Robert Steven rescues a Juniper-styled Pemphis

[melbrackstone]

This is direct from Robert's fb page, thought the story and images worth sharing.

Rayong -1

It was the greatest pleasure to be with Meng Bonsai at his 18 Bonsai Garden Resort with the Black Scissors Fellows from the Bonsai Wiring Club in Rayong, Thailand.

He has hundreds of wonderful Pemphis bonsai, but unfortunately they are mostly designed in conifers structure with dense foliage in apical triangle shape. Consequently, the unique and strong characters of Pemphis as tropical are not well explored, most of the interesting structure are covered. Nevertheless, such styling structure will certainly kill the bonsai one day as what happened in the past with the Pemphis bonsai in Indonesia and Philippines due to the wrong ramification and designing method.

The most stunning was when I did a total restyling on this Pemphis.
It was designed which look more like a junipers with very dense foliage, all the interesting structure and character were covered. In order to obtain a canopy (the main mindset problem), a straight apical branch was set with fish bone structure to form the apex....and I simply chopped it off and transformed it into an entire new design.

So far, only Indonesia and Philippines have done good Pemphis bonsai. I really wish to see some days Thailand to come out with their Pemphis bonsai to "compete" Indonesia and Philippines.
Always a wonderful feeling when you are able to share something good things that can elevate the art of bonsai !

BTW, thanks to Meng Bonsai and all the Black Scissors Fellows of Bonsai Wiring Club for the warm hospitality... your enthusiasm will pay back !

#PemphisBonsai #ThailandBonsai #BlackScissorsFellows

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[Watto]

Wow very interesting, thanks Mel.

[Keels]

I like that alot. Very interesting

[Greg F]

A very bold move but looks great. I liked it before too. Thanks for sharing.

Greg

[TimS]

I’m starting to dislike this Ryan Neil/ Bjorn style about as much as I dislike the green helmet.

Bland and uninteresting IMHO

[KIRKY]

Really nice material he started with great trunk. If nothing else he’s consistent in his styling (we need a yawn emoji)

Cheers
Kirky

[MJL]

I had no idea what Pemphis was ... so I looked that up. I had no idea who Robert Stephen was - so I looked that up. (Yeah I know - apologies for my ignorance!)

Anyway ... I liked the style of this newly designed tree - a lot. Then when I look up Pemphis ... I liked it more ... I think its coastal nature seemed more congruent with the new winding, cascading, blown style. I then looked up Robert Steven and wonder how I was unaware...??

Perhaps I like the tree the because of the influence of Chinese penjing style in Mr Stephen's work .... I am very much attracted to the work of Zhao Quinquan and his work has definitely influenced my thoughts.

In short, love the tree ... but understand why others don't love the tree.