European yew #2 now finished

Now the tree is finished for the time being. How did I maage to change the pot? Sorry, this is a trade secrete. In about three years the yew will hopefully be ready for exhibit.

European yew #2 some progress

Now this is the intermediary result. It took a day longer. I had only limited time to work outside because of the awful weather. Believe it or not, I worked with full winter gown: long underwear, threes shirts and a winter parka.

This starts to look fine to me, but it is not finished yet. First the pot has to change. We will see how we do this. And then there might be some small little editing necessary here and there. I will report soon.

New project: European yew #2

European yew, Taxus baccata, collected in Poland, first imge as of November 2011. Now the rough sketch is finished. I will start to fine wire everything. This will take me two days. I will report.

Japanese White Pine #2 refurbished now

This Japanese white pine, PInus pentaphylla, was collected in the Japanese mountains many years ago. It was styled in Japan and eventually exported to Europe in 2010. In many exhibits where it was shown soon after that it won major awards, mainly in Poland and Czechia. The tree was owned by Piotr Czerniachowski from Poland.
 Somehow this pine found it's way into my garden in December 2012. It had lost some of it's former shape and I had to do some work right away: plucking of old needles, removing some wire which had bitten in seriously already, removing a few small dead branches, jinnign branch on the lower tree. The foliage did not look too healthy which was mainly due to winter color.
 I was told by Piotr that this tree needed repotting badly. So I found a new container for it made by Walter Venne from Germany. It was very difficult to get the tree out which indeed had not been repotted probably since way more than ten years.The usual adakdama was hard like cement. I thought I had to break the pot to get it out. Well, finally it gout out without breaking, but using severe force.
 Then the rootball was loosened up. Such trees are quite problematic as they have to get repotted at one point but the risk is high. I could have lost the tree. The tree was potted into modern substrate - baked loam with some rough peat. Even after fifteen years without repotting it will go out easily and we will never have this problem as with akadama again. I tilted the tree upwards to the left.
  In May it showed that it had not minded the repotting - the contrary, it looked very happy and green. Normally I would say that a tree after all this has to rest until next vegetation period. Well, a week ago it looked as healthy as a white pine ever could. So I decided to do the whole refurbishing right away. Now I am happy for the time being.

European yew #2 work in progress

At the moment I am working on this yew. It will be a few days before I can show the result.

tanukis

The Honorable Master Walter Pall

Tanuki are into controversy in South East Asia

That we've been waiting from you, in fact, what it Tanuki?

What can Tanuki and Bonsai pitted in a contest?

Is it different Tanuki and Deadwood?

Thank you Master

Best Regards

IWAN 

Iwan

there are several degrees of tanuki.

One can take a big interesting piece of deadwood and combine it with a young plant to mimic a very old tree with lots of natural deadwood. This is something that many people do. Most do it for fun and most of the time it looks terrible because it is obvious and one sees it immediately. This kind of tree never should be exhibited at all.

Sometimes it is done well so that even an expert fins it difficult to tell. This is fine. This kind of tree can be exhibited but it should be mentioned that it is a tanuki.

Then there are cases when a bit of deadwood is added to a tree which already has deadwood. This is also fine. Most of the time it is not mentioned that this is a tanuki.

Sometimes two trees which are alive are fixed together to look like one tree. Also this is fine if it looks well.


Tanuki is a cheat, a lie. Bonsai art itself is a cheat, a lie, it creates the illusion of an old tree while the tree is young. To paint one's face, eyes and lips and hair is a cheat , a lie. So why do so many people get away with it? Well, if done well and if it looks good then it is OK. But nobody believes it is for real. Where does the lying start? Where does it end? How much of a lie is too much?

I believe that more famous trees than one wants to believe are tanukis of partial tanukis.

greetings
WP

European spruce #30

European spruce, Picea abies.