No more wire on procumbens?

MichaelS

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It’s hard to tell exactly which way they are growing, but even if they are growing the way you say they are, what does this have to do with wire? Which is the point of this thread, I believe.
Ok just one more time. I want to introduce elements and features like we can see on old conifers, like some of the examples I have shown you, on my procumbens without using wire because I think the result will be more realistic.
 

Adair M

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Ok just one more time. I want to introduce elements and features like we can see on old conifers, like some of the examples I have shown you, on my procumbens without using wire because I think the result will be more realistic.
Why would it be more realistic?
 

MichaelS

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Why would it be more realistic?

Finer and more angular movement. Reproduces the branch death/new leader/branch death which happens frequently happens in nature and is actually how this type of old growth formation in conifers develops - and in other evergreens like Australian native trees I might add. Because a lot of it will be impossible to wire due to the sheer smallness of the material.
But really Adair, I'm tired of trying to explain something to you which you obviously have no interest in even considering, possibly because you think you know better, or possibly because you or your teacher didn't think of it first, or maybe you feel threatened, or maybe you just think I'm full of shit. Whatever the case I'm bored with this silly question/answer nonsense.
 

Adair M

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Finer and more angular movement. Reproduces the branch death/new leader/branch death which happens frequently happens in nature and is actually how this type of old growth formation in conifers develops - and in other evergreens like Australian native trees I might add. Because a lot of it will be impossible to wire due to the sheer smallness of the material.
But really Adair, I'm tired of trying to explain something to you which you obviously have no interest in even considering, possibly because you think you know better, or possibly because you or your teacher didn't think of it first, or maybe you feel threatened, or maybe you just think I'm full of shit. Whatever the case I'm bored with this silly question/answer nonsense.
The problem is, Michael, you make these broad statements like “it is more realistic”, when only you seems to think so.

You accuse me of being simple minded, or only doing things one way, and yet you are equally single minded. Only your way is correct. And you expect everyone to be able to read your mind.

Here’s the deal: technique is universal. Wiring, repotting, even pruning and cutting back are basic skills common to every style of bonsai. How the artist chooses to use them to portray the image he is making is where the art is. And everyone has their own ideas of how bonsai should look.

I don’t only use wire. I use scissors to cut back. In fact, the past two days I have been refining an old Shimpaku, and have not wired anything. I’ll post a picture tomorrow. Oh, the tree does have wire, wire that was placed on it a couple years ago. It’s grown out considerably, the wire is still holding the structure in place. The foliage just needed a bit of tidying up.
 

MichaelS

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Adair M, post: 579416, member: 13405"]
Only your way is correct. And you expect everyone to be able to read your mind.



No wrong, never said only my way is correct. That is entirely your own feeble interpretation. What I said was that I like things like this and I believe that if you see things the same way you can go a long way by studying natural forms and try to emulate them in which ever way possible. What I have said was the way things are done at the moment are in the most part, robotic, non questioned, almost universally accepted and result in trees which are similar if not identical to each other. That with these trees way too much emphasis is given to the trunk (junipers) and the top has become a cliched after thought made to a well established blueprint with the obvious result. Or an equally clichéd branch structure (pines) where any semblance of originality has been side-lined. There is no ''correct'' or ''incorrect'''. There are only realistic or failure to be realistic. There is no law which state that you should not like unrealistic bonsai. You obviously do and I don't.
Here’s the deal: technique is universal. Wiring, repotting, even pruning and cutting back are basic skills common to every style of bonsai. And everyone has their own ideas of how bonsai should look.

Well duh. Why even take the time to write something so blatantly obvious.

How the artist chooses to use them to portray the image he is making is where the art is

You really consider yourself an artist? Geez, I wish I could think the same way about myself!

So tell me, how do you figure a person which makes copies of copies of copies of copies an artist?

Here is some real art for you..... Make your pine tree (or any tree) give me the same feeling as this and then I will happily call you an artist. If you can't, I will call you a bonsai grower.

draw5.JPG
 
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Adair M

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I don’t know if you have noticed, Michael, but most trees of the same species do look rather similiar.

