The Bonsai Blog of Hans Van Meer

I clearly remember the day that Danny User asked me to demonstrate at his 2007 “Ginkgo award”, he  called me at work and asked if I had something to do in September next year?  And if not,   would I like to demonstrate  at his awards?  He knocked me right off my feed and I accepted full hearted! The “Ginkgo award” holds a special place in my heard and to demonstrate there is and was a dream come true for me, so I good not be happier!

Two days  before the event I drove to Belgium to  bring in  my 4 bonsai that were selected for the show,    and to find a suitable tree there for me to demonstrate on. After  I brought my Bonsai  to where they where photographed for the commemorative “best  Bonsai in Europe” book, I headed outside to look among the many hundreds of trees. But even with this many choices,  finding a tree among the many that Danny has in his enormous place is not as easy as it might seam! I searched for the right tree, as if I was buying it for my own collection. The tree had to appeal to my own taste of bonsai and tickle my imagination at the same time. My demonstration trees always reflect were I’m at that moment in bonsai and    it must always end up looking the same as when I had styled it in my own garden for my own collection! A big part of my bonsai collection now, still consist of my former demo trees. After a long search, I ended up with two posible candidates! Both Yamadori “Yews” from Japan. One with a lot of fantastic deadwood to  work on with heavy machines, but almost now foliage to  work with.   And one with a lot off problems to solve, but enough foliage to work with. The both had  good possibility to demonstrate on and become a good pre bonsai that reflecting my own approach and style. Because working on the first tree  mend, I had to be wood carving for most off the two day demonstration, making a lot of noise with my power tools, bothering the other demonstrators and the stand worker that were all in the same big green house with me! So I chose the second tree,  it was more challenging for me any way, with a lot more nice yamadori problems to solve or incorporate into  the design  I in visioned when I first looked at this lovely  tree. The tree gave  me lots off  good bonsai vibes!

Picture 1: shows the chosen front of the tree.

Picture 2: shows me when I just discovered my demo tree.  

Picture 3: shows the very hot demonstration airier. On the fare right U can see   William “Bill” Valavanis from the USA, next to him Udu Fisher from Germany, next to him Sandro Signeri from Italy and I’m the one on the left and I’m from Holland..

Picture 4,5,6: The start of my demo, Here I am cleaning and plucking the branches to prepare them for wiring.

Picture 7: here you can see me removing the to long and to highly placed top branches. Leaving some stumps that might be useful later, when I start working on the deadwood design!

Picture 8: Here I am looking  were the all important live lines of the tree are running. I do this with a small sharp chisel, pealing away the bark until i reach the live parts. In this case that was quit difficult to determent, because of the little difference in color between the life and the dead part. So needles to say: I had to be very careful.

Picture 9: After I was really sure were it was safe to work, I could start working freely, with out any fear for the trees health in the back off my mind. All I just had to do,    was stay in between the lines! I worked with both power tools and hand tools to first remove all the rotted wood and other unwanted part. Then I just started to free flow, taking bits away, discovering point off interest or beauty, a Little creating or revealing. But always working very carefully, following the grain of the wood. Gradually I worked towards the point were smaller bits  were necessary on my power tool, to create,  or reveal more detail in the deadwood. It is advisable to always wear Eye protection and always use a mask! The dust from working on a Yew with power tools is irritating  to your eyes and can give you a bad chest pain and cough for days! BELIEVE ME!!! I know what I’m talking about! (ugh kugg) LOL.

Picture 10, 11,12: My good friend William van Vlaandre (inventor of the “SAMURAI” power tool bit), gave me one of his specially made power tools, loaded with his biggest “Samurai”, to use on the bigger parts of deadwood in the top of the tree. Like a warm knife to butter! Amazing you could make a small canoe out of a big tree in half a hour with this monster! Even the other wise almost unworkable fresh and therefore wet wood, were no problem! It left a smooth surface! And with some care it was even posible to create more subtle details as well, it worked great! Only both my arms would disagree with this statements, they looked like  I had been carrying 3 hedgehogs on fire! LOL!

Picture 13: More detailed carving on the top “JIN”.

Picture 14: View  on the demonstrating area.

Picture 15: The tree top branches that would make up the whole top part off the tree, were to thick to be bended with just wire! So they first had to be protected with tight layers of in water soaked raffia. Than 4 strings off copper wire was placed lengthwise along the part of the branch that needed to be bend. Than a other layer of raffia was applied and than some more normal wiring with thick copper wire on top of that layer. Now I was sure that I could bend the branches with minimal risk of harming the tree.

