[RESULTS] Shohin Progressive Styling Competition 2013-2014

[Steven]

G'day,

First of all a big thank you to everyone who entered. Hopefully you have enjoyed the process and challenge of creating a credible shohin sized bonsai in 18 months. It is also my hope that we have encouraged others to give it a go.
Thanks also to Pat Kennedy who kindly donated the beautiful pots that the winners will receive. Pat is without a doubt one of the worlds great bonsai potters and we should all be very proud to have him as part of our community.

It was disappointing that some entries were withdrawn or disqualified as there were some absolute beauties that we never got to see 'finished'. We will be continuing the 'REFINE' category and running another 'CREATE' so hopefully we will be able to continue to watch all these tree's develop.

Now on to the winners

In the REFINE category we started out with 149 entries and due to many reasons only 9 completed the competition.

The most popular entries as voted by the members of AusBonsai were:

1st with 24% of the votes - Hugh Grant with his Ligustrum sp. 2

[hugh Grant] Ligustrum sp. 2.jpg

2nd with 22% of the votes - Me, Steven with my Port Jackson Fig

[Steven] ficus.jpg

3rd with 21% of the votes - Michael T with his Buxus microphylla japonica

[Michael T] Buxus microphylla japonica.jpg

I'm delighted that my ficus has received a placing however it's not fair for me to claim a prize therefore Watto with 19% for his Japanese Box will also be an recipient and a very deserving one at that

[Watto] - Japanese Box.jpg

Gentlemen, please PM me your postal address to claim the following:

Hugh - 1st prize - Hand crafted shohin pot by Pat Kennedy of Mirkwood Forest Bonsai Pottery
Michael - 2nd prize - Japanese carbon steel root/branch shears
Watto - 3rd prize - Japanese stainless steel tweezers with spatula

Now for the CREATE category where we originally had a whopping 277 entries but due to several factors, 217 entries were disqualified or withdrawn. Of the remaining 60 entries, the following were your favourites:

1st with 10% of the votes, Peter H with his Juniperus squamata

[PeterH] Juniperus squamata.jpg

2nd with 9% of the votes, my Juniper X Media Lemon Hill

[Steven] Juniper X Media Lemon Hill.jpg

3rd also with 9% of the votes, my Casuarina torulosa

[Steven] Casuarina torulosa 2.jpg

Again, I'm very humbled that some of my entries were looked upon so favorably but the prizes will be passed on so...

Hugh Grant with his Juniperus sp.

[Hugh Grant] juniperus sp..jpg

and David Willoughby with his F. microcarpa var. tiger bark will also receive prizes.

[David Willoughby] F. microcarpa var. tiger bark.jpg

Please PM me your postal addresses for the following to be sent to you:

Peter H - 1st prize - Hand crafted shohin pot by Pat Kennedy of Mirkwood Forest Bonsai Pottery
Hugh Grant - 2nd prize - Japanese carbon steel bud/twig shears
David Willoughby - 3rd prize - Japanese stainless steel root rake with spatula

We are going to keep the competition going and all (living) original entries from the REFINE and CREATE will be back in the running. Over the next few weeks I'll get all details sorted out and we will launch again. If anyone has ideas for prizes or ways to make the comp better, please let me know. I think this will be a great way for participants and observers to continue to learn

A really big thank you to Patrick Kennedy for donating the pots for prizes and a huge thank you to everyone who participated .

Regards,
Steven

[Beano]

Congratulations!! Very nice trees.

[PaulC]

Congratulations to all the winners !

But trully, this has been a win, win for all involved.

Those who entered the compitition have now enjoyed a journey to what is better bonsai, those who won have reaped the rewards and acolaide, and of course,
in the spirt of fair play, Steven himself, has acknowldged his enrty placement, and gratiously passed the prize to the next entry.

I have enjoyed veiwing the compition, and look forward to the next, as I am keen to not only enjoy the surpise of what it may be, but also hope to participate.

Well done everyone.

Regards,


Paul.

[bodhidharma]

Congratulations to all involved. It is a huge undertaking to organise And a big to the placegetters.

[alpineart]

Well done to all involved and concerned . I think I need an Emoticon where i take my hat off to you Steven well done everyone , especially the winners and runner ups .

Cheers . Alpineart

[Jason]

Massive congrats to all involved, particularly Steven and the mods for organising and providing this event! Some great tree's created and refined, will definately have to particpate myself next time

Agree with Alpine:

[Black Knight]

To all concerned,
A great competiton from the organizers, great entries from all the participants and a special mention for Steven, for his passing on his prizes. This is has been entertaining from the sidelines.
Regards,

[Shane]

Congratulations to the winners and good on Steven for passing on the prizes he won.

[kcpoole]

Thanks You to Steven First up, and second to all the entrants, whether you finished or not.
Everyone learnt a lot from the process and I hope to see all the trees now continue to develop.

The only thing I would like to see for the next Comp, is a cap on the entries per person.
it is all very nice having unlimited entries, but it makes a large burden on the comp admins to manage all the entries, and the entrants themselves to manage all the trees and keep them updated.

This comp we had several entrants that had over 10 trees, of which only person made it to the end.
the other reason I suggest is that the entrants might then be encouraged to pick their best initial stock to start out with, and to concentrate on those only

Thoughts?

Ken

[Pup]

Congratulations to all the winners you deserve it and to all contestants well done for your patience to stay the distance.

While I am here I would like to endorse Ken's suggestion on a limit as he has stated it places a larger burden than necessary on the MODS, who have done a very good job.
So a big hand to them also

Cheers Pup

[Ray M]

Hi all,
Congratulations to the winners. A big thank you to Steven and the mods for the effort they have put into this.

Regards Ray

[alpineart]

Hi kc ,Mate i would have to aggree with limiting the entries to possible 2 plants , Keep it Simple , 1 evergreen and 1 decidious or make them into 2 categories . Just a thought .

Cheers Alpine

[Shinkitai]

Thanks for the opportunity this competition provided, I learned a lot and had fun. What more could you ask for.

I agree for future comps put a limit on trees. 3 sounds good to me, given the time frame you may push to hard and kill a couple but hopefully one out of three will survive.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[kcpoole]

Hi kc ,Mate i would have to aggree with limiting the entries to possible 2 plants , Keep it Simple , 1 evergreen and 1 decidious or make them into 2 categories . Just a thought .

Cheers Alpine

nice thought but does not allow for failures.
Maybe limit to 2 of each type thus only 4 per person.

Shinkitae, in the the first shohin comp I tried 2 Grevillea and my Ficus Celebense, but lost the 2 natives. 3 trees is good as it give scope to try something different, but yet still have a good chance of something working long term

Ken

[DustyRusty]

Well done everyone

Pleased to say the three I voted for in each category were the three that won.

Hugh Grant that Ligustrum was amazing, especially to see what it originally was. It is now a stunning tree. Well done.

Next time I think one of the other mods should organise and run the comp so that Steven can finally accept some prizes for those prize-winning trees he keeps entering.