by Zach Smith | Aug 24, 2015 | Care, Potting, Pruning, Soil, Wiring
The typical bonsai enthusiast is initially captivated by seeing either a real-life bonsai or a photograph in a book or magazine (or even on TV!). These tiny trees seem almost to jump out at you. But what is it about them? Why do they instantly amaze? The secret, quite simply, lies in how the bonsai is artistically designed.
To begin at the beginning, by definition a bonsai is a tree in a tray. That’s exactly what the word means: “bon” for tray, “sai” meaning to plant. Going beyond the basic definition, a bonsai is a representation, on a small scale, of a fully grown, mature tree in nature. It is meant to mimic the features of its natural counterpart, while not precisely copying them in scale. The practical meaning of this is, if the leaves on an eighty foot-tall oak in nature are five inches long each, shrinking that tree to two feet in height would require the leaves to be just over one-tenth of an inch in length. It would be hard to make out an individual leaf on such a tree, which would hamper rather than enhance its appearance.
So with this said, what are the basics of bonsai design? Here we can look to universal principles of design for our answer. Consider a landscape painting, for example. In order for the artist to portray a representation of an actual landscape scene on a flat canvas, he or she must take into account a number of factors. But the first necessity is the very same one the bonsai artist must take into account: fooling the brain into seeing something besides what’s in front of it. What does this mean? Again consider the landscape painting. It’s really nothing more than a piece of cloth with a shallow smattering of medium-infused pigments arranged in such a way as to represent earth, trees, grass, and so forth. Yet when viewed the brain can clearly grasp a scene that might very well appear somewhere in nature. There’s color and perspective, depth, form, shading; this evokes emotions. So too with a bonsai. A bonsai is essentially a landscape “painting.” When properly designed it has color and perspective, depth, form, and shading. And it most certainly evokes emotions. Perhaps the best thing is, it’s alive!
But bonsai is three-dimensional to begin with. This might seem as if it would lessen the problem of creating depth and perspective in our “living landscape painting,” but the truth is it makes this more difficult to achieve. Why? For the simple reason that the typical bonsai only measures from a few up to about 30 inches from front to back. Thus the brain must be tricked somehow into believing this depth is much, much greater (and not just thirty or forty feet, because the world continues on past your tree!). In addition to this, since a typical bonsai only measures from a few up to about 48 inches in height the brain must be tricked into believing this height is much, much greater. Finally, we must somehow manage to represent that part of the landscape which supports the tree – we have to grab a “slice of the earth” as it were. In sum, what you have when you pot up a small tree is basically a small tree in a pot. Much more goes into making it look right.
Let’s summarize what we know so far. Making a bonsai look right means making a small living tree appear to be much taller and larger than it is, and though viewed from an extremely close distance appear to be much farther away than it is. This is exactly the same effect the landscape painter works to achieve: on a flat canvas viewed from perhaps six feet away, a vista stretching for hundreds of feet or even hundreds of miles. Given this, let’s work through the design process that makes a bonsai a bonsai.
Trees visually consist of a root base, trunk, branches, and leaves. Unseen is the network of roots that provides the support, but we know it’s there. When you observe a beautiful tree standing alone in, say, a meadow, you grasp its entirety regarding its height and spread, its shape, its structure – in short, you get a sense of quiet majesty. The tree speaks to you while saying nothing. It stands firm and sure, gripping the earth. In the course of a year, it puts on fresh foliage, grows itself larger and stouter or at least renews itself if very old, bears fruit, shows brilliant colors as its chlorophyll breaks down, then drops its leaves in preparation for the necessary dormancy. Stability, or the appearance of longevity, is thus a key factor in making a tree a tree. Bonsai are no different. You want the tree to appear as if it’s been quietly living its life in its pot, standing against the elements and time. Stability implies a balance between the tree and the earth. Thus we find our way to the first definitive design factor for the tree – a balanced though asymmetric (i.e., non-static – more on this later), stable stance. In order to achieve this, we take advantage of the most stable of the three dimensional shapes – the (scalene) cone pointed upward. When viewed from a point designated as the front, this shape sits on a horizontal base and features unequal sides. In order to make our bonsai appear to be stable, we shape them to fit within the confines of a scalene cone. Now, this does not mean the tree is simply a lopsided Christmas tree with a broad base of foliage terminating in a tiny little point. It means that the combination of positive and negative space occupied by the tree conforms to this shape. Here’s an example:
Notice that even though you can’t see the entire cone in this picture, it’s nevertheless there as far as the brain is concerned (it’s represented here as a triangle; the implied front-to-back depth of the planting produces in the brain an impression of a cone shape). It consists of both positive space, namely the tree’s branch structure, along with negative space where nothing appears. It also captures the network of roots by suggestion; remember, the rootage of a tree in nature extends far beyond the confines of the branch structure. So it’s visually stable. Notice the tree is planted in the container in such a way that there’s a broad expanse of empty ground to the right-hand side of the tree. This asymmetry both enhances visual stability and prevents the composition from being static, which means it prompts the eye to move around and through the tree continually rather than focusing in any one spot.
And so, with our first design factor understood, it’s time to move on to our next factor: making your tree look taller than it really is. To be continued …
by Zach Smith | Aug 23, 2015 | Care, Water Elm
Today I collected my last group of water-elms for 2015. The season came late this year due to high water issues. Nevertheless, I got some good specimens that will appear on our sales page perhaps as early as late next month. All in all, I have a good crop for the 2016 growing season.
Here are a couple of specimens from today:
This one has a 3″ trunk base, good rootage and good basal flare. It’s been chopped to a tapering leader, which itself has been chopped to give a total height of 18″. This tree will end up about 24″ tall when it’s finished.
