The truck from far west will arrive in Harrisburg on Monday. These are pictures from Hidden Gardens near Chicago, But at Nature's Way it will look the sam. Don't miss your chance to be one of the first ones to be there.
Just go there starting Friday, March 22 to see for yourself. Or, better even, sign up for Woodstock XII.
Events at Nature‘s Way Nursery with WP in 2019
Some openings still available - sign up now!
Woodstock XII w/ Walter Pall & Jim Doyle
Fri. Mar. 22, 2019, 9:30 AM - Sun, March 24, 2019, 4:00PM
True bonsai immersion for the beginner to the very experienced. Jump right in...300+ newly arrived 20-500 year old Yamadori, domestic trees and bring your own for continual design. Students come from around the country and Canada. Join us each year for these very different workshops. Lunch & drinks included.
$110/day or $260/3 days // observers: $ 50/day
Winter Study w/Walter Pall & Jim Doyle
Fri. Nov. 29, 9:30 AM - Sun, Dec. 1, 2019, 4:00 PM
Never a dull moment... Walter and Jim have been working collectively since 1995. They continue because it is both fun and informative process for them. We offer the opportunity to work on killer material and advanced techniques with a pair of premier teachers. You may bring your own trees for continued study and season-appropriate development. Lunch & drinks included
$85/day or $230/3 days // observers: $ 40/day
Location: Nature's Way Nursery, 1451 Pleasant Hill Rd., Harrisburg PA 17112
Times:
Friday 9:30 – 5:00 pm
Saturday 9:30 -5:00 pm
Sunday 10:00 – 4:00 pm
Application: Call Nature's Way (Jim Doyle) for more information and signing up
(717) 545-4555
natureswaybonsai@comcast.net
or natureswaybonsai@gmail.com
Participants: This is for all levels– from outright newbie to master. Yes, all in one seminar and all get something out of it and all have fun. Even accompanying mates who never thought of attending a seminar could have fun. The number can be 20 to 30 or even more folks. One can be fully active participant or observer or passive viewing participant for one, two or three days. This is recommended for undecided newbies and travel company. The status can be changed to active any time- we warn you, most do change the status quickly. If you are not sure whether you want to really do this you are invited to come as 'lurker' for 20 minutes for free and then you decide.
General philosophy: Everyone does what they want to do and how much they want to do. While Jim Doyle and Walter Pall will make it clear what they think should be done it is the participant who decides. The aim is to learn how to approach styling, and learn to see new ways and actually trying them out. New techniques will be taught like e.g. work on deadwood.
But the emphasis is on making design decisions. So many workshops teach wiring and basic techniques. This is taken for granted in this seminar. The emphasis is on what often is not taught: bonsai as art form. It is important to know your place in bonsai which offers many different ways. Learning by doing, learning by case studies is how we reach the aims. On many different trees we discuss and practice art, craft and speak about philosophy. Basic craft like wiring is often avoided to not waste time for things which really make a big difference (while they are important, but there are many workshops to practice these).
In many traditional workshop the teacher makes the decisions for the students who do exactly what he tells them and often the teacher actually does the critical work for the student. So the students never learn how to make decisions. To practice art is to make decisions all the time. The aim of the seminar it to teach how to make the right decisions. Your trees will most of the time not be touched by the teacher in this seminar.
What's going to happen: In the morning the first participants arrive. The nursery crew and Jim and Walter can help to choose trees for the workshop. All trees that the participants brought and the chosen ones from the nurser are carried to the greenhouse.
Usually a session of general interest follows speaking about many different subjects related to bonsai. This will most of the time take place in the yurt.
Then we go to the greenhouse. Walter or Jim start to speak about a tree to the whole class, explain choices and then may actually do a couple of things to the tree to give an example. Then the participants form groups which choose a tree and discuss it for 15 minutes or so. Usually every group has one old timer who knows where to go. Then the speakers of the groups present the trees to the whole class. After some discussions one or more feasible options are decided.
And then this will be actually done. Those who brought a tree can now decide whether they what to do the work immediately or can choose to do nothing with their tree at the moment. Whenever someone is finished the next tree is chosen to study, discuss and work on. The aim is to have many valuable case studies for leaning what usually is not taught at workshops. By presenting each tree to the whole class one learns about a couple dozen trees over the weekend compared with one normal workshops. Much more new experience and knowledge comes from that.
Generally we avoid doing craft work that is time consuming. Not that this work is not important. But we want to spend the time on things which are even more important and not taught usually. If some really want to fully do their tree in the workshop they may – no problem.
Nobody is forced to work in a certain style. While it is well known that Jim and Walter work a lot in the Naturalistic Bonsai Style the actual style is decided by the participant – and often enough by the tree.
Once in a while Jim or Walter will speak about subjects of interest for a while.
An important part of the seminar are the social interconnections during the day and gatherings after work. Many long time friendships were built on these occasions.
Material: All active participants can bring their own trees. This can be very simple material to masterpiece. We speak about every tree in depth. The participant decides what he wants to actually do to the tree then.
In addition the nursery offers a great wealth of material that the participants can discuss and actually work on. These are mostly old to very old collected conifers like limber pine, ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, Engelmann spruce, Colorado blue spruce. Alpine fir, Douglas fir and others as well as some deciduous broadleaved trees like hedge maples, trident maples, European hornbeam, Japanese maples and some others. There usually are 400 or more trees available to choose from. A few dozen are outright world class, many very good, all hand selected by myself. There are over 150 trees in the range from US$ 50 to 600, about 50 from 600 to 1,500. Everybody can find himself a genuine American collected tree. This is the biggest selection of this kind of trees west of the Rockies.
The 'borrowed' material can be purchased at any time, but it does not have to be purchased. The offer is that you actually do serious styling on the material and only afterwards decide whether you want it for yourself or not.
There usually is a special sale during the seminar weekends. The prices are usually reduced for most items which are offered at the nursery.
If someone does not want to participate in the seminar and is only interested in the trees you are welcome to visit the nursery to these special weekends.
Sign up right away!
Private session with Walter Pall in Harrisburg, March 25
Walter Pall will be available on Monday, March 25 for a full day or half day private session at Nature's Way Nursery in Harrisburg, PA. You can bring your most difficult trees or work with some of ours.
If you are interested, write to me directly: bonsai@walter-pall.de