The trunk is the soul of every tree. It is what is supposed to be featured. Foliage is temporary. As are branches. But the trunk, for as long as the tree is alive, is what makes the tree a tree!

For each species there might be unique characteristics that should be featured: for JBP, for example it’s, the bark. For junipers it’s the deadwood. For Japanese Maple it’s the smooth bark with the little vertical dark lines. For crepe myrtle it’s the exfoliating bark... these are the things that define the tree. The foliage frames the trunk.

Now, before you go ballistic, I am aware that we spend a lot of our efforts on manipulating branches and foliage. That’s because we can. And it’s necessary to do so to complete the total image. But we have little control over the trunk. Especially over bark production. We can create Shari, and carve deadwood, but for the most part, when it comes to bark, we are dependent upon what the tree gives us.

As to whether I am an artist? I don’t think I am, others have said I am. It doesn’t matter, either way. Why waste energy arguing about it?

But what’s with the superiority? With your comments about my “feeble interpretation”, all these personal attacks do not persuade me in the least. You do not know of my experience with the natural world. Everyone has different life experiences that gives them their own perspective of what they perceive what “nature” is!

As an example, I live in the Southeast of the United States. We don’t have the kind of weather that produces the deadwood junipers. In the Rocky Mountains, they’re common. But for someone from the South, the wild yamadori deadwood junipers don’t represent “reality”. They all look “artificial” and “contrived” to someone who doesn’t see trees that look like that in their home environment.

So, chill out on the personal insults on my (or anyone’s) view of what trees should look like.

Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder.
 

Adair M

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How they grow in bonsai culture.

Naturally they make big feathery horizontal fans. New growth occurs in a fashion analogous to junipers and hangs down when young. A pic from Google (hence saving me the need of running outside to photograph the one in my yard):

1343399074-14193900.jpg
Oso, that picture from Google is wrong. That’s some type of cedar, or maybe larch.

Google often misidentifies trees.

That partial picture of a cryptomeria that MichaelS posted is of a cyptomeria that was once owned and developed by a friend of mine. The tree is currently in Los Angeles.
 

0soyoung

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Oso, that picture from Google is wrong. That’s some type of cedar, or maybe larch.

Google often misidentifies trees.

That partial picture of a cryptomeria that MichaelS posted is of a cyptomeria that was once owned and developed by a friend of mine. The tree is currently in Los Angeles.
For some reason, the bonsai standard is to treat the foliage in a way that makes niwaki/topiary puffs, but it isn't the way it grows naturally, which is the point that was being argued, IIRC.

I had a golden sekkan sugi that got too big for the space. I opted to chop it and see what happens as I had read that they could be chopped like a deciduous tree. I still have an 'Elegans' growing in my yard. It is close to 15 feet tall now and turns a very nice shade of red during the winter, but has foliage and a growth habit very much like sekkan sugi. Cryptomeria is also known as 'Japanese cedar' even though it is not a true cedar but, like Eastern red cedar, gets its common name from the similarity of their wood to that of true cedars.

New growth on 'sekkan sugi' looks just like this

crgce2.jpg


My elegans is similar in spring, though having a darker green and reddish coloration.

The Montreal Botanic Garden has a bonsai with natural style foliage. Notice how different it is from your friends' in LA.

Cryptomeria_japonica_-_JBM.jpg


There are a number of varieties, with such unique foliage that it is hard to believe they are the same species. Even delicate little minature puffballs that look much like heather. There are dwarf forms like Black dragon

8718.jpg


which I note @grouper52 made an interesting bonsai of

full


and the wierdly affected foliage of 'crysta'

thumbnail.php


that is a world unto itself, but whose foliage as well looks nothing like that normally seen in Japanese niwaki/bonsai.
 
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MichaelS

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For some reason, the bonsai standard is to treat the foliage in a way that makes niwaki/topiary puffs, but it isn't the way it grows naturally, which is the point that was being argued, IIRC.

