I had the pleasure of being a participant in a workshop conducted by Mauro Stemberger, famous Italian bonsai artist, demonstrator and instructor during his recent tour of Australia. In fact I had the opportunity to attend two of his workshops, one in Sydney and the next in Canberra. Such opportunities don’t come very often so I was prepared to travel around to absorb as much knowledge as I could from him.

For the first workshop in Sydney I took a Scots Pine that I had dug from a garden in my local area in 2012. The tree needed to be removed as it was growing under other larger trees and was not in good health, so digging it has saved its life. Some water and some fertilizer and it bounced back to health.

Scots Pine before work commenced

The workshop took the usual format of Mauro looking at and discussing the possibilities of each tree before he set everyone to work on their projects.

Looking at the options

After some initial removal of unwanted branches I was set the task of some foliage removal, and then creating some jins and shari.

Creating the jins

The next job was the wiring of every branch.

The wiring begins

There was raffia, rubber tubing and lot and lots of wire.

Wire, lots of wire!

I did get some assistance from a few friends and I very much thank them as I wouldn’t have got all the wiring done without their assistance.

The best part was next when Mauro “styled” the tree, or as he said gave it some direction for future years of development. I did play a small part in that process but I was truly impressed by the vision that Mauro had, and his ability to put the tree into that design.

The final product now needs time to rest and recuperate and then a new pot is in order. All in all I’m very pleased with the outcome and I think this tree now has a future and for that I thank Mauro for his skill, vision and design.

The after shot