Looking back….we can tell a tree’s story…..admire an image…..capture a moment…..remember a special event…..be inspired – to create a memory for tomorrow.
I hope you enjoy this regular peep into some of John’s bonsai history.
Memory Lane – Deadwood alive and well at Newstead 4 September 2010
Deadwood on bonsai…..jins and shari……some people love it, some people hate it.
We don’t just create it for fun, to let off steam, or get some kind of weird primitive fix.
There was one bonsai show where I remember being quizzed by a guy about how far we could go in creating deadwood. As always I was trying to be helpful and constructive but the conversation suddenly took a strange twist towards carving symbols/letters on the trunk of a bonsai…….I guess I just lost interest pretty quickly.
Deadwood used wisely and skilfully can transform an otherwise dull uninteresting tree. It can camouflage pruning cuts and unsightly scars. It can help us create taper and movement in a problematic trunk. It can dramatically age young material to appear to be a hundred years old.
Deadwood can truthfully reflect the hardship of nature and it’s effect on our landscape brining a new dimension to your rock or slab planting.
Sometimes deadwood can take over the tree becoming almost a living sculpture with just a small amount of foliage to keep the tree alive. This abstract form can produce some really dramatic results.
With Junipers and Taxus in particular it is the stark contrast between the red bark, the green foliage and the white deadwood that produces those pristine bonsai images from Japan that inspires most bonsai enthusiasts to greater things.
Love it or hate it our bonsai world would be a sadder place without it. The images here are of some of the trees exhibited at our Newstead event in 2010. The subtle use of the shari in these trees adds so much to their intrinsic charm…….I couldn’t have imagined the exhibition without them.
DEAD OR ALIVE ?…….it’s your decision, it’s your tree, take your time, make it right……just remember there is no going back!………make sure it is just what you WANTED!