Preparing some trees for an expo in a few weeks

In September there will be this year's Orchid Society of Mauritius's show.

Some of our bonsai members will be exposing their trees during there on the last day of that show.
I'm planning to display several trees and started prepare them two months beforehand.

Mame Cuphea
This little guy was entered in the last Ryuga 2013 online competition, together with a ficus and a miniature rose.
The link is here : Cuphea hyssopifolia false heather

At the end of last year it got badly hit by a heat wave. It loss its main leader and also several primary ramification structures.
Now I need to rebuild the whole ramification structures as well as rework the deadwoods.

Mame Ligustrum

This is a follow up on the ligustrum-003-progression
There has been some more growth in between and some wiring to reposition the various branches.
Right now its entering a new growth cycle and creating several buds. Some are already starting to develop.

If I leave it as it is, the stronger apical areas will get most of the growth and the inner structures will stay mostly underdevelopped.
So to encourage the tree to get new growth all over the place ( strong and weak areas ) I went ahead and fully defoliated the lil guy.
I'm also aiming to get a new set of smaller leaves for the September expo.
In a few weeks I'm expecting to get lots of smaller leaves all over the place.

I also went along a treated the deadwood with some lime sulphur.
In a few weeks later I'll treat it with some wood hardener.

Malpighia coccigera

Also did a quick cleanup on this singapore holly and added some rougth guy wires to reposition some branches.

Cuphea han-kengai attempt

Progression of a mame cuphea material.
Ideally I wanted to make a han-kengai ( semi-cascade ) with it.

 The material was originally from a bigger cuphea plant, but got detached during a repotting.
 I was planning to throw it away but then got that han-kengai shape lurking around it so I gave it a try.

Still in training but the shape I had in mind is starting to take form finally.

Parent tree:

Starter material

2nd Ryuga Contest Winner - Most Original Design Award

The winners of the 2nd ofBonsai Magazine Progressive Styling Contest sponsored by RYUGA Bonsai Tools and International Bonsai Magazine have finally been announced today here : http://ofbonsai.org/contest/2nd-ryuga-contest-winners-are

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I had three entries for this contest :

• A miniature rose
• A cuphea
• A ficus benjamina

My Rose entry was awarded "Most Original Design Award"

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Here's a quick before / after of those three entries.

Rose entry:

Common Name: Miniature rose
Latin Name: Rosa chinensis ‘Minima’
Contest page: http://ofbonsai.org/contest/entry-rosa-chinensis-minima-miniature-rose-mauritius

Initial material : Acquired ( from a cutting apparently )
Training (Time frame) : August 2014 - April 2014 ( roughly 8 months training)
Current status : Still a prebonsai - The fact that I went for a kengai ( cascade ) style requires more attention because the rose has an apical dominance, it naturally gives more energy to the topmost area. I need for the next year or so to force the energy to go toward the lower areas and encourage sacrificial branches to thicken up those lower areas.

Before:

After:

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Cuphea entry:

Common Name: False Heather
Latin Name: Cuphea hyssopifolia
Contest page: http://ofbonsai.org/contest/entry-cuphea-hyssopifolia-false-heather-mauritius

Initial material : Nursery plant from Vaneron Garden
Training (Time frame) : July 2014 - April 2014 ( roughly 10 months training)
Current status : Personally for me its still a prebonsai - It still needs some work done on it, the back side specially needs to be developped, as well as the apex.

Before:

After:

A mini vid taken in Jan 2014 (3 months before final submission)

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Ficus entry:

Common Name: Weeping Fig
Latin Name: Ficus Benjamina
Contest page: http://ofbonsai.org/contest/entry-ficus-benjamina-weeping-fig-mauritius

Initial material : Acquired at a plant fair
Training (Time frame) : August 2014 - April 2014 ( roughly 8 months training)
Current status : This entry is the one that has evolved the least. Because of the strong bend that I made I decided to go slowly with this material. There's still a long way to go!

Before:

Technical planning:

What I have in mind for the final design of the tree. The blue extensions are sacrificial branches with potential to become jins in the future, or to be completely removed.

The main challenge in this design was the extreme bend, and reducing the foliage closer to the main trunk.

I decided to start with the bend first, and allow the plant to recuperate before attempting to work on the foliage. As such the final submission for this entry is not as interesting or appealing as it should be.


After:

Final submitted picture: Nothing remotely close to my initial design, but I have to go through this step before I can achieve my goal.

Cuphea 001 : Progression 2

Follow up on my first Cuphea attempt.
Part I : http://maubonsai.blogspot.com/2012/08/cuphea-001-attempting-aerial-roots.html

Cuphea is very slow to thicken up or bulk up its trunk.
It tends to throw long shoots but the main trunk just does not follow up in terms of thickening up as does other plants or shrubs.

In part I, I tried to encourage aerial roots to grow from the lower section of the trunk by applying some generous amount of sphagnum moss in the areas where I wanted the roots to appear.

Once there was a generous amount of roots coming out of the sphagnum moss, I went ahead and removed the sphagnum moss. Then rearranged the branches and also started on the ramification process.