Japanese bonsai, 2021

[BobbyLane]

often when looking at these types of trees, makes me question if im cutting back some branches way too hard to get the taper, on that particular maple a few of the branches are longer than around 2in before they begin to taper out or bifercate.

for eg, to my eye these sections in blue look a bit long, might be different in person though


i can see with the left one, it could just be because that negative area is being filled otherwise that branch might of been shorter. because of its length tho it seems less in harmony with the natural structure of the rest of the tree. just the part in blue where it shoots up

 

[TomB]

makes me question if im cutting back some branches way too hard to get the taper, on that particular maple a few of the branches are longer than around 2in before they begin to taper out or bifercate.

Might be a trick of the photo - on that left section I'm seeing considerable taper from top to bottom of the section you highlight. That must have involved cuts at various points.



There also looks to be plenty of movement (back-front as well as in-out), and maybe some branching coming off the back as well.
I'd be very very pleased to have a branch section like that on one of my trees

 

[BobbyLane]

Might be a trick of the photo - on that left section I'm seeing considerable taper from top to bottom of the section you highlight. That must have involved cuts at various points.

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There also looks to be plenty of movement (back-front as well as in-out), and maybe some branching coming off the back as well.
I'd be very very pleased to have a branch section like that on one of my trees

yeh there is movement and taper, the branches seems quite long, its just maybe because im too used to having them more compacted. on my big Zelkova im trying to get used to having a couple of the lowest branches longer and 'flowing' as is done here. i didnt say the blue section was too straight tho, just that it seems to shoot up abrubtly here.
This is how im seeing it, Tom

 

[Forsoothe!]

The lockdown has forced me to watch Brit TV and I am amazed at the difference between us, socially and the physical landscape/countryside. The architecture is so much more artfully designed than the plain old USA it's sometimes worth watching a lousy drama just to see the fairytale castles & scenery. The countryside is also nothing like the US. Especially lots of trees that are older than the US, sometimes maybe two or three times as old. We have very few of those. I say all this to preface this: You Englanders have very different ideas from other definable groups of what is a good bonsai look. Yours trees are characterized best as all being @BobbyLane trees. I don't say any of this as criticism, I say it only because your trees look like what you see every day, and the rest of us probably make our trees like what we see everyday, too, just different and differently from place to place. The professional gardeners on the west coast of the US are disproportionately Japanese, and one (who has not been to Japan) might speculate that the bonsai reflects the landscape/countryside there, too. In fact, I'll throw British Columbia in there, too, as a place where the population lives in a climate and countryside that's more like northern Japan than the rest of North America, so they have a lot of yamadori. What say you all? Remember, there is no judgement being made here, just observations and speculation about why we separately like what we like.

 

[Woocash]

The lockdown has forced me to watch Brit TV and I am amazed at the difference between us, socially and the physical landscape/countryside. The architecture is so much more artfully designed than the plain old USA it's sometimes worth watching a lousy drama just to see the fairytale castles & scenery. The countryside is also nothing like the US. Especially lots of trees that are older than the US, sometimes maybe two or three times as old. We have very few of those. I say all this to preface this: You Englanders have very different ideas from other definable groups of what is a good bonsai look. Yours trees are characterized best as all being @BobbyLane trees. I don't say any of this as criticism, I say it only because your trees look like what you see every day, and the rest of us probably make our trees like what we see everyday, too, just different and differently from place to place. The professional gardeners on the west coast of the US are disproportionately Japanese, and one (who has not been to Japan) might speculate that the bonsai reflects the landscape/countryside there, too. In fact, I'll throw British Columbia in there, too, as a place where the population lives in a climate and countryside that's more like northern Japan than the rest of North America, so they have a lot of yamadori. What say you all? Remember, there is no judgement being made here, just observations and speculation about why we separately like what we like.

Yes that makes sense to me. Though I wouldn’t necessarily say trees over here are older, perhaps a lot of them look as such... Then again, I couldn’t tell you how many American trees are as old or what an old American deciduous tree looks like in comparison.

I think a large proportion of the gnarly old trees you get over here are English/European oak, European Ash and Field Maple* which all have tendencies to look particularly ragged over time. Also, I think the centuries of hedge creation adds to it with battered old sentinel trees standing alone facing the elements adds to it. Then if you take our forests and woodland, we have a relatively small amount compared to most other European countries which only a small percentage counts as ancient woodland (unbroken woodland for several millennia) and only a fraction of that is still truly wild and untouched by man. So, nearly all of our conifers are young in relative terms as they have been planted for timber, most of our woodland deciduous are again, relatively young, straight and grown for timber, but we have an inordinate amount of ancient hedgerows (and the most conspicuous trees) which get little to no protection from other trees so I guess, yes gnarly is normal for us.

The USA is huge though. There must be plenty of beaten up old trees over there?

