And this is the final one

People said that the old slab is fine, that the new long pot is fine, that the pot is too long, that the best would be a new slab of medium size. Well, we all have something like this at home, don't we. Not really! By sheer coincidence I had such a thing. In May I did a trade, a bit unwillingly, and got this slab by Dieter, called 'zopf'. It is like he made it for that tree. i am quite happy now.

 

And how about this pot?

Anf how about this pot by Dieter Schunta from Germany? The pot is for real. I could also keep the tree on the slab and use the pot only for exhibit, just filling the empty space with substrate.

 

new mugo with potential

Mugo pine, Pinus mugo, collected in 2012 in Austria. I got this in trade and I am quite happy. It wil take many years though to make this into a good bonsai. We will see.

 

Japanese white pine #3 renovated part 2

And then the crown! 50% went off. It took many hours to look like nobody ever did anything to it. I also used some guy wires which I have retouched from the images to move some trunks and branches. I tried hard to not destroy the natural beauty of this tree and still improve it.

 

Japanese white pine #3 renovated part 1

This Japanese white pine, Pinus pentaphylla, already was exhibited at Kokufu Ten. One would assume that it is megalomania to try to improve such a piece in Europe. Well, I dare to want to improve it. I think not enough was done in the past twenty or so years.

This starts with the nebari. How can it be that such a famous tree does not have a visible nebari? There must be something there somewhere. I took off the moss and here it was - a very hard an tough root ball which looked very uncivilized and seemed impossible to tame. There must have been others who were at that point and put the moss back on again. I worked hard for a long while with all sorts of sharp tools. Although I am strictly against washing out roots of conifers in particular it had to be done here. I worked like a sculptor who takes off material until the figure that he imagined appears. Besides obviously technically possible, is it healthy horticulturally? I think it is a slight risk, but since I planned to take off 50% of the crown at the same time it could be done.

 After cleaning the piece an painting with biotreecleaner the original color of the bark comes out. It is this nice brown which we normally never see because the bark is black from dirt and patina. It will become black by itself after a couple of months, btw.

Anyway, it totally escapes me how someone would leave this jewel under the soil for decades and not uncover it the first day. I learned thirty ears ago that everything start with the nebari.

Japanese white pine #4 redesigned

Japanese white pine, Pinus pentaphylla, collected in the Japanese mountains many decades ago. It was styled by a bonsai master and spent a few decades in collections. Now it came to Europe and found my garden.

I love such material which enables me to kiss the frog and try to turn him into a price within two days. The last images with the round pot are virtuals, of course. The pot by Derek Aspinall would be fine. I hope to have a similar one in spring of 2014.