Literati training !

bonhe

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I create this topic to post all my trees in literati training process.
I love literati style for its simplicity and grace.
I did a retrospective study of the literati style proportion in 25 literati bonsai, I found ratio of the height to the trunk base (H/B) is greater than 14. I think I must fulfill this ratio to get the elongated trunk which is one of characteristics of literati bonsai.
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Those are 8 years old Korean black pines.
1.
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2.
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3.
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4.
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In the first few years, they were heavily wired with all kind of directions (counterclockwise and clockwise alternatively). After that, the training has mainly been cut and grow technique.
Bonhe
 

Smoke

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Lookin real good. Even though these turns and twists are man made they look pretty natural already. With time they will really be good.
 
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bonhe

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[QUOTE="dirk hoorelbeke, post: 415585, member: 575"
. Literati is more poetry instead of stories. You have to fill in the meaning yourself.
Thanks for response. I think it is not hard for me :)

Be careful with repetition in the movement like in picture 4.
Yes, I know. It is why I used turns clockwise and counterclockwise alternatively. With tree 4, I plan to make some sharp turn downward later on to prevent the repetition.
Bonhe
 

bonhe

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Lookin real good. Even though these turns and twists are man made they look pretty natural already. With time they will really be good.
Thanks Smoke. I believe they will be really good when they turns into 20 years old! :) For some reason, it just fits to my mind that every tree will be looked very good from 20 years old. The older the tree, the better quality the tree is.
Bonhe
 

Silentrunning

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Bonhe, it appears that in literati you don’t want the massive trunk that is desirable in other styles. How do you keep the trunk at a uniform diameter? Your trees are beautiful and I hope to gain the skills to produce similar trees.
 

bonhe

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First time for me visiting this thread of yours, Thụ.
Impressive!
You have given me inspiration for a Chinese elm cutting I'm growing :)
Thank you!
Thanks my Nellie.
Chinese elm is perfect specimen for literati style! Please share with us your Chinese elm progression.

Bonhe, it appears that in literati you don’t want the massive trunk that is desirable in other styles. How do you keep the trunk at a uniform diameter? Your trees are beautiful and I hope to gain the skills to produce similar trees.
Thanks for your kind words.
Like I said, Chinese elm is much more easier to train for literati. If you have a young seedling or cutting, just let it be in the one gallon pot for years. Do not change soil. Just give it fertilizer, water and sunlight. Its trunk eventually will grow long and tall. When it is about 60 cm height, you start wiring and bending the trunk from the bottom to the upper third. Continue growing. Once in a while, you have to cut the trunk down to the lower branch and bring that branch up as a trunk to make a trunk taping. When you satisfy with the trunk line, then you can remove all the branches and transplant the tree to the bonsai pot in the cool time. (fall or winter in my place). The next spring, there are a lot of new shoots will emerge along the trunk line. At that time, you start picking which branch you want to keep for final design. I use the black marker to mark the kept branches. When the tree grows strong at that year, then I remove all the unnecessary branches. From the time you transplant the tree from the plastic pot to the bonsai pot, you can get some nice trees in 5 years! Hopefully this will help you and my Nellie .

With the black pine, it will be more time consume because you have to keep watching, bending and cut - grow technique. I have been using a lot of cut and grow technique to train my seedling black pines. The cut and grow technique help me get a natural looking tree easily but it takes a long time to get to a final stage. Patient, patient and patient is a key to do literati style.
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bonhe

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Because there is nothing major to do today due to rain, I just took these elm in to do some pruning for them.
The 1st picture was in 1/2017. The 2nd picture and so on was this morning.
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IMG_1331.jpg IMG_1333.jpg IMG_1334.jpg IMG_1335.jpg IMG_1332.jpg
Thụ Thoại
 
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