Saturday, August 11, 2007

improvement of a huge larch

Hendrik has shown this larch on the German forum. He has recieved a lot of critique. Someone said that it lacks soul and then the rest agreed. Some called it cookie cutter and retro of the late 1950ies. Well a tree according to the textbooks,which offer the state of the art of the late 1950ies by and large. Hendrik was not amused but realized that something should be done about the soul thing. So he commissioned me to try to get some soul into the larch.

Steps:
1) removal of algae
2) working on deadwood, making it more natural.
3) painting all deadwood with lime sulphur
4) wiring the thicker branches with thick aluminum wire
5) bending branches so that the tree looks like a larch and not like a cookie cutter old fashioned bonsai
6) wiring many smaller branches and bending them
7) fixing some branches with strong guy wires
8) tilting the tree forward considerably and supporting the rootball behid with a large chunk of charcoal to fix it.
9) tilitng the tree to the left considerably and supoporting the rootball underneath on the right with a large piece of charcoal. Thus the ugly long and straight root on the left disappeard.
10) oiling the pot
11) taking photographs
12) working on photoshop. Virtually repotting the tree into a pot which si 10 % smaller and cleaning some foliage.

Hendrik is enchanted.