California Juniper finally ready for show

[Jaberwky17]

This is what constitutes a nearly perfect bonsai tree to me. Spectacular and I am insanely jealous. One question about the pot - I greatly prefer the drum pot in the photo but most of the images show a rectangular one. Any comments on pot selection?

 

[Vin]

Here's a question I've wondered about for some time now. If you have a grafted maple, we call it xxx variety based on the foliage. However, why are grafted junipers more often referred to by the ungrafted original plant? i.e. California juniper instead of Kishu shimpaku.

Either I stumped everyone (not likely) or this must have been a stupid question.

 

[barrosinc]

Either I stumped everyone (not likely) or this must have been a stupid question.

They do speak about that exactly on the second page...
IT is a hard to answer question, but on a yamadori tree the collected variety sounds more important than a rootstock that you try to hide on maples.

 

[Vance Wood]

They do speak about that exactly on the second page...
IT is a hard to answer question, but on a yamadori tree the collected variety sounds more important than a rootstock that you try to hide on maples.

I think that is more likely. The important element of the tree in this case is the wonderful trunk and growth veins. Shimpaku is fairly common except real Shimpaku Yamadori. The problem with California Juniper is that they do not survive for long outside California for some reason, with their own foliage. I know people that have brought them here to Michigan and lost them within two years. I don't think anyone knows for sure why. A lot of collected Junipers are treated this way; Kishu foliage is far superior to much of the native growth.

 

[Vin]

They do speak about that exactly on the second page...
IT is a hard to answer question, but on a yamadori tree the collected variety sounds more important than a rootstock that you try to hide on maples.

I totally missed it. It's good to know I'm not the only one thinking of these things.

 

[Eric Schrader]

This is what constitutes a nearly perfect bonsai tree to me. Spectacular and I am insanely jealous. One question about the pot - I greatly prefer the drum pot in the photo but most of the images show a rectangular one. Any comments on pot selection?

I'd say that either would work on a basic level. The drum pot was intended to be a "close enough" container for growing purposes. It's slightly deeper than the show pot I'm using. If I were going to show the tree in a round pot I'd likely look for one that had more of a flare on the side and a wider lip, but there are many possible good pots.

The show pot I'm using is a Chinese antique with some good patina, the clay is also quite nice. It's not uncommon to use shallow rectangles for tall elegant trees. In this case the quality of the rectangle far surpasses the somewhat mundane drum pot. Also, I find the large buttons on the drum to be distracting and the pot seems a bit too strong for the tree. The drum also has a good sized chip out of it and no patina.

 

[JudyB]

Eric, far be it from me to have the right to critique your wonderful tree, but I have one thing that pops out each time I look at the photo from the show photo Al provided. I just want to move it over the the right the tiniest bit in the pot. I love it as is, but for some reason, I just keep wanting to see it over a bit. What do you think about this?

 

[Adair M]

An interesting question. I think I could have achieved this result, but artistry thrives in an environment where there is inspiration coming from all around. I was actually wiring my little informal upright black pine while he was working on this tree.

I wanted to support Matt as a new professional who is looking for work. I also had twice styled the tree myself and thought it would be interesting to see what someone else did with it.

His pads are smaller than mine would have been, and the foliage was left more dense that I would have left it. The result is a tree that should be put in a show relatively quickly. For maintenance purposes more thinning would have been in order.

Apart from a nicely-styled tree, I got a lot of inspiration from Matt and also had a chance to talk to him at length about his work in Obuse for Suzuki. He's currently traveling around the west coast working; if anyone is interested PM me or look him up on his website.

More to come from last weekend.

Cheers,

Eric

There is "much ado" about who styles a tree, and should someone have a pro style trees for them.

A "styling" only lasts a short time, maybe a year, before it is grown out and needs to be revisited.

 

[Vance Wood]

Round pot.

 

[Vance Wood]

There is "much ado" about who styles a tree, and should someone have a pro style trees for them.

A "styling" only lasts a short time, maybe a year, before it is grown out and needs to be revisited.

Do you really want to know the answer to that question?

 

[Djtommy]

The square show pot gives a much nicer overall image to me.
Great tree and great pot!

 

[Adair M]

There no question there. I'm just saying that people argue about it too much. "Much ado".

Eric lives in a part of the world where he has access to many professional and advanced bonsai artists. Others are not so fortunate.

Vance, you are more experienced in bonsai than others in your area. Do you not teach others in your club? Or help them along? If someone wanted you to style a tree for them, would you do it? Would you accept payment for it? Have you sold trees? I suspect you have.

 

[Vance Wood]

There no question there. I'm just saying that people argue about it too much. "Much ado".

Eric lives in a part of the world where he has access to many professional and advanced bonsai artists. Others are not so fortunate.

Vance, you are more experienced in bonsai than others in your area. Do you not teach others in your club? Or help them along? If someone wanted you to style a tree for them, would you do it? Would you accept payment for it? Have you sold trees? I suspect you have.

I would hlep them and I have helped them. Yes I have sold trees but not masterpieces.

 

[Adair M]

So, you're saying you help folks, but I hear you saying that some how it's wrong to get a master to style a tree you own?

 

[Vance Wood]

When that's all you do? Yes that's not doing bonsai that's procuring bonsai. When you (generic you) demonstrate that the only way you can do bonsai is if someone helps you with every thing. At some point you (generic you) have to demonstrate the ability to do things your way and produce trees that are totally your own work. This especially applies with good material. It's one thing to keep a tree alive and flourishing it is another to take a tree from nothing to a show piece of sorts; it's like gaining a pilots license. Bonsai is like flying an airplane. There are a lot of ways to crash and burn.

 

[coh]

Round pot.

Very fitting as some continue to go round and round on the issue of what it means to "do bonsai".

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

When you (generic you) demonstrate that the only way you can do bonsai is if someone helps you with every thing. At some point you (generic you) have to demonstrate the ability to do things your way and produce trees that are totally your own work.

Why do you insinuate that these two approaches are mutually exclusive?

 

[coh]

At some point you (generic you) have to demonstrate the ability to do things your way and produce trees that are totally your own work.

I'm curious as to why everyone has to "demonstrate the ability to do things your own way." If I have the financial resources to pay a master to come to my yard a few times a year to design/style all my trees, what's it to you? Or anyone else for that matter?

 

[Smoke]

I'm curious as to why everyone has to "demonstrate the ability to do things your own way." If I have the financial resources to pay a master to come to my yard a few times a year to design/style all my trees, what's it to you? Or anyone else for that matter?

Its painfully obvious that many here would benefit from that thinking. At least they would have a tree that they could call bonsai???

 

[Vance Wood]

So---What you lack in talent or in your unwillingness to actually put forth in effort to discover your own soul in bonsai, you substitute a check book. You pay some very talented individual to take a tree and style it according to his/hers artistic sensibilities and you get to keep the result. In a couple of years you can claim it's your work. That's OK too except; when you (geneic you) feel it's your place to tell other artists how they should be doing bonsai.