Re: How to grow good bonsai stock like the Japanese nurseries
Posted: May 22nd, 2009, 7:37 pm
Shari. How to.
Most people when they decide to have a tree with a shari, grow the trunk to the desired thickness, then remove bark from the designed area and maybe even do a little carving to add texture. This is a bad way of going about it. A better method is to incorporate shari from a young age.
Below is a good example of why we start the shari early. When a trunk grows, it expands out wards each year in all directions creating usually a round trunk. If you look at the picture below you will see a shari running down the center of the trunk. The shari is the same on the back side. When this tree grows each year only the live veins expand. As the live veins are located on the outer edges of the shari, this is where the expanding occurs.
The below image is a close up. If you imagine that the live vein is shaped like a crescent moon in section and that the growth it puts on adds wood to the outer edge of the moon shape you begin to understand that your trunk is now growing thicker in one direction instead of in the round.
If each year you remove a small amount of the live vein (a strip following the sharis edge) you end up increasing the trunk and the sharis width.
Look at the tree below.
And then look at a close up of its shari.
You will notice the beautiful lines and texture that are present. Those lines basically mark where, each previous year, a sliver of live vein has been removed and the shari widened. As each year the tree grows and as does the live vein, new heart wood is added to the vein, so when you remove a sliver along the vein a line appears which shows the difference in thickness between one years heartwood and the next.
The other bonus of this technique is that you are directing growth exactly where you want it. If you look again at the trees above and compare the trunks above the sharis (those that are in the round) to the thickness of the shari and live vein section. It becomes apparent that because you are growing on two sides via use of live veins that the trunk grows alot wider than if it were grown in the round. So not only does this method create better looking, textured shari, but it grows thicker trunks faster.
To start the shari you probably want your material to be around 1- 2cm thick. then start a very thin shari maybe a few mm wide. Lino cutting chisels ( available from art shops) are excellent for this fine work. creating a shari on both sides of the trunk like the top example will exaggerate the effect. You don't have to make the first shari a continuous strip at first, it may begin with a number of sharis that will later become joined. Then every year or two you widen the shari by a few mm or so. Soon the shari will begin to widen and will be a flat plate if dead wood with natural texture.
The tree below had its shari created by nature
Again if you look closely at the shari you begin to see hints of how it has grown in much the same manner, only instructed by nature. This is why most of the collected junipers have flat plate like sharied trunks, its merely a product of how the thin live veins grow and add new heartwood.
Most people when they decide to have a tree with a shari, grow the trunk to the desired thickness, then remove bark from the designed area and maybe even do a little carving to add texture. This is a bad way of going about it. A better method is to incorporate shari from a young age.
Below is a good example of why we start the shari early. When a trunk grows, it expands out wards each year in all directions creating usually a round trunk. If you look at the picture below you will see a shari running down the center of the trunk. The shari is the same on the back side. When this tree grows each year only the live veins expand. As the live veins are located on the outer edges of the shari, this is where the expanding occurs.
The below image is a close up. If you imagine that the live vein is shaped like a crescent moon in section and that the growth it puts on adds wood to the outer edge of the moon shape you begin to understand that your trunk is now growing thicker in one direction instead of in the round.
If each year you remove a small amount of the live vein (a strip following the sharis edge) you end up increasing the trunk and the sharis width.
Look at the tree below.
And then look at a close up of its shari.
You will notice the beautiful lines and texture that are present. Those lines basically mark where, each previous year, a sliver of live vein has been removed and the shari widened. As each year the tree grows and as does the live vein, new heart wood is added to the vein, so when you remove a sliver along the vein a line appears which shows the difference in thickness between one years heartwood and the next.
The other bonus of this technique is that you are directing growth exactly where you want it. If you look again at the trees above and compare the trunks above the sharis (those that are in the round) to the thickness of the shari and live vein section. It becomes apparent that because you are growing on two sides via use of live veins that the trunk grows alot wider than if it were grown in the round. So not only does this method create better looking, textured shari, but it grows thicker trunks faster.
To start the shari you probably want your material to be around 1- 2cm thick. then start a very thin shari maybe a few mm wide. Lino cutting chisels ( available from art shops) are excellent for this fine work. creating a shari on both sides of the trunk like the top example will exaggerate the effect. You don't have to make the first shari a continuous strip at first, it may begin with a number of sharis that will later become joined. Then every year or two you widen the shari by a few mm or so. Soon the shari will begin to widen and will be a flat plate if dead wood with natural texture.
The tree below had its shari created by nature
Again if you look closely at the shari you begin to see hints of how it has grown in much the same manner, only instructed by nature. This is why most of the collected junipers have flat plate like sharied trunks, its merely a product of how the thin live veins grow and add new heartwood.
I was talking about this with a friend today and our history is so short compared to Japan we don't have generations of knowledge handed down. Give us time and we too will have the master pass knowledge to a new master, then to a new master and so on, each adding, expanding and perfecting what they learn.