Poor uncared for Stones sitting on the bench

[Crawforde]

Some of these I plan to carve stands for, others might make it into Penjing type displays. For now they just hang out in the bench or rest in empty pots enjoying the weather m.
I feel bad just neglecting them and not giving them proper homes, but I do visit them daily.
Is it preferable to cut the base to make them stable, or carve a stand to hold them?

 

[Handsome John]

I always cut the bases flat but that's because I'm useless at getting fine details to make stands lol or I put them in pots with substrate. I like that tall one with the tapered point!

 

[Shibui]

I believe that natural suiseki are more valued than those that have been cut.

 

[shinmai]

That last photo is reminiscent of the snow field at the top of Mount Tokachi on Hokkaido.
Personally, I have seldom seen a carved base that looked like it fit without being a visual distraction in itself. I think a lot of stones can actually look their best in a low pot or tray with a bed of an appropriate sand or other material, as Handsome John suggests.

 

[Crawforde]

I think the naturalistic ones will be stabilized in a tray and I will add some moss and small plants to make little penjing displays.
The weirder or mor abstract ones I will probably carve bases for.
I just roughed out a base for a stone that I found in Lake Superior off the shore of Isle Royale.

 

[shinmai]

If you ever decide you want to part with the stone I mentioned, I’d be interested.

 

[Crawforde]

I’ll keep it in mind. That one came from West Virginia
Here is the Lake Superior stone and the beginnings of a stand.

 

[shinmai]

I took a shallow round pot I had on hand, and laid in some beach sand from the Ivory Coast. The stone is one I found in a creek outside of Broken Bow, Oklahoma, while playing with my six year old granddaughter. She thought her grandpa would think it was special because of the groove in it, which I saw immediately as a waterfall stone. It reminds me of a waterfall in a high pass in the Bitterroots on the Montana-Idaho divide.

 

[shinmai]

When I had aquariums, I had one tank with a jet black, fine sand from Hawaii, because I had a couple of venomous fish that liked to burrow into the sand while waiting for passing prey [an African stonefish and a splendid toadfish]. That ‘snow field’ stone would look spectacular in a shallow black rectangular tray full of that fine, black sand.

 

[Crawforde]

Great idea.
I think I might have to stop at a pet smart on my way home from work tomorrow and look for some dark sand.
I can always use it for something if it doesn’t work out for the stones.
Now I have something to do while my collected trees bud out, and the rest are waking up.

 

[shinmai]

That same sand could make a nice top dressing for the right tree, too. Particularly like an azalea or gardenia with white blossoms, or even some craggy-nebari non-ficus tropical—something where the black underneath would make the blossoms really pop.

 

[Crawforde]

Made a couple a bit more comfortable

 

[shinmai]

Very nice! I especially like the first one, nestled into the moss--but then I'm really liking the stone in its own right. I really like diagonal visual movement, and that one has it in spades. Good work.

 

[sorce]

I like that Rock of Ribs!

Sorce