Just came across this video of Oprah speaking about Bonsai In relation to peoples lives. Never saw it before and thought it was well worth a share. Enjoy

The stone and the tree were collected together; I had no option as the tree grew through the stone. I carried the tree for just under a mile down the mountain to my vehicle… it is very heavy and I collected no more that day as I was truly knackered. I have done some work on the right side of the stone as I wanted to expose some more of the trunk line, this has now weathered and is indistinguishable from the rest of the stone. The combination were collected in 2009 and the tree has thrived over the last few years, even though the tree is very slow growing the canopy is developing well and should become a pleasing bonsai in time, a dwarf rhododendron is planted at the front to break up the ‘wall’ of stone. .

A few weeks ago, i saw one of these videos posted on a friends Blog. I didn’t watch it straight away, but came across it again last night, I must say Its quite a clever idea the way the videos are done. Quite amazing to be honest.

In one of the videos they apply lime sulphur to the deadwood, and as the video progresses you see the deadwood whiten. I thought i was quite rare to see how much work and alterations were made to the smallest of branches over and over again to provide great results. Even though many people may have seen these videos, i thought it would be well worth the share for the people that haven’t seen them.

Here’s my first zuisho I was given to style.

There was no angle change or front change (the first pic). It was just a case of cleaning it up, jining the dead back branch and wiring the tree up.

One thing I did is I split the back branch into two levels (as it was long) to replace the missing back branch.

Oyakata’s correction’s.

What Oyakata did is spread the branches more. I thought I had spread them fairly well but, he says that if there is space the pads need to be spread out a lot, as it looks natural. Growth would naturally spread towards areas of space and light in nature. In time as the tree grows these areas will fill out.
The main branch is actually made of two branches which I made into one pad but, Oyakata changed it a bit by making it a pad…

After hearing about the passing of Peter Adams I went back and pulled some photos of the workshop I took with him back in 2009 at the Golden State Bonsai Convention in Southern California.

The workshop focused on bonsai design with trees brought in by students. There was some confusion with the description of the class since only a few people brought in trees. Once it became clear that Peter was going to do an original sketch of your tree, people quickly went to the vendor area and bought something.

What immediately struck me about Peter was his artistic ability. Its one thing to see his beautiful sketches in Bonsai Focus but to see him create these amazing drawings in person, and so quickly, was really inspiring. In one instance he was sketching upside down so the class could see what he talking about.

The other thing that was hard…

Some great photo shots we managed to take this morning.

Ian right under this really nice Fungi.

And here it is, my shot a little closer.

I think these little beauties where the best of todays walk.

Just a few leaves to remove and their they where! They are more yellow than in these photes.