AusBonsai

Hello all,

As Leigh said it in another post, the show of the Weston Creek Bonsai Group last weekend went very well and so did his demo. The subject was an old Hinoki, i.e. Chmaecypari obtusa nana. Some people call it a Hinoki cypress, but it isn't a cypress at all.
I thought from the start that this demo would be something special, and it certainly was!!!
Anyway, here is the first set of pictures.

Lisa

Preparation for the bending of the big branch. This is a 2 man job!

.... and BENDING....
Leigh said that hte part of him which was working hardest were his ears - listening for cracking sounds.

NO FAIR, more pics please, i was waiting for this, hanging to see how it went. These pics give a better idea of the size of that tree, what a great trunk and nebari, awesome...

The next steps.

The other side of the tree, and Leigh explaining about the roots.

More pics later.
Anyone care to guess what happened next?

Lisa

I smile when I see more pics??

why is that root annoying, I actually think it's great...

LLK wrote: Anyone care to guess what happened next?

The tree decided life wasn't worth living and kicked the bucket?

Thanks Lisa,

I put about 4 hours wiring of the tree prior to the demonstration, I didn't want to put everyone asleep. I chose to bind the larger sections of the tree that I wanted to bend with rubber (bike tube) to help protect the wood from the wire and my bending bar, and to also provide an additional layer to the soft layers of the tree to improve my ratio of soft woods to hard wood in the tree.

After racing around looking for my usual bending bar, and being unable to find it, I found a crow bar the next best thing. As it turned out, the crow bar proved somewhat difficult to get the job done as simply as my usual bar helps me to do. At the end of the day, I wasn't entirely happy with the bend I had achieved, but it turned out ok for the style I wanted.

The root that is unfavourable in the design (from my point of view), unfortunatley is the one that is holding all of the roots for this tree, so a future repot will help to disuise this as best I can.

You will see the tree in a training pot, which just happened to be the only round pot of about the size I will end up giving the tree that I had. Please excuse the colour of this training pot, I will end up putting it into an unglazed drum, or simple unglazed round pot.

The jin will require alot of work, I intend to integrate the existing dead wood with part of the trunk to create a shari. I will leave this project until spring.

The final design will require another couple of hours work refining the foliage, thinning out and some more wiring to smaller branches.

Once Lisa posts the final picks you will see what I mean.

Cheers,
Leigh.

Ledanta wrote: The jin will require alot of work, I intend to integrate the existing dead wood with part of the trunk to create a shari. I will leave this project until spring.

I look forward to chatting about this with you

Sorry for the delay, I ran out of time yesterday. Here is part II of the demo.
The next step was the removal of half the crown, and Leigh is laughing at the horrified exclamations of the audience.
There follows more bending, first of the big branches, then of the smaller ones.

Leigh has been going for 2 hours on this job, which ain't for the faint hearted!!

Finally!!

Gday Team Oz!

Nice demo well documented!

Not being a fan of Hinokis generally, I must say I really like the direction you're taking this tree in, Leigh! I hope you don't mind, but I've taken the liberty of tilting your tree 20° to the right, for the sake of balance. (Those large roots might make such a tilt impossible in real life.)
Thanks to both Leigh and Lisa for all your hard work!

Fly.

Hi Leigh,

I am not a fan of this species either, but I like your stylings. I really could not see where you were
going in the earlier photos The final tree looks very pleasing indeed.

Hi Lisa,

Thank you for posting all the photos. I really enjoy this post.

Hi FlyBri,

Visually I could not spot the difference between your photo and Lisa's last.

Best regards everybody.