AusBonsai

After fully engaging my brain, and on further reflection, I feel I should review my consideration on this matter.(Crikey, that's a bit formal!)

I started to think about the native plants I bonsai, and taking them one by one, look at how I tend to style them. I must say, I was surprised.

Just about all of the species and forms of species I've been working with, I am reasonably familiar with in the wild. I divided my stylings as follows:

1. Familiar with as wild plants, and bonsaid accordingly...............4 species
2. Familiar with as wild plants, and bonsaid with some reflection of this, but also adding my own design elements (mostly making them more tree like)................28 species
3. Familiar with as wild plants, and bonsaing them differently.................4 species
4. Not familiar with in the wild, so inflicting my own will..............3 species

What surprised me was that I only found 4 species for the, 'being true to their wild self' designs......the rest I'm adjusting to suit myself!

Brings home to me the notion that bonsai is art (unless you religiously follow the guidelines every time), and there is much room to represent plants in different styles, and that I shouldn't be too precious about using non-native plants to portray Australian styles (although it goes against decades of conditioning for me, as I've spent all that time promoting the use of our Aussie flora in gardens). I'll have to work on it.

I must add that just about all of the 'modified' native bonsais (the 28 species),I do style more in the appearance of indigenous flora, not Japanese or other northern hemisphere styles (maybe most similar to some penjing)
and I find the main difference is in the foliage. I have it looser and more open.

There was one tree on display at the Sydney conference (I forgot to write down its name), on the right wall as you came in, about halfway along.....big (about 1m) with a magnificent trunk, that said to me, "I could be a eucalypt!" (yes, a speaking tree....a new concept in bonsai!). If the foliage was readjusted to suit, it would have beena dead ringer for a euc. And I remember thinking at the time...hey tha't be allright!

So now I shall redirect my brain accordingly.......using other plants (even exotics!!) to represent Eucalypts or other native species is OK. It is. It's OK Will. I might just have to go and have a calming cup of tea!

..................and do some work.....Ausbonsai was supposed to take up non-productive evening time, not Wednesday day time!!!!

I thought that too Will not interupting my day, but it becomes like Bonsai addictive. Back to the subject at hand. We have been using our trees to repesent Northern Hemisphere trees for quite some time because we were taught or read left right back.

So I do not see any thing wrong in using those trees to repesent ours. Last year I saw a photograph of some Junipers in a group, from Canada the looked like Gum trees.
I notice we now have Reiner from Canada perhaps he remebers my request to Post it on the now derucnt Bonsai Talk site. If you do could you post here Reiner Please.

Cheers Pup

It wasn't this one was it Will ? To me this was the tree of the exibition and I would love to get my hands on it

Bretts wrote:It wasn't this one was it Will ?

PICT0048.JPG

To me this was the tree of the exibition and I would love to get my hands on it

No that was not it, it was a group of Junipers, I have been looking for the picture it was in a series of the Bonsai Clubs Internatitional magazine.

When I find it I will post it, if it photograph well from the mag.

Cheers Pup

Edit I have found and photograghed it what do you reckon

This is the picture as it was displayed I thought I would post so as to give the owner credit. I must admit this is one group I would like on my Benches. Note the granite outcrop, it gives that bush feeling.

Cheers Pup

Yes Brett, that was the tree......check out that trunk! That's a Eucalypt trunk if ever I saw one! All you'd have to do is change the green bits to what I call, "parachute foliage pads" (which many eucs seem to have) and you could name it Eucalyptus surprisus!! Do you know what it really is?

And, yep you're right Pup.....another new species, Eucalytus juniperus clumpus. The open space in the foliage and the parachute like foliage pads are very pronounced, aka almost Eucalyptus. It's a very nice setting, I like it a lot. Thanks for digging it up.

Will_IslandBonsai wrote:Yes Brett, that was the tree......check out that trunk! That's a Eucalypt trunk if ever I saw one! All you'd have to do is change the green bits to what I call, "parachute foliage pads" (which many eucs seem to have) and you could name it Eucalyptus surprisus!! Do you know what it really is?

And, yep you're right Pup.....another new species, Eucalytus juniperus clumpus. The open space in the foliage and the parachute like foliage pads are very pronounced, aka almost Eucalyptus. It's a very nice setting, I like it a lot. Thanks for digging it up.

Sorry about the mixup Will I was thinking Brett was talking to me. That is one nice looking tree but the r oops no

Cheers Pup

Pup, you'd not find it too hard to do a clump like that juniper setting with some of your local Melaleucas or Babantonias maybe? I think I'll try some Eucalypt type arrangements going down here and see how they go. Cheers.

