AusBonsai

Any time Ant. Here's another couple I found in the pics from the trip.
If you look closely at my phone you'll see my wife and kids as I was facetiming with them when I was taking these photos!

WOW! These are just sensational! I have a few trident root over rock developing at the moment and this gives me some fantastic ideas and shows what can be achieved. I am awed by the pics and I can just imagine how the look in real life! Thanks for posting!

Chipper5

Chipper5 I think the first day I just walked around with my jaw on the ground in complete amazement at the quality of the trees and being able to just touch them.

The saddest part is by the end I wasn't that amazed. I saw so many fantastic trees that just seemed to get better and better that the trees that took my fancy on the first day seemed only average by the end of the trip. Sounds terrible because I would have all of these trees in my collection any day of the week. You stop being dazzled and start looking at imperfections and areas of improvement.

Like I said, I would have any of these trees.

Here's a batch that had been wired by Peter Tea. They use aluminium wire on their tridents. The reason for this is that thicker wire is required to get the same strength as the copper wire and the thicker wire doesn't cut in as deep as the thinner copper wire. Peter was also saying that it is the heat of the wire that causes the branches to grow particularly where the wire is wrapped. Interesting.

Scott Martin wrote:Chipper5 I think the first day I just walked around with my jaw on the ground in complete amazement at the quality of the trees and being able to just touch them.

The saddest part is by the end I wasn't that amazed. I saw so many fantastic trees that just seemed to get better and better that the trees that took my fancy on the first day seemed only average by the end of the trip. Sounds terrible because I would have all of these trees in my collection any day of the week. You stop being dazzled and start looking at imperfections and areas of improvement.

Like I said, I would have any of these trees.

If by the end of the trip you were analyzing for improvement, to me that sounds like you have learnt a hell of a lot. Well done and congrats !!! For what you have seen is in a class all of its own, You have walked with the gods and been blessed with the fruits of heavan !!! Im scared to go and have to come back

Thanks Ant. I do feel very lucky to have gone and done the whole trip and I did learn heaps! Mr Tanaka and Peter were all very forthcoming answering any questions I had. They made it very clear from the start that this trip is what I want to make it. The more questions I ask, the more they will tell me. They even gave away a few trade secrets that I had to promise I wouldn't let out of the bag... The artists over there have all got their own techniques and secrets that they don't want the others finding out as they trade heaps of trees amongst themselves to sell to their own clients. There are always 2 prices for everything; client price and professional price. Mr Tanaka was kind enough to organise for me to buy as many top quality tools as I wanted at the professional price without any mark up so I loaded my bags and chucked out my clothes.

24/7 for 2 weeks doing nothing but bonsai was a dream come true.

I've just had some more pots arrive this morning too so I'll get them posted as soon as I can!

Don't you just love those tridents, they are like liquid tree poured over these rocks. Incredible images - you lucky bugger.

Thanks for posting these images, great inspiration.

Regards

Steve W

Thanks for sharing,Awesome