see in picture 1.

Pic.3: I could not resist the challenge of this massive tree and bought it from the owner of NIPON EN. He told me that it was one of the first yamadori he ever collected. He found it literraly on the top of a very high mountain in the Italian Alps. And it stood in his gardens for many years, with out much work don to it. And nobody seamed to be interested in buying it, because of the leg of foliage and age on those few branches. As there was no room in that car for this big tree and I did not have that much money with me as well, I had to drive all the way back again in May the next year to collect it! I was very excited when I made that long trip again with a other friend in my own (bigger) car. The former owner of this pine asked me to take care of it and I promised him, that I would try my best to make it beautiful! When I finally had the tree in my own garden I made this first drawing of the idea I had in mind for its future. Although (than) I had no idea how to reach it, this is what I saw.

Pic.4: And now just over 6 years later, this is the result. This tree made a big transformation in a very short time, with only one real scare during that whole time. A few years ago the tree lost its beautiful bark on the right side of the tree. I pealed the bark away and my hearth almost stopped when I found out that the whole backside of the tree had died. I could easily remove all of the old bark of the already dry wood! I literally burst into tears, because I thought the tree might die and most certainly would never be like I hoped for it to be! After the first shock was over I tried to see what caused this die back. I discovered than that the whole tree was hollowed out by “Wasps”, all the way true this thick tree, right up the the live bark on the bottom of this tree! I removed all the rotted dead wood with power tools and treated the remaining deadwood with Jinseal and then Wrapped the hole trunk of the tree with screening cloth to keep the constant returning wasps out for 3 long years. But the tree remained healthy and strong! And looks actually much better with this great looking peas of deadwood, as if Mother nature had the brilliant idea to help me with styling! I was tremendesly proud to be able to show this old survivor I named “Big Ron” in this last “Ginkgo Awards Show”!

I think this Bonsai came a long way in a short time and I am glad I can finally show it to my friends here on my blog. The compleet story of   “BIG RON” can be seen on my website in the near future.

I hope you like it?

Hans van Meer.

Hi everybody,

I would like to share a picture with you I shot this afternoon of my old “Mugo Uncinata”.

In 2001 my wife and I traveled all the way to Switzerland to buy this and a other Pine Yamadori from a well known bonsai pro. After a few months in the growing season, the Pine still did not show any signs of growth! So I decided to check out the condition of the roots. I did not liked the soil it was planted in after it was collected, it was some sort of grey gravel that stayed wet far to long and was really compressed. Carefully digging for some roots, my wurst fears came true! There were no roots what so ever to find! Only a small peas of tap root (4/5 inches) covered in clay was all that was left on the tree, all the other roots were simply cut off with a saw. You got to love those provisional collectors, don’t you?!

Broken hearted I re potted the tree into my own soil recipe and placed the tree in a protected spot in my garden, were I could monitor everything from Sunlight to water! And than I waited and hoped!

Well to make a long story even longer….this amazing old survivor recovered and today is thriving. It is still secured to the pot with its deadwood on the right, to support it until the whole pot is full with roots! Than this deadwood will be shortened up to the red line. Than the root base will measure 56 CM/22 INCH. With the length of this Pine being 58CM/23 INCH this is very impressive! There is only one live line on the left of the tree alive, twirling around the back of the tree, coming back into sight on the right of the tree, feeding the only branch left on it. From this branch I created the whole image of this pre bonsai. A few years ago I cut of a old branch from the left part of the root base. I grind ed the wood with fine sandpaper, so I could count the year rings. I could not count them all because they were simply to thin! But the once I could count, went way over the 300 years mark! Last year I removed pieces of dead wood from the back and top and did the same, and was really amazed to count way more than 400 rings! This might just be one of the oldest living trees in Holland! And still it managed to survive with out any roots for all that time!

I still have a long way to go with this amazing piece of history, but I’m not complaining!

I hope you like it so far?

regards,

Hans van Meer.