Street trees of Tokyo

It has been one-and-a-half years since my last trip to Japan, but I still feel compelled to blog about it. Not sure if it is a good sign, but I am going to do it anyway.

When in Japan, you don’t have to be a horticulturist to notice that they spend a lot more time looking after their street trees. Some of them just stop you dead in your tracks. The photo above on the left shows an old plum tree featuring large areas of exposed wood on its trunk. The photo above on the right shows a painstakingly manicured Black Pine outside a private gate. Even trees looked after by the local government are impressive. Below are a few examples. The photo on the left shows bamboo used as road side planting. I am not sure what species it is, but most of them are ‘runners’ or ‘clumpers’ and will involve a bit of maintenance to keep them as they are on this picture. The photo in the center shows a pine trained into a pleasing shape, which also allows the passage of street cables. The photo on the right shows a deciduous tree, which has been carefully pruned every year to maintain a compact crown in one of the busy streets of Tokyo.

Gate-shading pine - Mon Kaburi

When I was staying in Ueno, Tokyo last year, I went for a stroll to explore the surrounds and was blown away by the density of temples in the area. There was practically a temple every fifty meters. Later, I learned that this relatively small area boasts 92 temples. Many of them are small though. In one of them I saw the most amazing gate-shading pine (mon kaburi). One long branch of this three stretched all the way from the temple to the front gate (photo 1) while the other long branch stretched across the entire front side of the temple (photo 2). Old branches of the pine were covered with moss and the tree trunk was ancient.

Visit to Bonsai Farm, Melbourne

Last week, I visited ‘Bonsai Farm’ nursery in Melbourne and had the most delightful conversation with Lindsey Farr. We talked about vintage bonsai pots and about the future of international bonsai. I bought his ‘’World of Bonsai’’ DVD’s, which was the main reason for my visit. I saw some nice trees there and generally got a good vibe from the place.

I kept thinking about the future of bonsai on the flight home. What are the possible directions for new development? To me, bonsai is primarily a form of sculpture. The fact that it employs some of the most complex artistic media (live plants) is important as well because it restricts the subject of bonsai as artistic work. The subject of bonsai is always a plant. There are bonsai or penching which look like a dragons or Chinese characters, but they still have to look like plants. A bonsai artist is a sculptor who has no choice, but to make statures of trees and nothing else. Trees come in many forms, but this variety is finite. Chinese and Japanese artists exhausted all these forms in the last two thousand years. Masahiko Kimura made a successful attempt to incorporate elements of abstract art, but how far can you go down that road? Can we have a bonsai tree that doesn’t look like a plant? 

Moving away from traditional bonsai pot forms is another direction for the future. You can’t make your bonsai tree look like a ‘couch’, but you can make a ‘couch-shaped’ bonsai pot and your bonsai tree may look quite novel in it.Thinking further outside the box: combining bonsai with objects other than rocks and containers. Here is the food for thought, because these objects can be an exquisite art in themselves and they are not going to be restricted in their form by anything...

Demonstrations by Peter Adams, Sydney 2011

Last weekend, I attended a couple of bonsai demonstrations by Peter Adams from America. He is great at painting bonsai trees and sketching different design options for trees. He has an acute artistic sense and a refined taste for bonsai and bonsai pots. He is trained as a professional artist and his abilities would be rather common in the artistic circles. However, they are rather rare in the bonsai community and he takes full advantage of it. Below, are Peter’s drawings of three different design options for a particular tree.  

He can be a harsh critic of something when he speaks in generalities and at the same time hypocritically mellow in his opinions when it comes to specifics. For example, he would look at a mediocre tree and say it is wonderful not to offend the owner. I know that they call it good people skills, but it made some people in the audience think that mediocre trees are wonderful.

He had a career of growing bonsai, which allowed him to accumulate a wealth of horticultural knowledge. Sharing it with the audience was good learning.

