To those of you that where to scared to take the leap of faith and guess which one of the trees that I bought was left, it was tree B. I know there was a few of you that really want to take the change but didn't.
There is the tree just to refresh your memory.
This was a challenging tree for me. I was tired last night when I worked on this tree. It was a long day and I had a lot on my mind.
I made a promise so I just had to suck it up and work on the tree. I had to thoroughly inspect the tree and plan carefully before making any cuts or before removing any of the branches. It took me one hour and thirty six minutes to complete all the work on this tree. Most of this time was spent looking at the tree, lifting branches and trying to see what there was under the foliage.
After study the tree and deciding on a angle of the tree based on the movement of the trunks and the root flare of the tree the rest of the tree fell into place without much effort. The only heavy bending that I needed to do was to straiten up the trunk and bring a back branch forward to form the new apex. What made this tree different was the fact that I once again had to lift some of the trees branches to get them into place. Normally the foliage of a new tree is far from the base so you need to compact the growth. With these trees that I have styled over the past few weeks I had to make space so that I could firstly see the inside of the tree and secondly to open up the tree to allow wire to be applied. I only then shift the branches into place. If you look at the tree you will see that all the branches appear to be on the outside curves of the bends of the trunk. In actual fact none of them are in the right place. Have a look at the photo below.
If you look at the first and second branch can you with confidence say which is which? Is the branch to the left the first branch because it occupies the lowest space in the tree or is the branch to the right the first branch as it stems from the trunk at a slightly lower point? The answer : It can be anyone of the two mentioned above but generally the lowest branch would be the branch that occupies the lowest space in the design. When styling a tree it is good to know the rules and use them as must as possible but you can get backed up into a corner. This is there creative thinking get triggered. Some of the rules or guidelines are there so that you can learn more when you are still new to bonsai on how the different parts of the tree needs to be structured so that the tree makes sense or seems pleasing to the eye. This tree has a left, right and back branch feel. The branches just come from different parts then one would usually think it would.
This is a side angle view of the tree from the right. I just added this photo to show the foliage pads. You can see that the apex of the tree is leaning forward a bit too much. I pulled it forward with a guy wire so it will most probably move back more when I remove the wire, it will look much better then. When we style trees you so caught up in the tree and bending everything into place you forget to look at the tree from a distance. This is something that I find useful. If you take photos of the tree after it is done you can always go back to them later so that you can see the tree with a new perspective. Here you can see the deadwood on the tree. I have a few small pieces of deadwood on the tree. It is not enough to use as a feature in the design but it adds to the overall story of the tree.
A few other angles just to see more of the deadwood.
This is a top view of the tree. As you can see the branches are spread out evenly and hopefully the gaps in between the branches will full up quickly. To recap I have added the before and after photos of this tree below.
I am very happy with the results of the tree. Please feel free to leave you comments below.
