Club Night 13th September 2011

Tonight was club night at Wessex Bonsai Society and a really good one at that. The speakers for the evening were our very own members Italo and Manuel. The lecture was on 'Tanuki'.

The word tanuki stems from the Japanese raccoon dog which is said to have the ability to change its shape and there for is regarded as a trickster and a fraud. Tanuki can also be referred to in the west as Phoenix grafts. The reason they have this Japanese name that means fraud is because in Japan they are regarded as a fake bonsai tree and the Japanese do not allow tanuki to be entered in to bonsai competitions.

Now I don't personally fully agree with the term fake because the all the foliage whether it be leaf or needle is grown and developed in the normal way there for a tanuki bonsai tree is still a bonsai tree. It's just the element of the tree that is not growing that is added to trick the viewer in to thinking the tree is older than it really is. Now please correct me if I am wrong but is bonsai not all about tricking the individual that is viewing the tree in to believing it is something it is not anyway? For example when an azalea is grown to resemble a fully grown tree that has been miniaturised? I can understand the Japanese ruling out tanuki bonsai trees being entered in to competitions but I think there missing out by not having maybe a tanuki category.

Italo and Manuel brought along some amazing examples of tanuki bonsai trees one of which they had began development on 40 years ago! Manuel also brought along a couple of Chinese junipers that had not had dead wood added to them but were in fact what the Japanese would regard as 'real' junipers. The difference can be seen but for a pure instant visual impact the tanuki bonsai tree would rate a lot higher than the original juniper. You be the judge, which is real and which tanuki?

The answer is.... Both of them. The tree on your left is the one the guys started over 40 years old and the tree to the right has two live trunks running up the bleached white dead Juniper that did not make the import to the UK. Although neither of these trees are 100% grown trees I'm sure you agree they are very impressive never the less.

Italo and Manuel with there usual Mediterranean flare worked together to explain and demonstrate on two very large pieces of dead wood, how using some wedges to hold the dead wood out of the soil to prevent it rotting, wires to secure the dead wood to the pot much like you would a tree, brass eyelets as anchor points for the wires, some brass screws to hold the living tree to the dead wood and a whopping bucket of full of imagination  a tree that is only a few years old can be made to look like it has been around a lot longer that you and I.

Here are a couple of photos of  Italo and Manuel working together on the trees. I could see from the demonstration that creating a tanuki bonsai is most definitely a two man operation as you need to hold alot in to place. Even with the use of clamps, cable ties and two pairs of hands the job was an awkward and very fiddly one.

I asked the question "which is the most important ingredient when creating a tanuki and which would they advise I got right first, Good growing material or good dead wood material?" Both guys replied without a doubt the dead wood is the vital part. You can grow the tree in and around the dead wood to create the image you desire so its important to get the dead wood right first. 

You can see from the two trees below that started off at 7:30 as two very large pieces of dead wood and some Chinese Juniper whips now with very minimal styling because of limited time look like established old and very large bonsai that would sit well on most bonsai collectors benches and could in time be entered in a show and hold there own.

I have already managed to get my hands on a lovely piece of dead wood that I believe to be wisteria. I found it on my travels and thought it ideal for a tanuki with a juniperus squamata I have that has very limited potential because of its long sparse trunks and branch structure. But after watching Italo and Manuel with there Chinese junipers I've decided to keep the dead wood I have until I can get my hands on some Chinese juniper that will suit. In the mean time I shall keep my eyes peeled for another piece to marry up with the juniperus squamata as a practice run.



The Bonsai Tree that hooked me.

After speaking to a few bonsai enthusisats I have found that almost every one has a tree thast is special to them for a particuler reason. For some its there first tree and others its one they have made a beauty of from what looked like nothing. With me the tree that hooked me is the first bonsai tree I owned and the one that got me in to bonsai.

I got in to bonsai after one of my customers gave me a badly neglected 30 year old seed grown Scotts pine. I have always had an admiration for bonsai trees but never took an active intrest in them until I mentioned to Mr Dart that the small pine he had resting up against his green house looked like it had seen better days. He told me it was his late wife who had grown it from seed and he, despite being a very keen gardener had never really put much thought in to the poor little fella. It wasn't even in a pot and was living in a plastic drip tray. Mr Dart said if I thought I could do anything with it I was welcome to take it on and give it a second chance.

Not being one to pass up on a challenge I took him up on his offer and took the tree home. So there the tree was in my garden through the coldest winter for years and I had not a clue what to do with it. I got a book out from the local library but I really didn't have the guts to take to the tree with any secateurs. I realised I needed some help! Luckily I have customer who is in to bonsai and has a lovely garden with some great trees in it that I have admired since I started cleaning her windows. I spoke to Mrs Scannell about the Scotts pine and she suggested I took it along to the bonsai club of which she is a member. Its the Wessex bonsai society who meets every month on the second Tuesday and then twelve days later on the Sunday for a workshop. I went along to the following Tuesday evening to find it was the only Tuesday through the year that is a workshop evening. Result! I took along the tree and no sooner had I walked through the door than a number of people had members had come over the table where I had settled. Mrs Scannell was there and she let people know I needed help in styling the sorry looking leggy tree I had on the table in front of me.