The organisers of these demonstrations provided him with the world class bonsai material, however a tree with a tremendous potential is not always the best candidate for a spectacular demonstration. Therefore, there were no amazing transformations. Below, are the before and after pictures of the tree, which is the subject of the three design options drawings shown above.

Peter Adams also showed us some photos of his bonsai collection in the US and I was a bit disappointed. The trees were decent, but none of them had the ‘wow’ factor.

Overall, I did learn quite a few things and it was well worth it.

For a blog post about Peter Adams' demonstration in Sydney in 2009 go to: http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2009/07/peter-adams-workshop.html

Wire, unwire and rewire!

Sydney bonsai enthusiasts are lazy to wire secondary and tertiary branches of their bonsai trees. And please do not tell me that it is inspired by the natural growth habits of our native trees. A picture of paper bark tree here shows that this is not true. This bad influence actually made me feel that bonsai trees in Japan had “too much wire” and the branches had “too much movement”. There are no excuses and one has to pay for the wire and spend those long hours wiring, unwiring and rewiring branches. If one doesn’t have time for this then one should have fewer trees. I would rather have five excellent trees than fifty mediocre ones. Unfortunately, the majority of bonsai growers in Sydney prefer the latter. 
   

This week's pots

A couple of new pots this week (images above). I am pleased with the results, but there is also room for improvement. Obviously they are imitations of Pat Kennedy’s pots and were inspired by the demonstration Pat gave at one of the bonsai exhibitions last year in Sydney. Image below shows one of his pots in the process of being made.



Pidgin Sanskrit

When I was in Japan I noticed that some of the Buddhist temples had symbols which didn’t look Japanese (see the picture below). My guess was that they are in Pali, but I am not sure and it would have been good to find out.

However, recently I came across another symbol (image 1 below). This time it was in a book which said that it is ‘yakushi’ - Sanskrit for ‘healing Buddha’. I think it is a distorted ॐ (images 2-4 below) – Hindu and Buddhist ‘OM’ incantation. Still don’t know how ‘OM’ became ‘yakushi’ in Japan.



National Bonsain Convention in Freemantle

A classmate from my bonsai lessons went to this year’s National Bonsai Convention in Freemantle, Western Australia. From the photographs of the trees exhibited there and my photographs taken at the bonsai convention in Sydney last year, I could see that the standard of bonsai in Western Australia is slightly higher. It’s just a handful of trees that made all the difference. I was especially impressed by the fact that some of those outstanding bonsai were Australian natives trained in their natural growth style. It’s an interesting observation considering they have only one or two bonsai clubs and a much smaller number of bonsai enthusiasts.

The best of fall 2011

I was doing an autumn clean up in my garden and found a few treasures. On the image top to bottom left to right: oak, birch, gingko, maple.

Mushi taji

When I visited Japan last year, I was puzzled by small straw mats tied around tree trunks (see the image above). Is this a horticultural technique? Is it a religious custom? Or is it just a garden ornament? I stumbled across the answer in a wonderful book on Japanese gardens by Motomi Oguchi. This straw mat is called mushi taji. It is put in autumn when insects descend from the canopy down the trunk to the ground for overwintering. Mushi taji tricks insects to overwinter in it and at the end of winter it is burnt. A more elaborate version of it, called fuyugakoi, is used in colder parts of Japan to protect the trees from frost and retain moisture in the soil, in addition to pest control. Fuyugakoi can be quite decorative as well.

Bonsai Study Group Show

Yesterday, I saw exhibition of the Bonsai Study Group at West Pymble Community Hall. It was a relatively small show with the emphasis on small bonsai. For me, the highlight of the exhibition was Pat Kennedy’s bonsai pots stall. Bonsai in Australia may have a long way to go, however we already have high quality locally made bonsai pots. The photo of Chrysanthemum is just random.

New wood-fired pots

A couple of pots that came out from the last month’s wood-firing. This time I prepared the glazes myself. The pot on the left is 12.5 × 11 cm, unglazed with natural ash.The pot on the right is 16 × 7 cm, celadon glaze.

