rich415
Mame
There has been a lot of discussion about getting cheap trees to work on in order to learn basic horticulture and technique. I would like to share one of my learning trees and what I have learned (and not learned) in the process.
I started Bonsai in June of 2009. So I have not been doing it that long at all. I had no horticulture experience, no artistic bone in my body, and no ground "to plant it in an let it thicken up."
I bought a $7 dollar "Tam" Juniper with a one inch trunk and did not know what to do with it. It wasn't my first tree but it was my first conifer. I cut off a bunch of branches then stopped because I did not know what the heck i was doing or how I should proceed with styling. It sat on my deck while I continued buying other trees and learning from them.
Last spring the tree spoke to me finally and I styled it in the windswept form. (yeah, I know a predictable form for newbies with crud material.)
Here is what it looked like:
Lesson #1: Patience. I killed a few other trees by cutting too much too fast because I was unsure of how to proceed with styling. This juniper's foilage is leggy and does not lend itself to nice fluffy foilage pads like shimpaku. I had to find a style that would work for this tree's foilage and faults.
Lesson #2: creating dead wood. This was the first jin and Shari I made. It's not the best but I bought a dremel and took the plunge. I can only improve from here. No one can improve if they never attempt it in the first place.
Lesson #3: I kept it alive.
This post is getting really long...
Thanks for looking,
Rich
I started Bonsai in June of 2009. So I have not been doing it that long at all. I had no horticulture experience, no artistic bone in my body, and no ground "to plant it in an let it thicken up."
I bought a $7 dollar "Tam" Juniper with a one inch trunk and did not know what to do with it. It wasn't my first tree but it was my first conifer. I cut off a bunch of branches then stopped because I did not know what the heck i was doing or how I should proceed with styling. It sat on my deck while I continued buying other trees and learning from them.
Last spring the tree spoke to me finally and I styled it in the windswept form. (yeah, I know a predictable form for newbies with crud material.)
Here is what it looked like:
Lesson #1: Patience. I killed a few other trees by cutting too much too fast because I was unsure of how to proceed with styling. This juniper's foilage is leggy and does not lend itself to nice fluffy foilage pads like shimpaku. I had to find a style that would work for this tree's foilage and faults.
Lesson #2: creating dead wood. This was the first jin and Shari I made. It's not the best but I bought a dremel and took the plunge. I can only improve from here. No one can improve if they never attempt it in the first place.
Lesson #3: I kept it alive.
This post is getting really long...
Thanks for looking,
Rich