A chap who I was informed named Itilo started chopping away at the tree. Some of the members were gasping as he lopped off branches. I was amazed to see the tree going through the transformation as he wrapped lengths of brown wire all at diffrent lengths around the branches and then bend them in to shape. All the time other members were coming over and introducing themselves. Within an hour Itilo had finished the styling of my first bonsai tree and I felt like I had been made very welcome to club. I decided there and then that this would not be the last time I made an appearance at the Wessex Bonsai Society.

I was told to feed a small amount, half measure of grow more for a while until the tree was strong enough for potting. Itilo told me the tree will hopefully back bud to bring foliage further back up the long leggy branches and closer to the trunk. "This is the desired look" I was informed. He also said to give it a good 6 weeks after the shock the tree had gone through with the pruning.

When the 6 weeks were up I went along to Sunday workshop where I was helped by Manuel, another member at the Wessex Bonsai Society, to pot the Scots pine. Mrs Scannell informed me the best place to get a pot that wouldnt break the bank was from a member called Mo who makes them at her home. Mo and her husband David were kind enough to let me go to there home and chose a pot the Friday before the Sunday workshop so I could pot it there with the help from Manuel. But it turned out the pot was to shallow for a pine and not suitable. Luckily a really great guy named Tim who said hello on my first night at the club and had seen the tree when it got its initial styling had a great Japanese pot that he thought would suit it great. He had brought it along that Sunday with half a dozen of his old tools including branch cutters and knob cutters on the off chance I would be there. Tim said to me he remembered when he first started out in bonsai and other older members helped him out by handing down some old bits and bobs that they no longer needed having upgraded to better quality tools. He wanted to do the same. I am sure you will agree Tim is one in a million, I genuinely nice guy.

Manuel helped me make a soil mix he swears by of 5 parts horticultural grit, 2 parts John Innis number two, 1 part ericaceous compost and 1 part multi purpose compost. He put 3 parts grit in first then the soils and finished with the remaining 2 parts grit mixing all the way. Manuel said to do it in this order to help the grit mix in well with the soils and not end up with all the grit at the bottom.

I should of asked what to do with the tree in regards to maintenance because I when I got to tree home and started a fortnightly feeding program the tree really started to come to life and began shooting out these long shoots from the tips of the branches. Thinking these were undesired and having a misconception that bonsai was all about clipping back the new growth of a bonsai tree I cut them off. I have since found out that with this variety of pine it is best to leave these, what I now know to be called 'candles' to fully grow and then cut them back to the length of the shortest candle (end of June) to promote the tree to throw out new buds. Some of these new buds will hopefully be further up the branches as Itilo mentioned. I made a few mistakes in the first growing season but the tree looks to be in good health and hopefully next year I will be able to do it at the right time. I did get some back buds to which I cut the branches back to. I've been told I should of left them to start to candle next year like the tips of the others did and then cut them back but it don't look to have harmed the tree so I think I got away with that one.

It looks a bit diffrent now as I have had to remove the wire in July because it was cutting in quite bad in places. I was advised to take the wire off and let it rest for a bit until the autumn so have done just that.

An introduction the blogger himself.

To blog or not to blog, That has been the question on my mind for a few weeks now. As a regular member of the bonsai forum namely 'weetrees', I am often made aware of other members personal blogs in there signatures and through links to interesting and informative articles and photo diaries. I have been pondering whether I should have a go at one my self. But was unsure if I would have any thing to say of any intrest to any one else. Then it dawned on me. No one has any intrest in what I have to say in real life so why should it be diffrent in a blog?

The way I see it is I really enjoy my new Hobby of collecting, growing and training trees and I can't see any reason why I will ever give it up so if I start this blog and continue to contribute to it for the subsequent years I will have a great diary to look back on and review the mistakes I have made over the years and also what has worked well. It will also be a great way of seeing the progress made by the trees I have and watch my tree collection grow in volume and size.

Being relatively new to bonsai I don't really have any answers to the questions newcomers have but I hope this blog will show how I go about doing things and others will be able to see that us newbies are pretty much all the same and we all make mistakes.

For all those who want to know more about me here's a little about me.

My name is Dean and I'm 31 years old. I live in a small town on the Dorset, Hampshire border where I work as a window cleaner. I'm married to my wife of nearly 9 years, Helen and have the most beautiful little girl in all the world. I've not always cleaned windows and until 2001 served with the 2nd Battalion the Royal Green Jackets for which I'm very proud and feel very privileged. I've a few other hobbies including Golf and weight training but if I'm honest the latter has taken a back seat lately due to lack of time. I'm an England Rugby fan and not in to football in the slightest! I have a go at building websites and think I'm quite good but have my limitations. Without going in to too many personal details that's pretty much me in a nut shell.

I'm going to set the comments to authorization required because I don't want the hauls of spammers that I have had on my other projects ruining the blog. So if you have a genuine comment please do and as long as its not spam I promise to ok it even if its a drastic criticism of me and the blog. After all I want to learn as much as I can and hope others will be able to do the same merely by reading through this beginners bonsai blog.

Dean