Aha! Learning moments.

[caffeinated]

What are some of your Aha! moments? Moments where you saw, read, tried something different, or just finally understood an aspect of the art, that lead to a moment of joy or an increase in confidence in your abilities as a bonsai artist.

One of my instant ones was after trying to get wounds to heal on trunks long term by slowly healing over, I made an uro on one, and the tree was instantly transformed into something attractive with potential vs. a prebonsai with an ugly wound.

A slowly learned one for me was in the early days, I would lose trees in the spring to fungal issues not fully understanding what was happening. I read about systemics and applying lime sulfur as a dormant spray and that changed all my future spring growth for the better.

I’d love to hear some of yours.

 

[Lutonian]

best Aha moment

 

[leatherback]

A few years ago I realized the difference between a living and growing juniper, and a healthy juniper and what a difference it makes in styling..

Ittoigawa juniper

This juniper has been with me a reasonable amount of time, and is sort of my ittoigawa teacher. I bought it from someone in the UK, who had it from a batch of trees imported from Japan. As he himself was moving abroad, he was selling his stock. I was planning attending a big weekend-long...

www.bonsainut.com

 

[Lutonian]

No real epiphany moments, just lots of piecing small clues together to slowly reveal the bigger picture.

 

[Carol 83]

When I joined here, after floundering around on my own for awhile.

 

[rockm]

When I read Peter Chan's "Bonsai Masterclass" book in 1993. First time I had seen pictures of field-grown "trunk chopped" trees being dug up and reduced. A game changer for me after doing bonsai for a few years before. This may sound silly, but this was Pre-Internet. There were no online references, it was books and clubs --and the clubs were only as good as their best member's willingness to talk to you...

 

[Paradox]

When I finally realized that we keep trees small by periodically cutting back to interior growth once the current growth gets too long.
Linking that with all the things we do throughout the year to maintain/promote that interior growth so that it can happen

Finally getting enough knowledge to be brave enough to work on my own trees to accomplish the above

 

[Katie0317]

Before I started buying bonsai I forced myself to learn about perched water and how it relates to bonsai. Am so glad I got it. Am right brain dominant so had to force myself through some pretty dull material. Someone told me on another forum that if I didn't understand it I'd never 'get' bonsai so I did it. Glad I did.

 

[just.wing.it]

After my 8th Japanese Maple death.... I said to myself, " Aha! I can't keep Japanese Maples alive!"
Haven't killed one since.

...cuz i haven't obtained another since.....

Might try again next year though....been a few years, started paying more attention to proactive treatments and such....

 

[chicago1980]

What are some of your Aha! moments? Moments where you saw, read, tried something different, or just finally understood an aspect of the art, that lead to a moment of joy or an increase in confidence in your abilities as a bonsai artist.

One of my instant ones was after trying to get wounds to heal on trunks long term by slowly healing over, I made an uro on one, and the tree was instantly transformed into something attractive with potential vs. a prebonsai with an ugly wound.

A slowly learned one for me was in the early days, I would lose trees in the spring to fungal issues not fully understanding what was happening. I read about systemics and applying lime sulfur as a dormant spray and that changed all my future spring growth for the better.

I’d love to hear some of yours.

Lost my best juniper by bad re pot technique

 

[penumbra]

After my 8th Japanese Maple death.... I said to myself, " Aha! I can't keep Japanese Maples alive!"
Haven't killed one since.

...cuz i haven't obtained another since.....

Might try again next year though....been a few years, started paying more attention to proactive treatments and such....

I hope you get it figured out because your climate is perfect.

 

[Coppersdad]

When Dave DeGroot asked me the question, "What story do you want your tree to tell?"

 

[amcoffeegirl]

There have been several along the way.
I used to get mad because my ficus never grew. I had to learn to let them grow. Put the pruners away.
Water as needed- check each tree, don’t water on a schedule.
You can read a lot but you have to find out what works for you. That means you have to be brave enough to try different things until you have success.

 

[63pmp]

Went to a conference with special guest Mr Kimura many years ago. Among a number of things I learnt, the game changer was his advice to be good at bonsai, one needs to do lots of practice, and to get lots of practice you need access to a lot of trees.

 

[Potawatomi13]

Visit #1 to Ryan Neils garden 2014. Seeing movement/contortions of Ponderosa Pine Yamadori unbelievable to behold. Huge lesson of possibilities without a word said. Second was recommendation to use Pumice as substrate as ideal for pines.