Matt Reel - Bonsai Fundamentals Level 1 with Minnesota Bonsai Society

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MBS is trying to start a multi-year professional workshop series with Matt Reel (Reel Bonsai).

This year (2018) the Level 1 class starts out with two trees: a kishu shimpaku juniper and a trident maple (I'm posting this in Junipers because the maples didn't get much interesting work this weekend). The first year has two Saturday-Sunday sessions with Matt (May and September) and a "study group" session with the class members and some of the more knowledgable club members in June.

Students choose between "working" slots and "observing" slots. The working slots get the trees, and one day of working under Matt's guidance. My trees, before and after are below.

Juniper: kishu shimpaku - the trees were assigned randomly and I didn't have a lot of faith in this (first picture is after jinning one of three trunks and applying raffia - no branches moved yet).



After: looks like a bonsai, perhaps?



Here's the maple, "before" (matt is holding up the branch that he removed):



After:



Awkward section in need of fixing:

 

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Overall, I'm pleased with what I got out of this weekend, and I'm looking forward to future sessions. I was pretty skeptical when I received my juniper, and legitimately excited to help it develop now.

I'm also happy with the trident maple from the nebari to the first branch (which needs repositioning) Matt advised against doing too much work with these trees that had started to leaf out but hadn't hardened yet. It's clear that Matt and I have different tastes in deciduous tree design (I am a Walter Pall fan, he is not). Hopefully we'll get to see how that difference plays out over the next couple of years.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

That is excellent. Nothing like working with a pro on a regular basis. Nice job. That Juniper will develop quickly.