Next Meeting: Thursday March 14th Demonstration by Michael Simonetto on carving deadwood.

Transcription

1 Next Meeting: Thursday March 14th Demonstration by Michael Simonetto on carving deadwood. Hello everyone and welcome to March. How's your Chamaecyparis going? I've only done a little pruning to mine so far, and I'm still considering two possible styles. This month we have Michael Simonetto coming to demonstrate carving the deadwood of bonsai to us, as requested by a member of the club. Michael is very skilled and I'm sure we'll all learn something on the night. NSBC Club Details Northern Suburbs Bonsai Club meets in the Lalor Library Meeting Room, May Rd Lalor, Melways 8K6 on the 2 nd Thursday of each month with the exception of January from 7:30pm to 9:30pm Club Contacts: presnsbc@gmail.com & secnsbc@gmail.com or Phone Val Check the Webpage onsaiclub.com.au or on Facebook Northern Suburbs Bonsai Club or send something via Snail Mail PO Box 1200, Bundoora, 3083 If you have a bonsai with some carving please bring it for the display table, or if you have one you think you should carve, it might be a good chance to find out if an expert agrees that it's suitable. As always, thanks to those in the club who help set up and pack up, it's appreciated. Many hands make light work. We always have a random draw from the members' trees on the display table, to win a prize on the night. February's winner is Michael. Here he is, proud of the olives his bonsai is sporting, and holding his prize too. Be sure to bring in a tree for the display table; you've got to be in it to win it. And February was competition tree month, whereby the club purchased all the same trees and every paid up member that was there on the night got to choose a tree for themselves, free of charge. The only condition was that the tree had to be worked on and eventually potted in a bonsai pot that would then be displayed at the November club meeting and someone would be crowned competition tree club champion. Unfortunately it doesn t always go to plan as you may have guessed by the despair on Vals face after her lillypilly from the last competition died. We all make mistakes, but better to make them on smaller trees as opposed to the older, more expensive ones.

2

3 CHAMAECYPARIS BONSAI CULTIVATION NOTES Position Full sun, must be protected from strong wind particularly during the Winter. Watering Mist foliage regularly ; will not tolerate the soil drying out, unlike many coniferous species, Chamaecyparis are thirsty trees. Feeding Fortnightly from Spring to Autumn. BONSAI - 2nd Edition OFFICIAL RELEASE DATE FRIDAY MARCH 8TH The second book from Bonsai4me, 'Bonsai Inspirations 2' reprinted as a new 2nd Edition. 'Bonsai Inspirations 2' is divided into 5 chapters, each chapter covering the progression and development of a bonsai over a period of many years, illustrating in great depth how impressive and majestic bonsai can be created from humble beginnings. Indepth articles, diagrams and many hundreds of photographs have been inserted into each Chapter to help explain and illustrate the techniques involved in the development of each bonsai. The new edition has been heavily updated with around 40% new text and many new images. Updated chapters covering a further 6 years of development of each of the original trees, and a whole new Chapter covering the big Elm bonsai that features on the front cover of the book. There is also a new article describing the whole process of carving and creating deadwood used by the author. Roughingout, ageing and refining, and staining deadwood are all described in detail. All pre-ordered copies are signed by Harry Harrington and NUMBERED out of the 2000 print run, in the order that copies are purchased from the Shop. ORDER YOUR COPY NOW! Repotting Every two to three years in standard soil mix in Spring as growth starts. Pruning Chamaecyparis do not backbud on anything other than green wood. Pinch out foliage continually through growing season to keep compact. Allowing over extension of growth can lead to the irreplaceable loss of inner growth. Do not hard-prune in summer. Foliage that is shaded will often dieback during the Winter. Propagation Sow seed outside in Spring, take semi-ripe cuttings in late summer. Air-layering in late Spring. Pests and Diseases Aphids and red-spider mite, scale insects. Styles All forms except broom in all sizes.

