Real hedging and development the Smoke way!!!

Adair M

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I find it usual that people that haven't made anything finished yet are always the ones that make disparaging remarks about other peoples trees like wizard hat maples or @AlainK and @sorce with the broccoli remarks.

I thought the progressives were about tolerance and togetherness. A lot of people have this conceived notion about who I am. The meme thread is one, and this one and a couple other recent ones. All try to put their spin on who I am. I'm just a guy who makes some decent little trees in his backyard and shares what he does. I am passionate about what I do and when I see someone throw stones, I call them out.


For the record @derek7745 the correct term for the style is "one , two, back branch style" a term coined by John Naka. A term I have called it for decades, and most of the bonsai people I hang with. It is a style that is used because the trunk is singular, exaggerated taper with some side to side movement and front to back movement. The apex usually finishes over the nebari and the branches are laid out with a first branch, a opposite second branch, on the out side of the curves and a back branch, placed at a back third of the trunk circumference so you can see some of it from the front. The tree is finished to the top in the same order repeated until you run out of trunk.

It doesn't matter what species is used because the nature of the trunk formation leaves you no other avenues to style the tree in. One is stuck with 1,2 back branch. It has been showed in every book that I have ever owned and is still shown today. Not once in my 35 years of bonsai, or in the books decades before that have I ever heard the term "wizard hat tree". I find the term offensive and I know why you use it.

View attachment 252342 View attachment 252343
Al, what happened to “pine tree style”? Has “wizard hat” replaced it as a name?

Alas...

I have a very nice juniper that Walter Pall called “broccoli”. I wear that insult as a crown.
 

Adair M

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I find it usual that people that haven't made anything finished yet are always the ones that make disparaging remarks about other peoples trees like wizard hat maples or @AlainK and @sorce with the broccoli remarks.

I thought the progressives were about tolerance and togetherness. A lot of people have this conceived notion about who I am. The meme thread is one, and this one and a couple other recent ones. All try to put their spin on who I am. I'm just a guy who makes some decent little trees in his backyard and shares what he does. I am passionate about what I do and when I see someone throw stones, I call them out.


For the record @derek7745 the correct term for the style is "one , two, back branch style" a term coined by John Naka. A term I have called it for decades, and most of the bonsai people I hang with. It is a style that is used because the trunk is singular, exaggerated taper with some side to side movement and front to back movement. The apex usually finishes over the nebari and the branches are laid out with a first branch, a opposite second branch, on the out side of the curves and a back branch, placed at a back third of the trunk circumference so you can see some of it from the front. The tree is finished to the top in the same order repeated until you run out of trunk.

It doesn't matter what species is used because the nature of the trunk formation leaves you no other avenues to style the tree in. One is stuck with 1,2 back branch. It has been showed in every book that I have ever owned and is still shown today. Not once in my 35 years of bonsai, or in the books decades before that have I ever heard the term "wizard hat tree". I find the term offensive and I know why you use it.

View attachment 252342 View attachment 252343
Al, what happened to “pine tree style”? Has “wizard hat” replaced it as a name?

Alas...

I have a very nice juniper that Walter Pall called “broccoli”. I wear that insult as a crown.
 

Smoke

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you don't need to make wine yourself to be a sommelier, or a painter to be an art critic, or a hockey player to judge a play



I find it catchy, like 'hedge pruning'. But 'hedge pruning' is Walter's term. You can have Wizard Hat Tridents. I hope @Rafael Najmanovich puts together a little youtube video on Al Keppler's Wizard Hat Trident Methodology. I may do a blog-post on it myself if I get around to setting up a blog.

i noticed you removed a few sections on tridents on your website. just routine website maintenance?
you don't need to make wine yourself to be a sommelier, or a painter to be an art critic, or a hockey player to judge a play



I find it catchy, like 'hedge pruning'. But 'hedge pruning' is Walter's term. You can have Wizard Hat Tridents. I hope @Rafael Najmanovich puts together a little youtube video on Al Keppler's Wizard Hat Trident Methodology. I may do a blog-post on it myself if I get around to setting up a blog.

i noticed you removed a few sections on tridents on your website. just routine website maintenance?
Cool, I see now that treating people like this is Ok with you. My new name for you will be "wanna be". I find that catchy.
 

Smoke

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But I have decided to put you back on ignore. I just find your demeanor off putting.

See ya.
 

sorce

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I just Don't see hedging as "refinement" like those nice trees you posted.

But I like more thought in every action.

I genuinely thought the techniques were confused.

