So, Ume styling....I just googled some english-language pages on what I was referring to:
http://www.phutu.com/ume-in-japan/ (the pics in here,
that's what got me going on Ume-style for bougies!)
https://bonsaitonight.com/2017/03/10/making-big-cut-ume-bonsai/
Wikipedia's entry for Ume or
"Prunus Mume"
https://peterteabonsai.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/japanese-flowering-plum-basics/
And for context, for bougies I'm referring to collected/mature stock only, and for Umes I'm referring to the "traditional" (maybe "current"?) style I see the nicest ones trending towards:
^a beautiful contrast of delicate&vibrant flowers on a rough, aged trunk- so beautiful!
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Sooo, early this year I saw pictures of how people style (some)Umes and fell in love, examples like the Ume (Umes?) from the first link in this post, anyways it's an Asian specie and I'm here in FL....where bougies are abundant....so I couldn't help but want an Ume-styled bougie, however I found that as this growing-season progressed I was styling more and more into "ume style" so I've wanted to bring the topic up to you guys for **any&all** input/thoughts/suggestions/criticism/etc as I'm still becoming more drawn to styling many of my bougies "like Umes"!
Now, this wouldn't/doesn't work with all bougies, but if you read the last url I linked in this ^ post, you'll see how craggy&beautiful the Ume bark is - they also discuss how susceptible it is to rot and heavy die-back (just like bougies) So when I say it doesn't necessarily work well w/ all bougies, what I'm saying is it seems much more applicable to collected bougie w/ mature bark (I think it's a bark issue primarily and size issue secondarily, you can work-around size with careful styling & creative potting/positioning/forced perspectives/etc but the rough bark seems almost requisite for a good look here, it's the juxtaposition of craggy bark & deadwood against the flowers that make 'that look', no?) So, flowers- the Ume just blooms once a year
but, while the flowers aren't that similar upon close inspection, they do have tons of similarities when viewing an entire canopy of them, the Ume flowers are a bit smaller but not by much (and flower size, as well as flower-to-tree size, are obviously never set in stone for any specimen) and while they're only out once a year they last ~a month (similar to a bougie, though bougies are closer to 2mo often enough!)
What I'd consider "proper" Bougainvillea styling, IE actually developing branches that have taper/hierarchy, is something I've had trouble putting my finger on, sometimes I'll see beautiful specimen where they're developing branches like, yknow, like it's an actual tree:
this guy, despite the weird trunk base:
Even this guy
when in flower almost "looks like a tree could look like":
,
, however so often I see large bougie stock treated/developed in a manner where it's like the artist is simply trying to see how many nodes they can get within a 4-6" perimeter around the stump,
stuff like this
or this
, however those are by e.wigert & g.potter respectively so they're about as perfect a picture of "that style" as you can get, what I see so much of with 'developed bougies' is some half-way mix between going for a proper branching structure, and going for something that's only going to look good when in-flower. These two examples are the best I could find with a quick search, but I find most develop their bougies' styles in a manner somewhere in-between these two styles.
Anyways the beauty of the Ume(s) I'd seen had me wanting to use that approach
if & when a bougie wouldn't conform to something else- it's almost a last-ditch styling effort/effect, in that it's something that could be one on material where you just look at it think
"there is no way that could be made into a bonsai"! But, done well, I think it's incredible, the only thing is that the Ume 'styling movement' is really emphasizing its "only good when in-flower" approach, building large branching networks that look like tangled (but oddly attractive in a sense) messes when not in-flower, and being just a spectacular color-show when in-flower.
To that end & as mentioned I've started styling some material that way, while I've got a lot more that were heavily influenced by the Ume styling I'm selecting these specimen to share because they're the most
"what could you possibly do with that?" specimen that I've styled (begun styling!) this way, these two were actually from the same ~15" wide block I collected a couple yrs ago and, after some time, had to separate into 4 or 5 individual specimen:
this one ("cobra bougie", lol ;D ) is certainly not going to look "like a real tree" in my lifetime:
, and this one wouldn't go far in any traditional style either:
(although I should mention that, for this latter one, all the foliage should be to the left and the trunk probably tilted a bit more leftward, it's simply potted how it is because that's where I stuck it when worrying about 'cobra' when splitting that 15" bougie-stump up and I simply haven't re-potted or wired it yet
except a screw into the top/chop-area so I could anchor one of the two primaries to the left, the other was already going that way but one wasn't and needed guiding quick as it was getting too thick)
Those are a couple of many I have that are like that, but hopefully they illustrate the style intended, especially when compared to stuff more like this bougie, where I'm aiming to style it "natural" so that even when fully defoliated it's beautiful just bare-branched:
, or when compared to my attempts at "lots of nodes close to a stump":
or even my first real attempt at W.Pall's description of a
Fairy Tale style approach:
(this is Cerberus, photo doesn't show that those 3 fat limbs are half shari/deadwood, good pics in my
imgur prog.album of its initial styling after grow-out, and to see the silly, root-less stump that I initially brought home here's the
summer grow-out prog.album) Would love to hear
@Walter Pall 's thoughts on Ume style if he cares to share, I know those aren't his bag and that he's far more into naturalistic styling but I've never heard someone describe styling-in-general so understandably as him!!
So, thoughts on the bougie's suitability for ume-styling would be greatly appreciated, thanks in-advance for any thoughts (pos or negative!) on this one, am sick of being "in limbo" having material that will never take to naturalistic style and not knowing what to do with it, I think the ume approach is a fantastic choice in many such circumstances!