P.S. For more info on wood-fired kilns see: http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/during-recent-trip-to-canberra-with.html

Perth: Lee's Bonsai World vs. Miss Luong's Kitchen

Is it just me or there is a bit of a competition for advertising space here? And who painted the mural Miss Luong or Mr. Lee?

Worst possible introduction to Bonsai

I found it at last – the worst possible introduction to bonsai. It is an American product called “Miniature Indoor Bonsai Tree Garden”. I like it because it is wrong in so many different ways! It starts with a ridiculous name and then goes on to tells us that “This box contains one tub of miniature tree seeds pre-planted in a specifically formulated growing medium, plus a dwarf terracotta pot, a propagating cover and suitable compost.” So, that’s how it works!

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(MINIATURE TREE SEEDS) + (DWARF TERRACOTTA POT) = (MINIATURE INDOOR BONSAI TREE GARDEN)

Now that we are armed with the secret bonsai formula, how can we go wrong?

Bonsai Show of Nepean Bonsai Society

Today, I saw the annual bonsai show of Nepean Bonsai Society held at Penrith PCYC. There were a couple of modest trees, but the display of miniature bonsai pots from the collection of John Marsh stole the show. The photographs say it all.

Another pot

Last Christmas holidays, I missed playing with clay so much that one day I just sat and started hand-forming a small bonsai pot. It took long to get it fired, but the result is pleasing.

Mediocrity strikes back / New hope

Last Sunday, I visited the annual exhibition of the Bonsai Society of the Central Coast held at Gosford City Arts Centre. I’ve never been to their shows and this exhibition disappointed me. All trees were mediocre and uninspiring. Some trees were untidy and not properly prepared for the exhibition. Some trees exemplified bad horticultural practices. Some rather average trees were labeled as winners of past exhibitions, which indicated that the society rewards mediocrity.

To me the highlight of the visit was the Japanese garden outside the centre. It possesses a certain charm (see photos) and it has a tremendous potential for further refinement. The pavilion and the pond bridge are the star performers in the garden. It also features a nice tea-garden style arbour and a couple of decent stone lanterns. The most obvious area for improvement is the dry garden.

Termite factor

Last month, I visited Australian Northern Territory and was keen to see examples of naturally dwarfed plants in tropical savanna. It was a wet season, the time when many plants undergo a period of rampant growth. Very familiar young eucalypt trees boasted very unusual one-foot-long leaves. However, I did observe an unexpected natural force which can suppress plant growth even at this time of the year. Termites. The tree on the picture is stunted because it is virtually growing on a termite mound. Whenever any part of this tree dies due to heat, wind, insects, fungi, virus or bacteria it is immediately consumed by termites. I have a feeling that both the tree and the termite mound are quite old. From the trunk line we can see that its apex died back a few times and one of the side branches grew to be the new tree top.

Backyard clay

I had to dig a few holes in my backyard to put up a shade cloth frame over my bonsai shelves. The top soil layer was quite thin and underneath I found a very fine and pure brown clay. This is Wianamatta Shale clay characteristic to Sydney’s Cumberland Plain. I saved a small lump and used it to make a tea bowl shown in the picture. The shrinkage was nearly 30%, so the bowl turned out to be smaller than I expected. I fired it to earthenware temperature with clear glaze to preserve the original colour of the clay. The result was beautiful and quite similar to red raku ware (aka raku yaki). It also would have been not unlike the red clay ware (shudei) of Tokoname if it was burnished and not glazed.

The loveliest scenes of China

The most renowned Japanese poet Mitsuo Basho (1644-94) in his poem ‘The Unreal Dwelling’ extols a beautiful vista with pines and mountain wisteria and says: “I could not be but happy – the view would not have blushed before the loveliest scenes of China.” It suddenly struck me that by ‘the loveliest scenes of China’ Basho meant none other than the Huang Shan Mountains – the original inspiration for Chinese miniature landscapes and ultimately Japanese bonsai.