Picture 16, 17, 18: Now I could start safely, to gradually bend the tough branches into their desired positions. Taking my time, piece by piece, until I could secure them with the help off some thin copper wire attached to a couple of Jins and one small screw.

Picture 19: After a wild night playing snooker (pool) with my friends and 4 hours sleep, I started with the detail wiring of the tree. Trying to keep in pace with the marching band in my head!

Picture 20: Finlay the real fun part of styling a tree was there.  When I am bringing  all the branches into position, I am totally in the zone, I love it, it is magical to almost paint with foliage, until I feel it  looks good. Trying to create something I like and find beautiful in  Bonsai,  with in the boundaries of what  each tree has to offer to me, is always a wonderful experience. To do it on this stage with this valuable material Danny entrusted me with,  made it  even more elevating and meaningful to me!

Picture 21: Close up of the deadwood on the  back part of the tree and the branches.

Picture 19, 20: Some last detail work on the deadwood using a very hard plastic brush, that left a grain like texture on the still soft fresh part on the top.

Picture 21: YES! Finished and drained, but happy with the result and the beer that was waiting on the other side off the camera!

Picture 22: The final result.   I hope you liked this little demo story and the final image of this pre bonsai? It was, as I sad before, a honor to do! Especially because this was the last “Ginkgo award”!

                                                    My “Ginkgo Award 2007″ demonstration tree.

                                                        A “Taxus cuspidata“   Yamadori from Japan.

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.

                                                                                                                      “LITTLE TONY”

Hi again,

this is a picture of  the small “Yew” that was shown in this “Ginkgo Award” together with the Japanese black Pine  from the picture below.

This  ”Yew”  was a gift from my good friend Tony Tickle when he stayed in my place during the “Ginkgo”of ’99. It was a mid size yamadori from Wales with a long and thick straight branch growing out of it. I cut it off and made it into the Shari you can see now in the middle of the tree! Than I was able to convert  this small tree  into a just above Shohin sized bonsai you see in this picture.

The complete stories of the styling of all my Bonsai that were show in this “last Ginkgo Awards” you can see in a short time on my website. This small bonsai was  styled around the beautiful old deadwood that I love to see so much on these old, but small  Yews.

hans van Meer.

Hi everybody,

here  is a picture of my Japanese Black Pine Shohin “Pinus thunbergii”   that I showed in this last  ”Ginkgo Awards” together with  a small Yew that I will post later.

I have been  styling this bonsai for more than 10 years now and working to get new foliage to grow closer to the trunk, took up most of that time! They are not that vigorous in our climate! Bud I’m really pleased with the size and density of the foliage now, so it was worth it, to be patience.

The powerful roots on this small Pine are the reason I fell for this small tree all those years ago and I still love the grip its has in the soil. It looks like nothing can really harm it, this old survivor  on top of that high mountain.

I hope you like it,

Hans van Meer.

                                                                                                                      “JIN AND YANG”  

Hi everybody,

this is a picture of  one of the  Yews I showed at the “Ginkgo Awards” last weekend. I collected it in ’97 in Wales and later offered it for sale to several bonsai friends, but no body wanted it then! They do now! LOL!

It is one of the favorites bonsai of my wife’s, she always calls it “Jin and Yang”.

I shot this picture a bid from bellow, to emphasize the rime of this 38 cm/15 inch high bonsai. It’s movements reminds me of a dancer! I love the balance between the deadwood, the foliage and open space! I have broken some rules styling this one….and I’m glad I did

Hans.

BONSAI EXTRA’S

No matter how good your bonsai is, it will look terrible in  the wrong pot! But this applies also to  the Scrolls, accents plants or stands U use!

I spend months looking around for items to  use in combination with the  Bonsai I’m showing at this “Ginkgo Award”. I  really injoy  these hunt for extra’s enormously, it is just like a treasure hunt.

I would like to show the two small bonsai stands I had custom made by Christoph Roggeman (CHR Furniture) from Belgium. This guy is amazing, I showed him two  stand I discovered in a Japanese Shohin Bonsai  book that I really liked and asked him can you make these two tables for me in this and that dimensions? And he said, Yes no problem!  He took the book along as a example to work from and now  a few months later I got them. Just look at the pictures, than you will understand why I like his work so much. Artist like Christoph   and Jeroen Huivenaar my mate from Holland, who makes my larger Bonsai stands are often forgotten to be mentioned in any Bonsai book, but the are  very important in the success off our presentation and make our work so much easier.

Last picture is a accent planting I’m using in the show. It is “Sempervivum”from the mountains in Austria in a really beautiful small pot from Gordon Duffett (UK).