I’m not convinced this is the best front for this tree. Below is a shot from a different angle:
The trunk seems more graceful from this angle, and I like the way the flaring root base looks. What do you think?
Here’s another specimen from today’s crop, which is proof that nice things can come in small packages. The trunk base on this guy is only 1.5″ in diameter, and it’s been chopped at 8″. I’m not sure which direction works best, but either way this tree will end up no taller than 12″.
It’s nice, though, isn’t it?
by Zach Smith | Aug 22, 2015 | Care, Flowering, Hawthorn, Pruning, Wiring
We’ve been watching the development of this riverflat hawthorn, Crataegus opaca, since it was collecting this past January. With the exception of two existing branches I decided to keep since they were in scale, there’s nothing here but a trunk. It’s obviously an old tree, as it has the rough bark typical of the species; this, along with nice movement and taper, made it ideal bonsai material.
Fast-forward to today, and here’s the same tree after a full season of development, meaning wiring and shaping and trimming as needed to control the growth. I unwired the tree some time ago, and have left it alone to grow back out. Though the growing season is effectively over, I can wire, shape and trim this tree and then leave it until spring. This will give me a head-start on 2016, since I’ll have a lot of other chores that need doing when the buds begin to swell. Not to mention the fact that the tree will look nicer through the ugly winter months.
Let’s zoom in on this tree to take notice of one of the key development techniques we use on collected specimens. I identified, early on, the new shoot I wanted to keep as my new leader. In order to make the transition look right between the original trunk chop and what will become the tree’s crown, this leader needed to be shaped and left alone to grow unrestrained. Today, it’s 1/2-inch in diameter at the base. The original chop is 1.25 inches in diameter. Next year, I’ll angle cut and carve the original chop, cut back the new leader to the axial bud closest to the point roughly three basal diameters along the shoot, and let a new leader grow wild to continue the thickening process. Altogether, it’ll take another two to three years to make the transition look right.
This branch, on the back of the tree, was allowed to grow for a couple of reasons: one, I originally planned to use it in the design of the tree; and two, I wanted to ensure the roots lying below the low chop on this specimen were fed. I’ve decided to remove this branch altogether next year; it’ll probably come off by summer.
Here’s the result after wiring, shaping and trimming. I think this specimen is really shaping up. In 2016, I’ll get secondary shoots on my primary branches which I’ll select, wire and shape. These secondary branches will be well established by the end of the growing season; some may even be pushing tertiary shoots. Regardless, going into the 2017 season the lower part of this tree, meaning everything below the crown, will be developing ramification. That will leave the final chore, namely building the crown. That will take another couple of years.
This riverflat hawthorn is available at our Hawthorn Bonsai sale page, if you’d like to take over its development. The tree will be ready for a bonsai pot as early as next year, but no later than 2017.
by Zach Smith | Aug 16, 2015 | Care, Elms, Water Elm
The water-elm collecting season is typically in July of each year in the spot I frequent. The area is intentionally flooded each winter to support water fowl and other wildlife, with the water being released beginning in June. Due to high water levels on all of our rivers this year, my collecting area stayed well under water through most of July. This made the season both late and short for 2015. But today I was able to get some specimens for next year. I thought I’d share two of them with you.
This is a unique example of the species. If it survives collecting, it’s going to get a name with “dragon” in it for sure. The trunk base is 6″ across, and it’s roughly 28″ tall from the soil surface though the body of the tree is about 42″ if you measure along it. If you look closely you can see the shari that runs from near the base all the way to near the chop. Very impressive! I can already picture a branch structure for this tree.
Here’s a “hunky” guy of a water-elm, trunk base 4″ and only 18″ to the chop. Nice rootage that I buried to keep it from drying out. It’ll take a few years to grow a new leader on this tree and make the tapering transition look smooth, but this should not be a difficult chore.
Water-elm and bald cypress are hands-down my two favorite species for bonsai. Most of you have probably tried your hand at BC. If you haven’t given water-elm a shot yet, I highly recommend it. The leaves are naturally small and reduce without any special effort, and it’s a species that loves the heat of summer (as long as you give it plenty of water). You can go from a bare trunk to a showable bonsai in as little as three years.
by Zach Smith | Aug 15, 2015 | Bald Cypress, Care, Pruning, Wiring
Here’s where we left off with this bald cypress, Taxodium distichum, a couple of weeks ago. I had made mention of the fact that defoliating a healthy bald cypress in early July leads to a new flush of fresh growth within two or three weeks. It’s common for BC to get ratty looking foliage in mid- to late summer. While this doesn’t cause any permanent harm, it’s pretty unattractive. So why not do something about it? So on this developing flat-top style tree, I went at it hard July 4th weekend. By August 1st the tree had thrown lots of new strong shoots, and was ready for its next round of work. So after some fine wiring and judicious trimming, we had this result.
This is where we are today. My new shoots are now four to six inches long, and it’s time to give them a final trim for 2015. As the remainder of the growing season winds down, this new growth will harden off in time for winter. Next year, we get into serious ramification.
I also had the opportunity to correct something that didn’t look quite right to me following the previous session. The main left-hand leader looked a little bit long relative to the right-hand leader and my plan for the overall silhouette of the tree. I hadn’t noticed this until I photographed the tree back on August 1st. Which brings up another good bit of advice on developing your trees: take photos of it in its various stages. The camera will often show you flaws you just can’t see standing in front of the tree.
In this shot, you can see I’ve brought in the left-hand leader enough to restore the crown’s balance. This bit of tough-love, done now, will yield great results down the road.