Kinda still do.

I quit smoking cigarettes.

Can't quit Smoke.

Sorce
 

sorce

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Hedging as refinement for me is the action those bikini chicks do on that commercial.

Cut to shape.

I want good branching.

Sorce
 

Sekibonsai

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I just Don't see hedging as "refinement" like those nice trees you posted.

But I like more thought in every action.

I genuinely thought the techniques were confused.

Kinda still do.

I quit smoking cigarettes.

Can't quit Smoke.

Sorce
For once I agree with Sorce... I don't see this as a refinement technique either. To me it is more of a ramification development technique. Although depending on one's vision "natural"/sloppy or even a topiary-like form versus an OCD/organized one this might (almost) be all you ever do.
 

sorce

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Amen, refinement being the "editing", as WP calls it.

Sorce
 

amcoffeegirl

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I don’t think Bonsai is a competition with others. It is a competition with you and your tree.
No trees are alike based on environment and stock. As some in this thread have been comparing trees shown to each other- that is ridiculous.
Why not just try the method and see what you find over a few years time.
Then you can truly weigh in on results produced.
If you don’t like it and don’t want to try it then don’t but why trash talk it if you have no interest in it? Strange.
 

Adair M

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Guys, my issue with the whole “hedging” thing is ramification is easy. It’s the “structure” thing that’s hard to achieve! By structure, I’m talking about having primary, secondary, tertiary branches (and then twigs) with subtle movement, taper, short internodes, etc. Once all THAT is in place, ramification takes care of itself!

As I see it, the problem with many, many deciduous bonsai trees is ramification is started before the tree is ready. They look good in the summer, then in winter, that’s when the truth is revealed.

A minor problem with hedging tridents is if a trident is cut back to the same node repeatedly, a knob can form. New leaves can start, new shoots can start, but a knob looks bad when viewed in the winter. Hedging repeatedly back to the same profile can and does create these knobs. These would then have to be removed.
 
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I don't like deciduous trees with this aesthetics with grotesquely exaggerated tapper and/or nebari. Even when I can recognize that they are superb from a technical point of view where one can see the top quality of the work in producing refined branches (not the case of the tree in the image above which I don't know who it belongs to or who created it).
 

electronfusion

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The photos and techniques shown in this thread have been enlightening. Thanks, @Smoke !

I'm sure Walter Pall is famous for a reason, that I'll find out through later Google searches, but I don't see it in his multitrunk maple(s). I'd be happy to produce a wizard hat tree myself. While originally meant as a pejoritive, it just sounds to me like a more evocative, concise name for "informal upright."

I realize the next part of my comment is off topic, but this quote piqued my curiosity.

Now today the scars are barely visible. They will continue to disappear as time goes on and if I didn't tell you, one would never know there was wire in the trunk.

Now, since bonsai will ideally live longer than their owners, thereby changing owners at least once, the above sounds like a possible safety hazard. If you sold a tree, would you tell them it has wire in it? Would you remember which ones do? When you carve an inherited tree, let's say with a power drill, are there precautions you take in case of unforeseen bits of metal inside?
 
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I do this part continually thru July via hedging the canopy. This keeps internodes small, and keeps buds in a constant state of activity. Throw "harden off" out of the vocabulary, it is a gardening term from a century ago that has no meaning in this method. Keep in mind this is for broadleaf trees that bud easily not conifers that would die a day later if you did this.



This part of your quote is done in fall the first week after leaf fall. I set a long board between two ladders and stack up six or seven trees on the board and just go thru them like an assembly line and prune out what I don't want. I can do this very quickly. I need to, just in maples I will have about 50 to do. Not counting elms, hornbeams, and zelcova.

With hedging it is possible and you will, get small knuckles at the ends of some branches. this is because it gets pruned back to the same spot continually. But, what you are doing is allowing everything else to grow to that spot and even out the exterior of the canopy and look equal. In the fall, just cut the knuckle back half an inch shorter than the outline and allow it to get rehedged the following year. Eventually it all evens out and you can keep it in that shape. In fact by that time the tree will have developed a memory and actually doesn't seem to grow much out of the shape.

I hope this all makes sense.

So @Smoke, are you, in a sense...

1. Hedging the final crown shape of the tree as branches grow past the final shape of the crown?

or

2. Are you hedging near the trunk and moving further and further away from the trunk with each hedging?

I've been doing some research on this technique and this is literally the only part of the process I don't fully understand.

Thanks in advance for sharing your process!
 
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