Beginners
I clearly make a difference in judging beginners, intermediate and advanced. While some may think that I am quite candid with intermediate and advanced I do know that it is important to make folks somehow happy who tried hard. What I am not so fond of is when intermediate of even advanced folks produce results that qualify for beginners in my cook book. Anyway, thank you all for participating.
1) pyracantha
material: good choice. Difficult material for beginners.
Result: for this kind of material very nice. A high very elegant tree. I like the movement of the trunk which was not apparent on the starting picture. I understand that you have protected the trunk because of heavy bending. Good work
critique: not much wrong her. This tree is well on it's way. Styling when the tree already has foliage and flower buds is a bit critical. But I think it will cope with it.
Ranking: number two of beginners
2) buxus,
material: very good choice of material for this kind of challenge. Very appropriate for informal broom form
result: very good! I really like this. This will be a great broom very soon. The nebari seems to be very good, the placement of sub-trunks is very fine.
Critique: The guy wires are not beautiful, but very effective. This kind of tree can well be styled with many guy wires alone. No minus points for that. Proportions of the whole tree are very good. You have made the best of the material that you have started with. This is better than most entries for intermediate and advanced.
Ranking: number one of beginners
3) ilex
material, good choice, good material
result: rather formal broom form, which is appropriate for a broadleaved tree.
Critique: I assume you left the center shoot for health and good growth of the tree. Fine! So I just regard this as sacrifice branch for the future and not part of the design. You have wired most branches, could have wired also he smallest ones. There are not so many. Then you have bent the branches down . Too straight for my taste. This makes the whole thing looking quite stiff. I think you should have take much thicker wire and made some gentle curves into all branches., whit the tips going upward.
Ranking: number three of beginners together with a few others.
4) rhododenron
material: good choice, this is excellent and cheap material for bonsai.
Result: good start of an informal broom form.
Critique:I like the fact that you make a rhododenron (which really is an azalea) into a broom because this is absolutely not standard. Practically all azaleas are styled to look like artificial pine trees with flowers. It is much more appropriate to make the look like a broadleaved tree – which is what you did. This does not look very good for an untrained eye. Fro my eye it is a good start and will result in a lot of back budding. This will be a fine broom in a couple of years. Then you will be able to cut back some of the too long branches and make the crown more compact.
Ranking: number three of beginners together with a few others.
5) rododendron or rather azalea
material: good choice, good material
result: good start for an unusual twin trunk. Very good nebari already!°
critique: you made the right choices for the branches. I think you could have wired everything and it wold look MUCH better immediately.
Ranking: number three of beginners together with a few others.
6) buxus
material: very good choice of material
result: this is a good start for long term development.
critique You could have used a lot more branches and created a convincing instant broom form right away. For a challenge like this you want to have a nice looking result. But this will continue and we will see how this will have developed next time.
Ranking: number three of beginners together with a few others.
7) ilex,
material: good choice, good material
result: informal broom form.
Critique: fine, good start. This will be nice one day. Unfortunately the nebari is not so good. You could have tested the nebari in the shop where I suppose they had more of those. .You could have found one with better nebari. Unfortunately it is very difficult to improve a poor nebari. So you better start with a good one right away. The whole thing looks stiff to me. I think you could have bent the branches down and then up at the tips again. You also could have wired all the small branches too.
Ranking: number three of beginners together with a few others.