Frank & Hervé from France were here

Frank & Hervé from France spent some time and helped a bit. Thank you.

red hawthorn in flowers

This is five weeks later than normal. That's how bad the weather was here in spring. This hawthorn is available for sale or trade btw..

 

Tradition in bonsai - Portuguese

Tradition in bonsai

translated by arzivenko

Eu tenho uma relação ambígua com a tradição do bonsai.

Primeiro, é a findação na qual nós todos construímos. É de onde o bonsai que vemos hoje veio. Para muitos é o bonsai; não existe nenhuma outra maneira de fazer bonsai. Nós devemos à tradição que possamos ver o bonsai como arte espalhada pelo mundo.

Eu acredito que todo entusiasta deva aprender o máximo possível sobre a tradição do bonsai, isto é indispensável. Eu acredito que o que chamamos "bonsai clássico" é para muitos nossa tradição. Tradicionalmente existem formas (normalmente chamado estilos*) que são designadas no estilo clássico. É um estilo que trabalha em direção à uma árvore ideal; uma abstração que apresenta a árvore perfeita. Todo designer de bonsai deve aprender como estilizar árvores nas formas tradicionais, com o espírito clássico.

Para além de estilizar árvores, existem várias outras tradições em bonsai. Existem os vasos, e como envasar, a apresentação em uma tokonoma, com o estande, objetos de acento, o pergaminho e muito mais. No espírito da arte asiática é completamente aceitável e esperado que outros tentem copiar as conhecidas obras primas e todos os aspectos da tradição. Qualquer divergência deste caminho é questionável.

O outro lado da moeda é que esta não é minha tradição. É uma tradição asiática, sobretudo uma tradição japonesa. Enquanto eu tenho o maior respeito por ela, eu me pergunto se o bonsai na minha parte do munto deve seguir rigidamente uma tradição estrangeira, e se deve, se vale a pena eu investir meu tempo. Bom, eu realmente não me importo, simplesmente me recuso a aceitar isto. Eu acredito que a tradição asiática pode ser usada como um grande ponto de partida, então partimos dela. Enquanto os ocidentais tentarem copiar as obras primas japonesas, bonsai não será uma arte universal. Copiar não é considerado arte na tradição ocidental. Um artista deve ser criativo e ir além da cópia. Nós devemos encontrar nossos caminhos, os quais podem se tornar tradicionais, eventualmente. Um ponto de partida poderia ser o questionamento da filosofia do bonsai tradicional; de criar árvores ideais. Eu sei que isto abre a porta para todo tipo de coisas sem sentido e criações atrozes. Também estou ciente que esta noção não ajuda o entusiasta medianos, o qual procura ajuda e afirmação. Mas abre a porta, pelo menos permite que nós criamos arte e não apenas cópias. Devemos, entretanto, sempre manter o maior respeito por nossos mestres.

Walter Pall

some oriental hornbeams

These are all oriental hornbeams, Carpinus orientalis, which were collected in Croatia. They are coming nicely. The crowns will have to grow a lot and ramifiy much better. In spring of 2014 they will get wired and look better afterwards. Anyway, it is quite encouraging to see them grow wo fast.

 

Interview with Iwan HD Wirawan from Indonesia

See the whole thing there:


http://www.bursabonsai.com/the-emperor-of-bonsai-europe/

Master WP who I admire

I am Iwan (www.bursabonsai.com) from Indonesia

Last year I had the interview you by email

As one of the world's emperor bonsai, we want to hear two or three sentences from you……

1.       How do you think about an idea or trend bonsai in the world, today?

Today I see several trends in the bonsai world. Mind you, I can really only speak about European and North America where I have extensive hands-on experience.

Trend 1: Bonsai is more and more done by younger people (20 to 35 years old) in Europe, not so much, but still in North America and very much so in South America. This compares drastically to the age of bonsai people in Japan as I am told. One reason for this trend may well be the development of the internet as the main communication line.

Trend 2: Bonsai has become much more international, crossing boundaries in Europe. At all major and even many minor events one sees people from many countries , which was not the case at all only fifteen years ago. Again I account this to communication being much better now. While Americans do not go to Europe in large numbers many are well educated about what is going on there.

Trend 3: More folks go for quality than before. While the mass of bonsai people are amateur gardeners with not much ambition there are many more now who aspire to higher quality in Europe at least; not so much in America, but still I see the same trend there. As a consequence many collections and exhibits are much better than they used to be.