*edit for completeness. There are plenty of other species such as beech, hornbeam, hawthorn etc, but from my personal experience when looking at a silhouette of a countryside horizon these will be the typical species you can recognise.

 

[badatusernames]

Thanks for posting these. Amazing inspiration, but I just can’t get overly excited by the, and I’m going to say it, green helmet style conifers, particularly the pines. While I’m sure that they are much more expressive in person and are top of the pops in terms of quality, they just seem too flat and non emotive. I think number 2 is my favourite with special mentions for numbers 40 and 54.

it’s funny you say this because I think it was the third or fourth picture in particular where I realized I wasn’t feeling the tree, and was wondering why

My initial thought was that I’ve been looking at too much bonsai and suddenly found myself looking at it from an academic rather than pleasurable perspective, and I actually didn’t love it because it made me wonder if with more active bonsai creation I’d end up chasing an image of perfection that I’d be creating to look like other trees - and thus the individual trees become more rote, less important, one their own independent merits.

I’m hoping I can hang on to the appreciation of the imperfect and the wonder that bonsai brings as I continue my journey rather than trying to create countless versions of my own green helmet, if that makes sense.

I don’t know, maybe they’re too good and, for example, the pines may be falling into a kind of uncanny valley for me where it’s harder to see the living tree beneath.

However, I don’t have that reaction to the deciduous trees, for instance, so maybe it’s just taste and species preference? I dunno.

I collect tobacco pipes too, and have a nice collection, and I remember when the higher end stuff went from “wow, maybe one day” to “I own this now”, and there’s a certain special sense of an air of rarity that gets lost eventually, I think. My biggest concern about this hobby is having it happen due to looking at too many trees, haha.

I’ve already found myself looking at some of my earlier trees that I’ve enjoyed, and have found myself thinking “this is awful, start over”, so in some ways I’m mentally eradicating my previous efforts as well as the enjoyment I had from my lesser trees. As I progress, I need to figure out how to avoid that, because I feel that as I learn independently it could stand to happen fairly regularly.

I dunno, just sitting here considering my belly button

 

[Canada Bonsai]

Thank you for sharing the pictures though @Djtommy , much appreciated!

are trees with scars on the back allowed in these comps? or do people who enter these comps only enter scar less trees?

I haven’t seen one, if they would be entered they will likely not pass the initial judging.

I'm so tired of hearing this. What exactly are you looking at? Almost every deciduous tree in the show has scars that have healed but are still visible.

 

[BobbyLane]

again here, this branch here would make me question myself, am i cutting back too hard on occasion. i think this section of branch is a tad straight and maybe a little too long. hope this isnt coming off as being overly critical. i just like to envision and think about what goes into the thought processes. i dont think there's anything wrong with looking at top quality trees and envisioning what you would do to change this or that. or what was the reasoning behind this branch or that branch. as i said i think on that other maple, it was shaped the way it is to fill a negative area.

 

[Forsoothe!]

@BobbyLane you are one tough Judge. Hanging Bob, toughest guy east of the Pecos...

 

[BobbyLane]

Thank you for sharing the pictures though @Djtommy , much appreciated!





I'm so tired of hearing this. What exactly are you looking at? Almost every deciduous tree in the show has scars that have healed but are still visible.

ah i see. but still im more referring to scars that are still callusing over and not yet fully healed. Tommy says these trees wouldnt pass the first phase even if these callusing wounds were positioned to the back. but if its a feature of the tree like a uro or something it could possibly get a pass. ive never been to one of these top events so cant vouch.

 

[Canada Bonsai]

ah i see. but still im more referring to scars that are still callusing over and not yet fully healed. Tommy says these trees wouldnt pass the first phase even if these callusing wounds were positioned to the back. but if its a feature of the tree like a uro or something it could possibly get a pass. ive never been to one of these top events so cant vouch.

The idea of 'perfect' and 'scarless' trees is the product of a misinterpretation of a Japanese phenomenon. I attached a picture of a maple from this year with 3 obvious scars right on the front of the trunk! I can't kind a single kokufu catalogue where the trees were 'scarless' or needed to be hidden in the back.

Even when it comes to scars that are still in the process of healing, they can find their way into Kokufu.

One way is through cosmetics: there are people who are really good at essentially doing a make-up job on trees so that wounds are less apparent. Putty, paint, glued bark, etc. are all fairly common. I have seen people color-match paint to the grey-white bark of a japanese maple to perfection, using it to hide a wound on a trunk or branch and also to mask any other small imperfections in the tree.

But even besides that, not all trees that enter kokufu (or any exhibition) are there because of their aesthetic merits.

Many western professionals who trained in Japan have spoken about this at length and in many places.

 

[treepirate]

Thanks for sharing this

 

[Lazylightningny]

@Leo in N E Illinois Ref the green helmets. You are absolutely correct in the skill level involved, however, I think the Japanese are moving away from the dense helmets of the past 10 or 20 years and opening them up a little more lately, ie, separating the pads more, while keeping the same high degree of ramification that they are known for.

