Alpineart's Blog

This was collected a couple of years ago , the tree itself was estimated at 60-70- years old .Standing about 3 m high its base was close to 500mm . Using an old bow saw with the teeth having extra set placed on them to give clearance i cut it off and trimmed it to fit into the car . When i returned home i simply flat cut the base to around 350mm and only 40mm in thickness .This was placed into a pot with coarse river sand and sat in a water/sand tray to retain moisture .After the first season it was transplanted into a 400mm planter tray .It has constantly suckered up at the base , however i managed to selectively retain quite a few well positions branches .The soil mix is basically pine bark and potting mix as my bonsai mix is too open for moisture retention for this species and size .I do have smaller olives in my scoria blend and they are growing well . Because the branches are growing upwards i have put some wires on to hold them clear of the dead wood to be carved , don’t want to severe a branch now . I began with the apex and carved and refined the straight section with some movement and thinned out for taper .I have also carved a section to represent several branches to add some extra character .With the apex finished i worked the lower dead section originally on the tree , this to was carved to represent several branches .It all needs refining however that’s a task for another day .With the carving finished i applied some wire to the branches in order to get some movement and establish a structure to work on in the future .With a quick trim and shape its all over .I will paint the carved sections with lime sulphur as the dark grey blends in too well with the foliage colour . I need to find a suitable container to house this bugger , at the moment i don’t have anything suitable  other than the tray its i now .

Cheers and Happy Bonsai . Alpineart

This was the garden tree used as one of my first bonsai .It was cut down several months ago and allowed to sprout .With a keen eye i watch a mini trunk sprout so i thought i would take a look at this one .It had also began to shoot , so with the help of my Wife i decided to carve the stubs back to improve the movement and taper .Moving around an carrying tools on crutches is like getting a 3 legged horse to win the derby . Karen even set up a camper bed for me to work off .Originally i was going to carve them out and hollow them for features .A close look at the growth and the stubs revealed he bark had already began to heal over , so i decided to carve them into a convex shape to blend in with the trunk once the bark has covered them . With over 60 shoots present , i removed the unwanted ones and began to carve the old stubs off .Using an100mm Angle grinder with 3 tungsten blades attached make for a very good powerful carver .Working my way around the trunk i blended the carved sections in so as to follow the movement of the trunk rather than fight against it .I have reduced the apex by around 100mm to a new shoot leader growing in the opposite direction to continue the flowing movement all the way to the apex .Several weeks ago i severed the 4-5 main stay roots to help with the feeder roots closer to the trunk . They will be shorten again in a month or two in preparation for digging out of the garden ..In the mean time it will grow on under a watch full eye to keep the shoots where they are best suited .With the job done its onto the next trunk .

Cheers Alpineart

Sitting around watching the grass grow most certainly has whiskers on it .I get tired of looking at tree’s in pots and with the body out of action well i have all the time in the world . I decided to style the big Zelkova rather than wait another season . Using stripped 20 amp electrical cable recycled from building renovation jobs done prior to the motorbike accident , with the inner insulation left on i wired the main branches into position ,The center earth wire was utilized by unraveling it and wiring the secondary branches and shoots . Close to 40 meters of wire has been placed on the tree  . I  have never used bonsai wire since i started playing with tree’s finding over head power cable made from aluminium and electrical cable does the job as god as i need . While it may not suit the most fastidious players   its each to his own after all they are only trainers .

I use around 5 km of wire in  a full season so that expense is out of the question . All theses wire if stripped can be annealed to soften them or used as is . With all the wiring done its onto the styling and shaping into an Informal Upright , yes it will have a broom shaped canopy  . The finished height of the trainer is around 700mm with a width of 500mm .. The base at ground level is 90mm however once the new roots have developed it will be raised up in the pot and then it will exceed 110mm .The sacrifice branches will remain on the base for this season, however the will have wired applied to them and some movement placed into the new trunks before they are layered off to begin their life as trainers .

After the new flush of growth begins this will undergo a defoliation of the leaves and possible another later in the growing season .I’m more than happy with the progress of this tree .

Cheer Alpineart