Trend 4: More European trees are used in Europe and more American trees in America to make bonsai. It has become a strong  trend to work with indigenous material. While Asian trees can still be imported into Europe they are not as popular as they used to be. In America to import of trees from Asia is quite painful and people work much more with indigenous material than they used to.

Trend 5. Modern bonsai ( meaning very thick trees with lots of deadwood and rounded plastic-like crowns) are mainstream in Europe and becoming so in America. These trees in many cases are grotesque but this does not bother the general crowd. It does not bother them YET. There is also a trend to not do stereotype bonsai anymore and contrary to mainstream do trees which look like real trees instead of like plastic statues. As I am told this is also in some quarters the case in Japan. This may well be a paradigm shift.

2.       After experiencing health problems a little while ago, you are still going to travel to give lessons on the art of bonsai?

I had very serious heart surgery three moths ago my life was in high danger but I survived. By now I am in very good shape comparatively. in  many respects I can work just as I did before. i am still not supposed to carry heavy trees, but I do that more and more already. My physical shape is at 90 % of what it was before. I expect it to be over my former shape in three months. My mental shape is very bright and I am looking forward to many things. I can drive around in Europe already and will do just as I did before. I am allowed and wiling to fly even long distance and I will certainly do it. My life will be just what it used to be very soon. I already can do a one-man show full over a weekend from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening, as I have don so two weeks ago with great success. I am in almost better shape that I used to because my blood flows much easier now. It is my plan to continue traveling for at least ten more years.

3.       Previously, you still make a bonsai? Or just taking care of bonsai that you have created?

I make bonsai like I always used to. I do not make bonsai to sell but just to enjoy myself. So my collection is still growing. While folks at my age (69 very soon) are down-sizing their collection or giving up totally I still purchase and trade-in outstanding trees to work on myself. I plan to continue like this for more than ten years from now.

Life is possible without bonsai but it does not make much sense.

Next article in bonsai Focus about M&A tree

The next article about a huge oriental hornbeam by Marija &Andrija in Bonsai Focus is announced. See this:

go to Bonsai Focus and click 'preview' or whatever it is in your language:


http://www.bonsaifocus.com/

floods again

Look at this! I almost feel guilty because there is nothing nearly like this here in my area.

Village 'Fischerdorf' in Bavaria today - not so far away from here though. Over lunch we heard the call for all people to immediately leave the village. A dam broke. There was also the call to go to neighbours who possibly don't speak German well or at all and 'force' them to go right away. We thought that this was way overreacting. And now the pictures!  Imagine you are there and don't understand the radio message. Makes  me cry.

Ar the moment we are getting images of the floods in masses. One kind of gets used to them. This one really struck me though. It is like someone hits you with a hammer. This is not somewhere far away on another continent, this is in your neighborhood!!!

good development of Prunus #16

Wild cherry, Prunus mahaleb, collected in Slovenia in 2011. I got it in that year. By now it looks quite promising. Next spring it will go into a good pot and will be showable soon after.

 

new pot for Scots pine #20

Scots pine, Pinus sylvetris, collected in France in 1995. This tree I got last October from karl Thier. It was not repotted in ten to fifteen years, which is alright with such pines. Only it started to move upwards in the pot which was to small anyway and had too many roots by now. So I had to decide whether I wanted to first style the tree and then repot it or the other way round. I chose to first repot it into this great shell by William Vlanderen from the Netherlands. In the summer of 2004 this tree will be fully wired then.

 

Floods and my garden

A few have asked about my situation with all the floods in our part of Europe. Thanks for asking. It is true, not so far from my place roads are closed, lakes are filled and water is where it never was, mountains decided to slide, highways are closed, trains are not running.

Well, in my closer area nothing like this. I am most fortunate to live on an sort of hill where I never could get flood, no river or creek nearer than two miles, no avalanches, no  land slides, no hurricanes, just lots of rain. It rained without stop for ten days here and probably something like 35cm came down which is 14 inches and amounts to one third of our yearly rain.

The trees had enough water, that's for sure. I had transplanted some very late this year and took some risk. With all the moisture this has worked very well. All trees are standing in substrate. So no rain protection was necessary.

And, yes, my roof leaked a bit for the first time in 25 years. Now it is becoming sort of dry and summer is approaching for this week. With the warm weather everything will start to grow like crazy. This will be cutting week. With my famous hedge pruner I will go over all broadleaved trees and in addition start pinching hundreds of conifers.