I love hearing the history of old bonsai, so I thought you guys might as well.
This tree was collected ca. 1995 by John Biel in preparation for the IBC '97 convention in Toronto. Dozens of cedars and larches were collected to be used as workshop material for that event, and afterwards they were dispersed around North America with their new owners. If you've seen or heard of a thuja or larix in the USA that was "collected in Canada some time ago", it was probably collected by Reiner Goebel or John Biel in the early '90s in preparation for the convention. John and Reiner are two of the old guard of the Toronto bonsai scene.
Marc Noelanders styled this larch during a workshop at IBC '97 and the new owner took it home. Unfortunately he passed away a year or two later and Reiner Goebel inherited the tree.
Fast forward to 2006 - Reiner was still the owner. Here is a picture of it near its prime in 2006:
Reiner is doing well, but as of this year is completely retired from bonsai. He has been selling off his trees over the last few years. I picked this one up in 2015, mainly because of the stunning Horst Heinzlreiter pot. The tree itself was "meh" and the biggest problem was the overgrown branches. It had not been pruned for a few years and most of the interior growth was dead. The tree was also quite weak - I don't think it had been repotted since the previous image in 2006 (9 years ago).
The best features of this tree are the stunning old bark and the exceptional nebari (collected larches with good nebari are very rare). To highlight these features, I removed the majority of the old branches. This was a difficult decision as the branches had incredible character and old bark all the way out to the secondary branches. However, major changes were necessary in order to come up with a design that brings out the key features of the tree and is sustainable for many years into the future.
The other day I sat down with this tree and did some rough wiring. This is the best solution I could come up with. I'm pretty sure it isn't better than the original design, but the important thing is this tree can be maintained in this image for a long time. I would really like to add a secondary trunk on the left side to make it a twin trunk, however it will be difficult to find a small larch which has comparable bark characteristics. Next year it will be planted either in a nanban container or on a flat stone.
This tree was collected ca. 1995 by John Biel in preparation for the IBC '97 convention in Toronto. Dozens of cedars and larches were collected to be used as workshop material for that event, and afterwards they were dispersed around North America with their new owners. If you've seen or heard of a thuja or larix in the USA that was "collected in Canada some time ago", it was probably collected by Reiner Goebel or John Biel in the early '90s in preparation for the convention. John and Reiner are two of the old guard of the Toronto bonsai scene.
Marc Noelanders styled this larch during a workshop at IBC '97 and the new owner took it home. Unfortunately he passed away a year or two later and Reiner Goebel inherited the tree.
Fast forward to 2006 - Reiner was still the owner. Here is a picture of it near its prime in 2006:
Reiner is doing well, but as of this year is completely retired from bonsai. He has been selling off his trees over the last few years. I picked this one up in 2015, mainly because of the stunning Horst Heinzlreiter pot. The tree itself was "meh" and the biggest problem was the overgrown branches. It had not been pruned for a few years and most of the interior growth was dead. The tree was also quite weak - I don't think it had been repotted since the previous image in 2006 (9 years ago).
The best features of this tree are the stunning old bark and the exceptional nebari (collected larches with good nebari are very rare). To highlight these features, I removed the majority of the old branches. This was a difficult decision as the branches had incredible character and old bark all the way out to the secondary branches. However, major changes were necessary in order to come up with a design that brings out the key features of the tree and is sustainable for many years into the future.
The other day I sat down with this tree and did some rough wiring. This is the best solution I could come up with. I'm pretty sure it isn't better than the original design, but the important thing is this tree can be maintained in this image for a long time. I would really like to add a secondary trunk on the left side to make it a twin trunk, however it will be difficult to find a small larch which has comparable bark characteristics. Next year it will be planted either in a nanban container or on a flat stone.
