The Great Australian Native Bonsai Book.

[GavinG]

The Great Australian Native Bonsai Book MUST HAPPEN!!! If it is collective, it may not be an enormous burden on any one individual, while getting the best out of all our best growers. (Or a recipe for chaos and disaster. Discuss.)

Ausbonsai would seem to be the ideal forum to propagate the project. If a recognised expert on each species can contribute a chapter, with clear editorial advice on what people need to know, it should be do-able. With a wide base of support, a lot of very high quality trees and photos would be available. How to propagate, how to collect, how to grow, how to shape, and what happens in the wild world - there are your headings. Probably no-one gets paid damn-all, and the profits go to the NBPCA. Discuss.

Complete with photos of some of the astonishing natural shapes that happen in our windswept and difficult conditions. OUR GREAT COUNTRY, OUR GREAT TREES! The windswept natural tea-trees on the forum a month or two ago brought this to my mind. We don't yet have bonsai that reflect that wildness, but we will. And it does not happen like this anywhere else in the world - they are ours, and its our national entity that they embody.

And yes, it's been a long day.

Gavin

[Pat K]

A wonderful idea Gavin and I particularly like the idea of doing it for the advancement of Australian bonsai rather than for individual profit....A WINNER!!!

[Petra]

Does this mean all members get a free copy. or a discount.

[Pup]

That sounds very good, but as usual, it is not that simple. There are many who will contradict, and keep doing it, what is written by these best growers.
I speak from experience, regardless of how long that person has been growing said species. So I will say good luck with the dream.

Pup

[LLK]

The idea of a native bonsai book is not new, as one can imagine.

by Pup » Today, 01:16

That sounds very good, but as usual, it is not that simple. There are many who will contradict, and keep doing it, what is written by these best growers. I speak from experience, regardless of how long that person has been growing said species.

Maybe contradiction often comes from the fact that the experiences of different people are different, due to our many different climates and micro-climates? What works in Brisbane may not work in Launceston and what's OK for Canberra may not be ideal for Perth. Not just because of the influence of the climate on our present day bonsai, but because through isolation the same species have developed differently in different parts of Australia. For it to be really useful, the book would need to take those factors into account. I see it more as a binder with a collection of articles by people from every part of the country, with new articles added as they are written. After all, we haven't been doing native bonsai for all that long and the final word on any species has surely not been said. And then, after maybe 10 years, we can work out what the experiences of the different contributors have in common, and write a book that summarises them all.

Lisa

PS - I suddenly remember the Australian Plants as Bonsai (APAB) Study Group and its newsletter. That would have contributed to a good start for a book, if it hadn't stopped in 2007 due to the new commitments of the main initiative-taker. See
http://asgap.org.au/bonsai/newsletter.html