Blue Bell Windswept

grouper52

Masterpiece
Messages
2,377
Reaction score
3,718
Location
Port Orchard, WA
USDA Zone
8
This beauty is a Blue Bell windswept I got semi-finished from a fellow in the lowlands. It should grow well up here in the mountains, I am told. It's a popular tree here, and a pleasure to work with. The pot is 16" long and 4 1/2" high; The tree's top is 16" above the pot; the tree's overall length is 40", and the width 21".

This beauty came to me with the standard Filipino-style styling, which, although very nicely done by the award-winning collector/artist from whom I got it, puts strong emphasis on overly-stylized, wavy wrapped-wire foliage pads that look like "flattened-green-helmets," and which, unfortunately, dominate the aesthetic here. Over the past two weeks, I sought to bring out the tree's natural beauty in a more authentic way, as judged by my "naturalistic" standards, which go back to John Naka's original advice/admonition: "Don't make your tree look like a bonsai, make your bonsai look like a tree."

The foliage pads were so dense that they were also completely shading a very nice area of branching tucked away in the lower interior, where the lack of light and perhaps even adequate ventilation was resulting in distinctly pale foliage that looked like it was on its way to deadwood. I like deadwood, but not there, and my changes have brought that area back to robust health.

Trees very seldom grow in stylized foliage pads all pointing uniformly in one direction, even in windswept locations. So, besides thinning out the foliage significantly, I sought to give each branch and sub-branches a more varied, and hence more natural and more interesting, configuration, one that has the often unexpected twists and turns of a tree in nature.

The tree came with a modest amount of wrapped wiring. On some occasions this was useful, and I left it on, and in places even added my own. But I rely on wrapped wire mostly for "baby bending"(see my tutorial on this in the Resources area here at BNut), and greatly prefer using guy wires for actual branch placement whenever possible and practical. You can see quite a few of the many guy wires I placed here (many more hidden in these views), and they will stay on until their work is done in a few more weeks.

I offer two views that show the preliminary work/progress. The first view shows it directly from the side as it came to me. The second view, rotated about 30-45 degrees, and with not only offers a more pleasing view of the foliage and branch structure, but also honors the tree's deadwood with increased exposure. My upgrades and re-acquaintance with my photographic equipment and software proceeds apace, but is still in a less-than-ideal state at this stage. Even so, I think the photos turned out well enough: Enjoy!

BB-1.jpg BB Turned-1.jpg
 

Vin

Imperial Masterpiece
Messages
5,257
Reaction score
7,645
Location
Panama City, FL Zone 9a/8b Centr
USDA Zone
8b
Will, for some reason your trees get my artistic juices flowing. What a wonderful find to complement your new home. You may be in a place that has unfamiliar flora but you certainly haven't lost your eye for quality material.

I wondered what the tree may look like without the bottom branch. For me, it lacks harmony with the rest of the tree, or maybe it's just because I'm not seeing it in person.

BB Turned-1.2.jpg
 

grouper52

Masterpiece
Messages
2,377
Reaction score
3,718
Location
Port Orchard, WA
USDA Zone
8
I wondered what the tree may look like without the bottom branch. For me, it lacks harmony with the rest of the tree, or maybe it's just because I'm not seeing it in person.

Thanks for your kind words, Vin.

And, as they say, "Great minds think alike," or should I say, "Great eyes see alike." Yes: that bottom branch is hideous IMHO, a real eyesore - especially from the side angle you posted, and the tree would look so, so much more beautiful without it ... Yes, I couldn't agree with you more ... however, there is the "Wife Factor," and my initial thinking-out-loud statement that I was even considering getting rid of it or trimming it back into a tame jin, or do anything else to it, elicited such menacing statements about her retaliatory plans to relieve me of my lowest appendage if I tampered with it, that I was forced to accept the fact that I'd be wise to leave the ugly thing alone ... a shame, really.
 

Vin

Imperial Masterpiece
Messages
5,257
Reaction score
7,645
Location
Panama City, FL Zone 9a/8b Centr
USDA Zone
8b
Thanks for your kind words, Vin.

And, as they say, "Great minds think alike," or should I say, "Great eyes see alike." Yes: that bottom branch is hideous IMHO, a real eyesore - especially from the side angle you posted, and the tree would look so, so much more beautiful without it ... Yes, I couldn't agree with you more ... however, there is the "Wife Factor," and my initial thinking-out-loud statement that I was even considering getting rid of it or trimming it back into a tame jin, or do anything else to it, elicited such menacing statements about her retaliatory plans to relieve me of my lowest appendage if I tampered with it, that I was forced to accept the fact that I'd be wise to leave the ugly thing alone ... a shame, really.
LOL! The "Wife Factor", I didn't see that one coming but good call on maintaining peace in the household.
 

grouper52

Masterpiece
Messages
2,377
Reaction score
3,718
Location
Port Orchard, WA
USDA Zone
8
LOL! The "Wife Factor", I didn't see that one coming but good call on maintaining peace in the household.

Well, Vin, your well-thought-out virt without that branch, and some subtle negotiations on my part, as well as input from our "driver" who is a brother-in-law of hers, has already softened my wife from the absolute stand she initially took. I owe you a big one if I can pull this off sometime soon!
 

grouper52

Masterpiece
Messages
2,377
Reaction score
3,718
Location
Port Orchard, WA
USDA Zone
8
An update, status post 1) re-pot into a slightly bigger and deeper pot, and 2) slight rotation to show the deadwood base better, and 3) my decision, - seeing the improved visuals with the first two changes, and factoring this in with the wife factor - to keep the bottom branch. Enjoy.

