HI everybody,
this afternoon I started the second styling of my Mugo Pine “WOLFIE”.
More to come!!!
Hans van Meer.
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Today I finally started the first real styling of this Japanese Black Pine Yamadori. This tree is in my collection for many years now. When I bought it all those years ago from my birthday money, I could not for see all the mishap that would happened to this sweat little cascading Pine. The tree had all the character of a Yamadori, beautiful old bark and a natural Shari running down most of the trunk line. But it also had some major design problem in store for me to solve or incorporate. It had strange looking spider like exposed roots and the base of the tree was much thinner than the rest of the trunk. So I decided to let the tree grow freely for a view seasons and only work on growth to thicken the base of the trunk. Since that decision, the tree spent a few weeks laying, half frozen, on the bottom of my pond, was blown over 2 times in a storm and just 3 years ago, lost all its needles in mid Summer! And every time it recuperated from its ordeals, showing a immense live force and will to live!
And now finally, after all this, the tree looks healthy again and the base of the tree had thickened enough, for me, to now finally start styling this tree. in a way this little wonder deserves! A decade to late…but here we go any way! 
Above picture: Front side before styling.
Left picture: Close up of the natural “Shari” that runs down the trunk line.
Right picture: Back side before styling. The blocks are there to hold the tree firm into place, wile I am wiring it.
Left picture: After plucking the old needles, I carefully started to wire the branches, making sure not to damage the beautiful bark on these old branches! Because, this old body armour shows the true wild nature and spirit, that is so exclusive to a Yamadori tree. There for it should be protected at all cost! I try to build my design around these natural features, even the ugly ones, trying to incorporate and envisage them. I just love Yamadori!
Today, in lovely sunny weather, I finished the styling of this Pine. The blocks are removed from under need the tree, so now you can actually see, the “see trough” between the trunk and the soil surface. You can clearly see that this tree is just barely hanging on to the ground and live, with only some exposed and bettered roots. I like the image this little tree evokes with me, trough all her struggles, she has become beautiful! I hope you like her to?
Regards,
Hans van Meer.
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Because of my lower back troubles, the wiring of this tree was stretched out over much of last week. I had to do most of the work sitting down, simply because I cant stand upright for very long at one time and I just hate to work like that, it is so clumsy! But yesterday I finally could start repositioning the branches and it took me 4 hours to do. I had to rethink the way I styled the tree in the first place all those years ago, not so much the feel or image of the tree, but the way the small branches had to be placed. Japanese With Pines hardly bud back on old wood in my climate and so most of the smaller branches had grown out a bid to long to style the tree as compact as I prefer to do in my styling. I could have made the image of the foliage pads more dens, bud that would have meant that I have to curl and twirl the branches to bring them closer in, and that is something I will always try to avoid in my designs. I planted this (than 5 trunk) Pine on this piece of petrified wood to create a coastal rock image, some what in the middle of a more classical Japanese style and the once I used to see and play on as a child on the French riviera during our vacation there. The outcome off that demonstration, back then, was pretty compact because the foliage pads could be build up in the traditional way, making the tree look full, in the more traditional way. But now, with the usable foliage growing much further away from the main branches, I had to rethink my design and try to get a more or less same feeling, but build in a different way. This time around the tree would look much more open, more like the battered Pines that I have seen growing along the coasts and the beaches in southern Europe, showing more open space between the small branches that now play a intricate part of the design, instead of covering them up with dens foliage layers. This way of placing the thin long branches reminds me of some of the techniques that the Japanese artists use to style literati Japanese White and especially Red Pines, were the open light branch structure becomes the main focal point of the image of the tree.
Left picture: Front before styling.
Right picture: Left side before styling.
Left picture: Detail of the backside before styling. You can see the ground has fallen of from the sides, this will be replaced later.
Right Picture: Backside before styling.
Left picture: Wiring, sitting down like this, takes for ever.
Right picture: The cascading front branch wired.
Left picture: Useless long branches with hardly any foliage on them were removed.
Right picture: Here the basic shape is brought in to that same front cascading branch.