 

[River's Edge]

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Thanks for posting, excellent resource to study styling and tree/ pot selection.

 

[BobbyLane]

The idea of 'perfect' and 'scarless' trees is the product of a misinterpretation of a Japanese phenomenon. I attached a picture of a maple from this year with 3 obvious scars right on the front of the trunk! I can't kind a single kokufu catalogue where the trees were 'scarless' or needed to be hidden in the back.

Even when it comes to scars that are still in the process of healing, they can find their way into Kokufu.

One way is through cosmetics: there are people who are really good at essentially doing a make-up job on trees so that wounds are less apparent. Putty, paint, glued bark, etc. are all fairly common. I have seen people color-match paint to the grey-white bark of a japanese maple to perfection, using it to hide a wound on a trunk or branch and also to mask any other small imperfections in the tree.

But even besides that, not all trees that enter kokufu (or any exhibition) are there because of their aesthetic merits.

Many western professionals who trained in Japan have spoken about this at length and in many places.

Learn something new everyday!

i always assumed Kokofu was the pinnacle of Japanese exhibition and only the most coveted, flawless, scarless and perfect trees could ever be exhibited. there is a lot of emphasis in Japanese bonsai to have trees that are flawless without any wounds once they reach that top level. i guess most are though, just not to the level that some would have you believe.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Thanks for the awesome photos @Djtommy!

Whenever I see trees of this caliber I always think of the countless hours planning, directed growing, vigilant horticultural practice, styling and restyling over countless years by multiple artists.

To me it’s not about the style alone. Often as I see each tree, my mind wanders through time, seeing through the layers of years and growth while trying to understand the efforts of people involved to create different parts these tree - human artistic masterpieces.

These bonsai are like really good historical works. None are ever really perfect to everyone who reads them. Yet it’s the totality of excellence that overwhelms this viewer.

cheers
DSD sends

 

[Djtommy]

The idea of 'perfect' and 'scarless' trees is the product of a misinterpretation of a Japanese phenomenon. I attached a picture of a maple from this year with 3 obvious scars right on the front of the trunk! I can't kind a single kokufu catalogue where the trees were 'scarless' or needed to be hidden in the back.

Even when it comes to scars that are still in the process of healing, they can find their way into Kokufu.

One way is through cosmetics: there are people who are really good at essentially doing a make-up job on trees so that wounds are less apparent. Putty, paint, glued bark, etc. are all fairly common. I have seen people color-match paint to the grey-white bark of a japanese maple to perfection, using it to hide a wound on a trunk or branch and also to mask any other small imperfections in the tree.

But even besides that, not all trees that enter kokufu (or any exhibition) are there because of their aesthetic merits.

Many western professionals who trained in Japan have spoken about this at length and in many places.

Well sure, but I believe Bobby’s question was more related to open wounds covered up with putty paste or something on the trunk. While I have seen that in branches. As far as I have seen in kokufu deciduous like maple and beech are always completely healed over. (Or disguised to perfection)
And healed over is what I mean with scarless. Yes indeed, you will likely be able to see where there was once a branch but never in an obtrusive way. I guess it depends on how picky you are what to call scarless.
Trees like “important bonsai” can easily enter, there is also always a tree from the imperial palace on exhibit.

 

[Djtommy]

I’ll try to get some more detailed shots from second part, I’ll probably go Wednesday
This is from that beech from the show , sure you can see where there were branches, even right up front. To me this is healed over though, can you strictly say scarless? Perhaps not but certainly no big deal.

 

[BobbyLane]

Thats a clean trunk. that would be my idea of scarless.

 

[Tycoss]

I think that there is a place for admiring the skill involved in achieving the Japanese ideal while still working towards exceptional representations of other aesthetics.

I notice @BobbyLane said he usually cuts back farther to create better ramification and taper in the branching, and often does deadwood work that the Japanese trees avoid. Is that partly just the difference between British and Japanese trees being represented? I've noticed ( though I haven't been in a while) old British broadleaf trees usually do have a lot of deadwood on the trunk and gnarly looking branches, so that will inform his interpretation of a very old tree.

I've never been there, but I understand the climate in most of Japan means wounds heal and deadwood rots very fast, so their interpretation of an old broadleaf will be different.

Another example, here in western Canada, I would be hard pressed to find a handful of broadleaf trees over 300 or so years old, but I could find numerous conifers much older. Perhaps that's why when I think old, I think conifer, and Bobby will likely think deciduous. I think we ought to perhaps think of what excellence on a level with these kokufu trees would look like with our own aesthetic. If i could apply the same amount of technical skill and artistic insight to portray a Rocky Mountain conifer, or Bobby to a British oak, what would that look like?

Hope you don't mind my using you as an example Bobby, I think your trees are set to be brilliant.