BlueBell6:5:18.jpg
 

sorce

Nonsense Rascal
Messages
32,908
Reaction score
45,579
Location
Berwyn, Il
USDA Zone
6.2
I like the way that branch ignorantly mimics the entire length of the pot lip.

A high quality FU!

Only the knob at the end bothers me.

This new material seems will adjust your regular style.
I look forward to it!

Sorce
 

grouper52

Masterpiece
Messages
2,377
Reaction score
3,718
Location
Port Orchard, WA
USDA Zone
8
I like the way that branch ignorantly mimics the entire length of the pot lip.

A high quality FU!

LOL! One can always hope all ones FU's are of the very utmost quality!

This new material seems will adjust your regular style.
I look forward to it!

Sorce

I'm intrigued: just what is my "regular" style, Sorce? And how will the new material change it? Inquiring minds just gots to know!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Vin

sorce

Nonsense Rascal
Messages
32,908
Reaction score
45,579
Location
Berwyn, Il
USDA Zone
6.2
I'm intrigued: just what is my "regular" style

Damn! I just went to look for it and reviewed the album....of which...I can also see the deleted images thru a slight smoke screen...

And....there's a lot more than I've seen in threads!

But in my mind...was like the crypto...the Austrian pine....a couple others...

With the big trunks and "branches where we get them" that you manage to bring into nice images....

Maybe it's just my own yearning to bimble in the tropics with some of this new material...

But this stuff seems to already have branches everywhere...and leaves small enough to better pull off what you do...

Giant trunks...but with small trunks too that the monkeys run across before jumping up into another fruiting canopy....

I guess too sum it up in one line...

The "adjustment" would be..

A 30-50% more appropriate "scale" to your work.

Which...IMO...is going to allow you to create some of the best trees you ever have in right short time!

Any handicap you have in the new climate, the new "bonsai availability" to you...will be overcome by the fact that you've been handicapped here.

Eh...Pretty Sure I'm just happy to see you well enough there to already, and still, be posting interesting trees...WITH interesting text!

Lol! Not the FluBug post....not that feeling...

But the other thing you been feeling while acquiring this material....and sitting with it on the benches, while rekindling a love for a root hook....

Whatever that is...that's the "adjustment".

It's friggin exciting.

You know what....that is why I like the text so much. Things like "my friend the root hook", are so much more telling, more promising than, "where should I cut this", or "here is my trident maple I am the best at growing", or, "this is the same JBP I've shown every year and, here it is again...after I restyled it to look....exactly the same as it was when I showed it to you the last 7 years..."

Fucking Boring!

Maybe all the input allows you to better output...the exciting human emotion behind this thing...

Bimbling...it's highly appropriate.

When Frantic, one can not simply enjoy the smell of the morning, it also may be overpowered by the smell of "death in a bottle", more commonly known as pesticides.

De...cide...

Is the only "cide" we need.

Since I decided to "bimble"...

Everything grows better....
And there is so much more to enjoy!

Thanks for not ...going extinct.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120509154240.htm

Sorce
 

grouper52

Masterpiece
Messages
2,377
Reaction score
3,718
Location
Port Orchard, WA
USDA Zone
8
LOL Sorce, LOL!!!

To paraphrase Mark Twain, BTW - Rumors of my extinction have been greatly exaggerated ...

But perhaps others of my kind are pining for the fjords - very sad.

I always love your posts, and what they hint at regarding the workings of your mind - one of the most astute, cleverly inventive, and down-right fascinatring ones to me - and this post just validates my hunches. You "get" things much more insightfully than I even do as I go through them. You appreciate the "bimbling" mode of bonsai-ing, and the freedoms and possibilities which that relaxed - but also exciting - attitude offers, which has certainly allowed me to work with the challenges here, as well as appreciate the wealth of all the readily available and wonderfully affordable starter material one can happen across here.

I wake before dawn most days here, eat a frugal breakfast, and then make a cup of coffee, and another cup of a local herbal tea, and take the hot coffee and tea up onto the veranda of our rental home, and just sit there on a chair or a mat and simply enjoy my trees while the sun comes up. My days are pretty unstructured, so I often go back out there to relax for a couple of stretches throughout the day, piddle around with whatever tree catches my attention in whatever way, and yes - the material here is just heavenly for whatever free-form style or bimbling inventiveness I feel it wants me to bring out. And the lack of conifers, at first a horror to me, allows a much more relaxed and free-wheeking approach to things as well - a most unexpected blessing.

I'm sad to hear that many of my album trees have been deleted: not sure why, but it'd be nice if that was reversed somehow ... lots of recent changes here. Oh well.

Anyway, many thanks for appreciating all that and more, and I'm glad to hear my influence has you bimbling along enjoying the hobby more, and that things are even growing better that way!
 

sorce

Nonsense Rascal
Messages
32,908
Reaction score
45,579
Location
Berwyn, Il
USDA Zone
6.2
Thank you Sir!

You didn't delete the album files?

They are still there...it may even be only my end...
If it is of concern...I believe I can fix it.
Later.

Sorce
 

grouper52

Masterpiece
Messages
2,377
Reaction score
3,718
Location
Port Orchard, WA
USDA Zone
8
You didn't delete the album files?

Sorce

Hey Sorce - soon after I posted that I went to look at the album, and I saw nothing deleted of with a screened image. I know that during the EU pre-nastiness there were warnings to get accounts in order of albums may take some kind of hit - I forget the details, but as I said it looks all intact from my end.
 

grouper52

Masterpiece
Messages
2,377
Reaction score
3,718
Location
Port Orchard, WA
USDA Zone
8
Hummmmm ... Not my best photos, but I don't know who/why/when they were deleted. There are still 56 there, though, and one is a very nice winter image of the hornbeam, better than the one deleted IMHO. Oh well.
 
Top Bottom