Left picture: And some more shape.
Right Picture: And the other branches are being slowly brought into their desired position.
Left picture: Close up of the two branches that rest on the ground, like the once I remember did, on those coastal Pines from my childhood.
Right picture: Backside after restyling.
Left picture: Right side after styling. In this view of the tree, you can appreciate the dept/distance between the front branch and the back branch.
Right picture: Left side after styling. And the same goes for this view of the tree.
Picture above: So this is how the tree looks after this long restyling. But sadly, because of the poor lightning conditions when this picture was made, it appears to have not much dept to it from this front side! It looks Rather flat and with out much separation between the different layers of foliage. As soon as the rest of the work is don and the lightning is better, I will make some new once to show the end result a bit better! Now the (bottom) sides, were the ground has fallen off, needs to be re plastered with fresh Cato (Japanese clay) and powdered Akadama mixed in water. After this messy job is don, It will be covered, like the rest of the ground surface, with all kinds of mosses. But that is a nice job for latter this winter! first, as long as the weather permits it to work outside for a long period of time, I will wire a other tree that needs to be restyled.
Hope you like it so fare?
Hans van Meer.
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”MEMORIES OF A WARM SUMMER”
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I am so looking forward to work on this 3 trunk Japanese white Pine, that I styled and than planted on this piece of petrified wood, during a demo in North-Holland a long time ago. I will post pictures of the styling as soon as i start this weekend! I cant wait!
Hans.
Last week we had a spell of lovely weather, so although my back is making it hard to work for very long, I enjoyed every minute I worked on this old yamadori Sylvestris Pine!
I scanned a before and after photograph, they were shot during the demo I did on this same Pine in Denmark in May 2000, together with the rest of the “former “Tsunami” gang.
And here are some pictures I made of the styling work today.
Left picture: Because of my lower back problems I had to sit a lot during the wiring, something I normally never do. But he, the sun was shinning so who is complaining!
Right picture: Branches that took many years to grow, had to be sacrificed, to open up the dens foliage mass a bit more.
Left picture: for many years this tree had been, more or less, allowed to grow freely and received noting more than a sunny spot and a lot of T.L.C. During that time, my work was mostly focused on getting more and better ramification and foliage in the right places. Because of all this time consuming work, I was now able to cut of some badly placed thick branches and replace them with the better placed new branches with foliage closer to the trunk. Making the tree more compact, but less full.
Right picture: (here the tree is seen from the back) The frond branch (A) needed to be puled backwards considerably, but because I did not wanted to damage the old bark, I could not put heavy wire on it to do the job. So I needed to use a copper wire to pull the thick branch backwards, but there was no place were I could secure the copper wire to! The only place, with the right angle, to pool the branch back from, was the corner of the pot (C). But that meant that the beautiful old bark of the trunk would get damaged by the wire at point (B) and that should be avoided at all cost, even on the backside of the tree! So I placed a long piece of metal along the back side of the tree that only makes contact with the bark at point (D) and (E), but it protects the bark from damaging at point (B). Some times you have to be inventive, to be creative!
Finished ( for now) front side, after 8 years of work.
Back side. Notice the “Komodo dragon on top”
Many more work needs to be don in the future to get the tree to were I want it to be, but for now I am pleased with the result. The tree received heavy doses of fertilizer in the later part off this growing season, to promote strong growth for next season. Most of the, than hopefully strongly grown new candles, will be removed next year to promote back budding, so the tree can fill out the new canopies I created during this styling session. Yet a other step in the live of this tree in its way to become a Bonsai.
Hans van Meer.
Hi every body,
I would like to share some pictures I shot of my student Ed van der Reek, who has, spread over the last couple off weeks, been hard at work styling his “Itoigawa” Juniper in my garden. Ed is fun to share with, the little Knowles I have of Bonsai. His great progression, humor and enthusiasm are a great inspiration to me. And the much improved image of his Bonsai is getting better and better. He made some brave decisions on this one!
If he now could only stop drinking all my Coffey, things would be just great!
You can find more of Ed’s work here:
Updates will follow!
Hans van Meer.
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