I hope you like them? Be back soon!

Hans.

Last weekend I did some more refinement work on one of my Yews in preparation for the Ginkgo Award. Picture 1: Shows the small Shohin Yew before I worked on the ground coverage.

Picture 4: Here the branch is already removed and a small jin is left as a reminder. The branch above the one that is removed is brought down to more or less replace it.

Hans.

 The road to the “Ginkgo Award”.

Sunday 06-08-2007.

To day I did some dead wood work on “BIG RON”!

Most of this old Mugo pine dead wood  was treated some 2 months ago with Jin Seal “Lime sulfur” and today with the help of all kinds of metal brushes, I will remove very carefully some patches off the  white top layers  so that the colors of the original wood can shine trough, revealing all kinds of lovely grey colors  mixed with golden brown.  

The Jin in the first picture is very old and was worked on just slightly. To style it I carefully brook off little pieces off   the very brittle old wood until  I was satisfied with the shape. Than the wood was treated with Jin seal, that was applied with a cheap small brush. Today I scratched and brushed off some of that  bleached top layer. Now the end result looks very natural in my opinion and this is very important because it is one of the main focus points on the front of this bonsai.  

In picture 2 you can see a piece off wood that was custom made to be wedged between a large Jin and a heavy branch. Helping to  bend this stubborn heavily wired branch into the  acquired position.

In picture 3 and 4 you have a special backstage view of this bonsai. Revealing a very old and secret bonsai technique that is past on trough the ages,  from father to son, namely the  (screw and wire technique).

In picture 5 and 6 you have a nice view of the large shari part of this bonsai, seen from the back site. All these mixture of colors you see are created by removing parts off the bleached outer surface.  Revealing this beautiful patina. I hope you like this update? Until the next time,

hans.  

The road to the “Ginkgo Award”.

Wednesday 25-07-2007.

Only just over 7 more weeks to go to the start off the famous “Gingko Awards” 2007 edition, that is held on 15 & 16 September  in Laarne Belgium! I’m showing 5 off my bonsai there and I thought it would be nice to share the work that needs to be don to prepare them for this event from now on right up until the actual show!

Today I first started to work on cleaning the deadwood off the 3 Yews “taxus baccata” I am going to show at the awards. In Picture. 1,2,3: First I  started working on the smallest off the tree. It Is one off the first trees I ever collected and it took years to get the foliage to were it now is. It is just over 23 cm/ 9 Inch.  I cleaned the stained deadwood with the help off several small wire brushes until all the green algae is gone. With the help off some tweezers the moss and dirt is removed from in-between the deeper cracks. And then the deadwood is misted with water , If you do not do this the jinseal is almost impossible to apply on to the deadwood and wile not penetrate the surface to do its work! I waited for a few minutes for the water to open up the  surface off the deadwood, before I started to apply the jinseal with a small brush. Because the deadwood off yews is so hard they become very whit  when you use jinseal, so I needed to do it now, so that when it is showtime the deadwood will look just right!  

The wiring  was checked, to make sure it was not damaging the bark and all brown needles and weeds were removed.

 Picture. 4, 5: Here I am  working on the second Yew, It is slightly bigger than the first one and also one off my earliest collected tree. Only the really filthy parts of the deadwood  were cleaned and treated with jinseal. The other parts off the deadwood have that beautiful old silvery patina that I really don’t want to bleach. Moss was removed to reveal the roots again and weeds removed. After i apply jinseal to my trees I always make sure not to pore water on the freshly treated deadwood until I’m quit sure it has dried. The deadwood off yews is so hard that  the jinseal  runs off the wood very easily when not dried enough  and might and up damaging your roots and bleaching your pots.

Picture.6, 7, 8: Are off my Japanese Black pine “Pinus thunbergii” Shohin.

Almost all  off last years needles were carefully removed on  branch tips with just enough growth and on the weaker branch tips  more were left until  all the foliage is off equal strength! All the excess moss was removed from  the  nice roots,  It is better to do this now, because if you wait to long and do it to close to the show you might see the obvious difference in the color were the moss was removed from the roots! The lovely patina off the deadwood on this small pine is very natural, so  no jinseal here! From now on the moss on this tree is misted several times a day and kept in the shade with the help off some plastic screening ( I use the  stuff you cover your pot holes with) that I cut in shape to cover the soil, only just touching the moss. Now when  I water the Pine, drops off water will  get stuck in those small  holes off that screening for a long wile, creating shade and a perfect micro climate for the moss  to rejuvenate under-need it in now time!  Come September it  will look freshly green again. That’s it for now, until the next work!