Bonsai Mauritius: Bonsai Club - First informal meeting part 2

2014-06-15

Bonsai Club - First informal meeting part 2

Part I here

Last weekend we had our first informal bonsai meeting at Hem's place.

It was not something that was planned, I was just going there for a quick "Hello" and ended up with a 6 hr informal bonsai meeting, where we worked mainly on Jeanluc's plants.

Well this meeting was unplanned and we did not took any pictures methodologically but mostly randomly.

Yamadori Goyava : Carving

I think the most interesting material for me was this yamadori goyava belonging to Jeanluc Essoo.

Here's a little evolution of the tree since it was collected, courtesy of owner ( Jeanluc ).

Originally that material was not meant to be worked, but a section of deadwood caught my eye and I decided to work on it.

I think it has a huge potential to become an outstanding goyava shohin if Jeanluc managed to nudge it in the right direction over the coming years.

Old front - I think the left side should be the new front in the long run.

The section of deadwood that caught my eye. The old cambium was still on the
tree and it was keeping moisture trapped underneath which in turn will cause the wood to rot faster.
Another issue arising here, the two dead branch touching, one needs to go or get reduced.

Decided to keep the lower branch but to reduce its diameter.

We did not do a full work on it - time was short.
It definitely needs 1 or 2 other sessions done on it.

Trying out some Lime Sulphur

We used the newly created deadwood to test some lime sulphur (or lime sulfur ) and see how it reacted.

This was purely for experimentation.

For info that dead branch was already dry and lifeless, on a fresh green carved branch I usually prefer to let it get weathered down first ( even if its not strictly necessary ).

Ended the session on a quick "How to unwire" course :)

There were some wires on the upper branches. The tree was starting to grow into those wires, and it was more than time to remove them. We ended the session by going through the basic notions on removing wires on the branches : when and how to safely unwire by hand, how to cut wires instead of removing by hand and where to cut wires partially.