A Transient Art

[Jason]

I always like to think of bonsai as living sculpture. The fact that it's never finished can seem kind of romantic but it's transience can also be really really frustrating.

Case and point. Here's my morning: I'm running kind of late for work and I'm in sort of a hurry but I scan some of my trees on my deck on the way out. To my surprise I find that my Hemlock (collected about 7 years ago and in training for a about 3-4years) no longer has an apex. After questioning my two kindergarteners (twin girls) one of them confesses she broke it off yesterday by smacking it with the bottom of a hummingbird feeder (?) because "it looked kinda dead". Trying not to flip out on the kid I'm on the way out a different door when their new kitten flys through the air and lands smack on top of my 4 ft tall jade plant/bonsai and snaps the top off! What the hell? Tomorrow I'll spend my day trying to wire up a new apex(on the hemlock). Then I'll wait another 4 years for it to grow

One step forward, two steps back?

 

[milehigh_7]

Awesome perspective. Hold on loosely to the image you have created and allow room for nature to run its course. I suppose we have to learn to be in rhythm with the changes that the environment makes on our trees.

 

[Brian Underwood]

I was at a friend's garden this weekend and caught one of his cats clawing the bark of a collected juniper (maybe a $1000 tree...). His reaction was "Shes working on the deadwood." This may be the more relaxed attitude we should take, but perhaps not that extreme...

 

[Greg Brenden]

I wouldn't worry much about the bark of a juniper; pine is another story. The birds around here pick away at the bark of my pines looking for insects

 

[Bill S]

Jason, it could have been worse, it could have landed on the back of your head, and neck, with claws extended. At that age what passes for a good idea can be quite baffeling.

So far, all I have found is some trees watered when I wasn't around, with the occasional something stuck in a pot to grow into a bonsai. At least your is styling them.

Hard to stay mad isn't it????

 

[GerhardG]

Casual worker (occasionally refered to as garden engineers) did a number on a tree with a leaf blower Saturday.

No kids for me, but at 6'5" I guess I could just build 6' stands if I had any!

 

[rockm]

Think of it as a process of aging--except the "weathering" is being done not by storms, howling winds and snow load, but by flying felines and kindergarteners (which is probably the same thing, only it takes less time).

My old bull terrier chewed the top out of a specimen hinoki cypress one summer. Up until then, I had been unable to come up with a decent design idea for that tree, even though I had had it five years or so. The bullie had a better "eye" than me, as the tree wound up looking better with his "design" than anything I had come up with... Sadly, both the bullie and the tree are gone now and I miss the dog a lot more than the tree.