Bonsai exhibition of Illawarra Bonsai Society

Last weekend, I went to the bonsai exhibition of Illawarra Bonsai Society. It is a very active group of bonsai enthusiasts and this year they held their exhibition in a new venue – Sutherland District Trade Union Club. The photos above show some of the better trees. 
 

Another event I attended this month is was Gardening Australia Expo at Rosehill Racecourse organized by ABC TV. Bonsai was represented by just one nursery. The only plants that caught my fancy were Tillandsias (see the photo below). There was also a good choice of reasonably priced gardening tools.

The annual exhibition of Bonsai Society of Sydney

I mentioned the exhibition of Bonsai Society of Sydney in my last entry, but didn’t say anything about it. First of all, there was a handful of decent trees like the one shown in the picture above (25 years old, 7 years in training). Secondly, it had a strong ikebana presence. In Japan ikebana is bonsai’s big brother and their history is intimately intertwined. 

There was an ikebana display and demonstration as well as calligraphy and origami demonstrations. All this gave this exhibition a genuine Japanese flavor, which was a good change. Unfortunately, an average bonsai grower in Australia doesn’t care much for the historical and cultural context of bonsai. This exhibition attempted to expose us to some of this context.

Bonsai demonstration by Hiroyoshi Yamaji

Last weekend, I saw a demonstration by Hiroyoshi Yamaji at the annual exhibition of Bonsai Society of Sydney. Hiroyoshi Yamaji is a bonsai grower from Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture. This prefecture is Japan’s largest producer of pine bonsai and they have been doing that for more than 200 years. Hiroyoshi Yamaji specialises in field grown Japanese Black Pine, Nishiki cultivar of Black Pine, Red Pine and Trident Maples. The pine trees are grown in the soil with lots of granite rock. It provides very good drainage. The pines in the field are dug out and root pruned every three years. The main finished products are two, five and ten-year-old pine trees. He also grows young miniature pines in pots, which are increasingly popular at the moment in Japan.
....................................................................................................................................................................
So, what’s a guy like Hiroyoshi Yamaji doing at the exhibition of Bonsai Society of Sydney? Well, the purpose of his demonstration was to promote the 11th Asia-Pacific Bonsai and Suiseki Convention and Exhibition held in November this year in Takamatsu, Japan. He was doing it on behalf of the government of Kagawa prefecture and the exhibition of Bonsai Society of Sydney was a suitable marketing opportunity.

..................................................................................................................................................
Anyway, it was a lucky opportunity for a Sydney bonsai community too. He was asked to style an awkward looking procumbent juniper grown in a pot for about 25-30 years. He started with assertive ‘blind pruning’ to unclutter the foliage. It allowed him to see the branch structure and decide on the tree design. After that he wired and positioned main branches. One of the less common techniques he used was branch splitting. It involved splitting a 20 mm thick branch along its length into two equal halfs and wiring them in two different positions. The exposed wood was sealed with cut paste. While styling the tree, he was also quite conscious of propagating bonsai stock. For example, instead of cutting a branch he would wire it to the ground for a chance to take root and creating another tree.
......................................................................................................................................................
The demonstration was only two hours and Mr. Yamaji has done quite well by producing a well-designed bonsai-in-training from material with limited potential (see the photos above).

Trident Maple fuced trunk

Last year, I came up with an ambitions idea of growing a large fused trunk Trident Maple, but I didn’t have the material to do the project, so, I started from scratch. In June 2010, I got the seeds from my bonsai teacher, put them in the fridge for a couple of weeks before sowing them in July. They germinated at the end of August (see the picture below).

 

One lesson I learned from this exercise is not to sow the seeds too densely. You can see from the image above that although the seedlings look quite healthy, they were not as tall as I hoped them to be.

What I did with some of the seedlings this month to kick-start the trunk fusion is self-explanatory from the images below.

Olive yamadori

Last month, I participated in an ‘Olive Dig’ organised by my bonsai club. Spent most of the time digging out the specimen shown above. It is an African Olive (Olea europaea africana). For scale: the height of styrofoam box in the image on the right is 20 cm. Speaking of olive yamadori. Last month, my sister was visiting Baku, Azerbaijan and took a picture of the European Olive tree (Olea europaea) shown below. This tree was 150 years old when it was translocated to a busy city square and become its focal point.