4

5 Creating a Natural Deadwood Effect Deadwood on bonsai in the form of jin or shari adds not only an effective feature to a design but in the case of many old Pine and Juniper, a very realistic one as well. Jins on trees in nature are normally created when branches are broken by strong winds, by the weight of snow or by lightening strikes. When styling a bonsai, branches that are not required as part of the foliage mass can instead be used to create jin. The use of jin on a bonsai implies to the viewer an increased age and shows the struggle of the tree to survive. Unfortunately, though the process of creating a jin is straightforward, its design can be difficult. A successful jin must look natural, it must look as though it has been created by nature in order to compliment and not detract from the tree. A common way of creating a jin is by carving using power and hand tools; the use of either successfully, takes a great deal of skill, particularly if the wood is featureless, as in the case shown below. This series of photos is intended to show an additional method of creating jin. Deadwood features are created by tearing away at the wood to mimic the action of a broken branch pulling away strips of the grain to create a natural effect. These techniques can also be applied when creating jin from branches down to 1/2" in thickness; they are however intended only for species that have fibrous wood. This includes nearly all coniferous species but only some deciduous species. The tree used in this series is an old Chamaecyparis that has had a secondary trunk removed. The purpose of jinning this trunk is to create an effect of an old, dead stump that will compliment the main trunk of the bonsai. This secondary trunk was removed two months ago and has just started to dry out, having now been 'rejected' by the live portion of the tree. It is around 2" thick at its base. The first step is to remove the bark from the portion of wood that is to be jinned. Any remaining soft tissue is also removed. At this point only the part of the stump that is above the soil level will be worked on; further work will be carried out as the stump is revealed after repotting in the future. The first slithers are pulled away from the stump; the top of the wood is either notched to segment it or crushed with pliers. Each segment is then pulled down and away from the stump with jin pliers or ordinary pliers. When pulling away strips of wood, it is important the live section at the sides or the base are not damaged. Strips rarely stop abruptly above the live wood and often need removing near the base with a knife or similar. The pulling down of the segments of wood continues on the first half of the stump. Continued on the next page

6 The second half of the stump is then pulled away; it is starting to reveal more of a natural shape. Unfortunately, the current shape resembles a catapult and it is decided to reduce the second half of the stump further. After reducing the second half of the stump; now the jin is really starting to take shape. Increasingly smaller strips of the grain are now pulled the length of the stump, creating more texture to the wood. As the wood is fibrous, small burrs and pulls are evident. These are best dealt with by gently burning the surface of the wood. The stump is gently scorched with a naked flame to burn off all the fibres. It is very important at this point to protect the rest of the tree, in particular the foliage, from not only the flame but also the heat that it generates. In this case, a piece of hardboard was used to completely cover the tree from the flame. It is also important that the jin itself is only slightly scorched to remove the fibres otherwise it is possible for the jin itself to set alight! Any blackening of the wood is easily removed by the process of smoothing off and limesulphuring. In this picture, the jin has been lightly carved with a small gouge to accentuate its lines and it has been gently sanded down with sandpaper to smooth out any tool marks. Sharp edges are also rounded off to replicate the effect that the action of the weather would have on deadwood in nature. Finally, the jin is lime-sulphured to whiten it and to stop it from rotting in the future. In the future, black ink will be added to the lime sulphur when painting the recesses to add a greater illusion of depth. The following morning the limesulphur has nearly dried and the work is complete. In the future, when the tree itself has been styled, the jin will be further refined to ensure it compliments other areas of deadwood on the bonsai as a whole. For the time being, it will now be left to dry and weather naturally.

7 The club is delighted to welcome two new members, Jan and Frank. Both joined up in February and received a competition tree on the night. Each showed a lot of interest and aptitude for bonsai, and we hope they ll find the club a positive force during their bonsai journey. Welcome Jan and Frank. Jan Frank Mark has studied in Japan, increasing his skills as an apprentice at the Taisho En Bonsai Nursery. To enquire about classes, or to see his extensive and reasonably-priced stock of starter trees and more developed bonsai creations, please phone him on You can also find Mark on Facebook: The Master s Apprentice Bonsai School and Nursery. (Group) Michael has been in the nursery industry since 1986 and ran a retail nursery until During that time he also designed and installed new gardens for many clients and studied Horticulture at Burnley Horticultural College. Michael became interested in bonsai in Soon after, he came across the book Four Seasons of Bonsai by Kyuzo Murata which opened his eyes to the real value of appreciation of the art using a natural and non-conspicuous approach. Since then he has sort to propagate and train many rare and beautiful varieties for himself and to distribute amongst the local bonsai community. This required Michael to become proficient in the raising of seedlings and cuttings together with grafting and layering as there was no such material available commercially. Mike s first tree was a procumbens juniper dug from his front garden, which he still has, and has undergone many changes over the years. Mike has no particular favourite species to work with but does concentrate and focus on deciduous species for most of the time, always trying to perfect the techniques of branch ramification for high quality winter displays. Foremost in Mike s mind now is the idea that we should look to nature more than anything else as our guide and inspiration for bonsai.

8 March 14th Demonstration by Michael Simonetto on carving deadwood. April 11th Workshop May 9th Demonstration by Mark Ludlow on Bunjin style bonsai. June 13th Workshop July 11th Demonstration by Barry Wood on maples. August 8th Workshop (good month for repotting) September 12th AGM and Workshop, preparation of show trees. September 21st/22nd Annual Show (Set up Friday 20th) October 10th Possible workshop, possible demonstration. TBA November 14th Demonstration by Steve Jarrold on tool sharpening & maintenance. [And assessment of competition trees] December 12th Christmas break-up, auction, awards, special tree raffle, bonsai Xmas tree competition, supper.