I had a golden sekkan sugi that got too big for the space. I opted to chop it and see what happens as I had read that they could be chopped like a deciduous tree. I still have an 'Elegans' growing in my yard. It is close to 15 feet tall now and turns a very nice shade of red during the winter, but has foliage and a growth habit very much like sekkan sugi. Cryptomeria is also known as 'Japanese cedar' even though it is not a true cedar but, like Eastern red cedar, gets its common name from the similarity of their wood to that of true cedars.

New growth on 'sekkan sugi' looks just like this

crgce2.jpg


My elegans is similar in spring, though having a darker green and reddish coloration.

The Montreal Botanic Garden has a bonsai with natural style foliage. Notice how different it is from your friends' in LA.

Cryptomeria_japonica_-_JBM.jpg


There are a number of varieties, with such unique foliage that it is hard to believe they are the same species. Even delicate little minature puffballs that look much like heather. There are dwarf forms like Black dragon

8718.jpg


which I note @grouper52 made an interesting bonsai of

full


and the wierdly affected foliage of 'crysta'

thumbnail.php


that is a world unto itself, but whose foliage as well looks nothing like that normally seen in Japanese niwaki/bonsai.
Glad you brought up niwaki oso. Some bonsai ( like the Suzuki rigida) are heavily influenced by it. There is no denying it. Of course that's fine if you like that sort of thing, but the fact that it won a kokufu prize speaks volumes about where influential bonsai minds are at at the moment!.
 

RNbonsai

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Actually I can get this effect if I wire the trunk or branch when they are one year old. I can create not only the 90 degrees but much more sharp turn (135 degrees) with wire.
Thụ Thoại
I’ve found you get this turn in young branches but not old. Not that clipping will give those results if you’d want them in your lifetime
 

RNbonsai

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Saddler, if you look at very old conifers like the one I posted, You will notice the large horizontal branches have what I call ''a tree within a tree''. That is to say that the really old branches which have stopped extending begin to develop small replicas of the tree itself on the tips of those old branches. If you look closely at the far left hand branch you can see what I mean. There is a growth development which extends upwards and spreads outwards. It's like a small tree growing from the branch yet it remains in proportion to the whole. Same with the right branch and same again with the apex. This is the look I'm after. It is too small and detailed to wire. It's something that can only be slowly developed by selective pruning and of probably pinching as well.
I've mentioned this before somewhere.
Here it is in an old scots pine to illustrate more......




View attachment 199291


It's why I love this procumbens so much. This tree won't need wiring anymore. (not to say that it won't be of course) In my opinion, pruning only will bring this tree forward and make it better and better. Wiring it now will bring it backwards again.


View attachment 199292
If the practice produces the desired tree it is the perfect practice
 

RNbonsai

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Then what does it have to do with? Clip and grow, lead weights, let the tree do it's own thing and hope in the end it looks like something. Do you believe in imposing your own will in controlling growth to accomplish some sort of style goal? Maybe you feel with time a tree will turn out looking like a bonsai if you give it years to do so?
I said a goal difference and opinion difference. Same way we make good new pizza
 

RNbonsai

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Thank you, then the problem lies totally within the Nippon Bonsai Association of 1967's vague, obscure, and esoteric pronouncement that the interpretation of bonsai is up to the individual. If this is true then all of the shows, and kukufooies are a lie, or this pronouncement is a lie. So much of what we have been hearing and fed lately has the smell of bull manure about it. High sounding rhetoric, and simple sounding techniques that lead no where. The truth is you cannot find a direction when the rules and methods are constantly changing in directions contrary to previous methods and the results seem less not better. So in a quest to make better bonsai we are taking quantum steps backwards.
I think the quote more implies that the importance is that the creator is satisfied. Either with what will come or what is already there. Most art doesn’t grow. Bonsai is art. Whether you see the beauty that is presented , or the beauty that will come is a risk the viewer takes
 
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