Australia Day Bonsai Exhibition

Yesterday, I saw Australia Day Bonsai Exhibition organised for the first time and held at Merrylands RSL, Sydney. Members of eight New South Wales bonsai clubs put up their trees for the exhibition. This sort of show never happened in Australia before. A national exhibition like Kokufu-ten in Japan or the US National Bonsai Exhibirion is impossible in Australia due to bio-security regulations enforced by the federal government. However, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia could hold their state exhibitions right now, but for some reason don’t. Anyway, the standard of Australia Day Exhibition was better than at usual individual club shows. Below are some trees. All Australian natives: 1- Port Jackson Fig (≈ 90 cm), Banksia (≈ 50 cm) and Baeckea (≈ 30 cm). Picture 4 shows a suiseki from China.

Penching-like grapevine

Last winter I was visiting vineyards in Hunter Valley and was taken by the beauty of bare grapevine plants. They reminded me of the flat top penching trees characteristic of Yang School of Yangzhou. Some of them had amazing trunk movement with interesting dead wood like the one on the picture.

New tea bowl

A couple of weeks ago, I got a tea bowl which was thrown by Ian Jones, its foot was carved by me and then it was fired in Ian Jones’ anagama kiln. The tea bowl is alright, but I don’t get tired of saying that it was fired for 5 days with 20 tonnes of wood!

P. S. For more information about Ian Jones's studio see my blog post about it at http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/during-recent-trip-to-canberra-with.html

Tiny monster

Last month, I caught a 0.5 mm-long red mite on one of my fig bonsai. I assumed it is a pest and asked an expert to identify it. It turned out to be a predatory species Anystis baccarum which is actually beneficial to plants. It preys on plant eating mites. It’s amazing that just one bonsai tree can provide a whole universe for a tiny monster devouring plant pests we can’t even see. Unfortunately, the photograph of this mite mounted on a microscope slide doesn’t do it justice.

First pot made on potter's wheel

This is the first ceramic object I made on potter's wheel. It was thrown in August, but glaze fired only last week. The decoration was totally random. First, I scribbled Lotus Sutra in Japanese and than drew a butterfly with a flower in the remaining surface.

Bonsai metaphor by Shoji Hamada

Shoji Hamada (1894-1978) was a famous Japanese potter who worked within Japanese folk art tradition. In 1974 an American art teacher Susan Peterson wrote a book about him where she transcribes her conversations with Hamada. In the following passage Shoji Hamada talks about traditional art and uses bonsai as a metaphor:

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“In Mashiko and in Okinawa there are deep unconscious roots of tradition in the earth. For instance, compare dwarf trees in the garden and trees on the hill. If it’s a dwarf tree, when the weather gets a little bit bad you bring it in the house, if it gets dry you give it water. You trim the branches or not as you want. A traditional potter is like a dwarf tree. In the case of the [dwarf] tree you have to be careful about the weather, the other half depends on the care you give it. A tree in the mountains grows by itself. I should like to become such a tree.”

Trasformation in a wood-fired kiln

Last year, I made a little mame / kusamono pot which was fired in an electric kiln and turned out to be quite uninteresting (left picture). I put it in the reject box and forgot about it. A couple of weeks ago, I looked though the box for pieces that could be re-fired in a wood-fired kiln. The picture on the right shows the same pot after it was wood-fired.

P.S. For more info on wood-fired kilns see: http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/during-recent-trip-to-canberra-with.html

Pots thrown on a wheel

I am learning to make ceramics on potter’s wheel and these are first bonsai pots I threw on the wheel. The top picture shows a pot fired in an electric kiln and the bottom picture shows a pot with no glaze fired in a wood-fired kiln.

P. S. For a look at several wood-fired kilns see my blog post about them at http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/during-recent-trip-to-canberra-with.html

New Begining

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I finally got a new job!

It took 45 job applications

in a span of four years.

I hope it will invigorate

my scholarly and artistic pursuits.