Will_IslandBonsai wrote:Pup, you'd not find it too hard to do a clump like that juniper setting with some of your local Melaleucas or Babantonias maybe? I think I'll try some Eucalypt type arrangements going down here and see how they go. Cheers.

No Will, I would not but room is a premium, and the need of more trees, is like a hole in the head. I have some trees to move on then maybe.
Do not get too exited Grant

Cheers Pup

Thanks for the nice words Gargar it seems that I am not the only one thinking about such things so I am grateful others are thinking some similar thoughts.

It is interesting that you mention Penjing again Will. It was with my interest in penjing that I started to notice similar forms in our Gums. It is great that we can look at these things with an open mind and not shoe horned into one way of thinking.

I was thinking much the same thing about that tree, I am unsure what it is I thought the trunk was crepe myrtle. I had a slightly different game plan for adjusting the styling But that is art . I was just looking back at the Parachute leaf arrangements of Gums in the pictures and I think we may be interpreting a little too much of this in our designs. I would like to bring the outline in a bit and move some stuff around. I might try to add a little bit of Parachute ramification but unsure. I appreciate you taking the time to give your thoughts it does give me another consideration when looking at the tree now.

Thanks for the pictures of the forest Pup that definitely looks like an Aussie landscape composition. Maybe the best representation of an Aussie Forrest I have seen? I was thinking a group of Melaleucas myself.
Thanks for getting the picture up for us

This has been a great forum to read through. I've been trying to catch up on some of the writings on the site and this was a winner for sure.

The discussion of ratios was interesting. When I'm helping someone with a potensai, I usually start by asking 'how big a tree do you want when mature?' This is much more important than 'where is the front?' It helps to get branches in the right places for a tree of a given size - and that is where ratios can be helpful.

The ratio also helps to tell a story. Where there is enough moisture, trees grow thickly, close together. That makes for tall trees with relatively narrow trunks and branches mostly at the top - it clear trunks - the kind that foresters really like. Think of the forests in the SE and SW of the continent, and also along the east coast. As moisture becomes scarcer, tree densities drop off and trees become more widely spaced - into 'woodlands'. Here the trunks are thicker for the height of the tree and branches are often kept lower on the trunk than in the denser and moister environs. Think of the changes that you get as you move inland from the moist areas. So, if you have a shape of tree in mind, the ratio will help you to keep various bits in proportion and you will be able to tell a more authentic story for that tree. You could also look at the ratio of crown width to tree height. It's great to see this kind of detailed observation being done by people. I just hope it never takes on the role of 'rules'!

The discussion of trees looking like eucs is also fascinating. For me, while there is a 'euc' look sometimes for sure, the model that seems common in the images shown is more about how many, broad-leaved trees grow in comparison to conifers, as trees. The density of the crowns is a function of water availability - the more water in the environment, the denser the crowns. As you move into drier habitats, the crowns thin out, so many of our images of 'eucs' are about those from drier habitats - the kind that Hans Heysen so beautifully captured in his paintings in South Australia. So maybe, what you see as 'euc', I see as 'broad-leaf' tree - same tree, different story.

Cheers
K

Interesting points Mr K. Indeed a big proportion of Aus is dryish, and indeed many eucs there have an open countenance, which as you say is probably the style of euc that we generally think of as an Australian euc (At least I think that's what you said). With denser, broad leaved eucs from wetter areas, how instantly identifiable are they as eucs? Are there aspects of these trees, that instantly identify them as eucs (or their immediate cousins) Or does it also depend on what else grows in the area?

In Tassie, there are any number of broad leaf eucs growing in very well watered sites. I know I can immediately and instantly say....these are Eucs! But maybe some of that is because I know they can't be anything else?

I'll have to do some more looking.

In a slightly similar vein, a friend had a visitor from Europe staying for a while (first time in Aust), and his comment was how noticeable it was that the light shines much more through our trees than what he was used to. I'm not sure how much bush he got out into, but I guess for many areas this would be so. And of course with so many eucs the leaves hang down, thus letting more light through.

Mr W.

In a slightly similar vein, a friend had a visitor from Europe staying for a while (first time in Aust), and his comment was how noticeable it was that the light shines much more through our trees than what he was used to. I'm not sure how much bush he got out into, but I guess for many areas this would be so. And of course with so many eucs the leaves hang down, thus letting more light through.

Mr W.[/quote]

Having lived as a young man ( I do mean young ) I used to play in, and poach in one of the great Forrest of the UK. If it was not for the dense canopy I might have been caught. Poaching and making whoopy.
So I can attest to the fact that the sun shining though in some Forrest canopys was not very often, but then I dont remember the sun shining that much either .

In what is known as a copse which is a much smaller area of trees the sun used to get though. That is where Falconry was practiced more.

Back to the subject, there is a tree in our local area that looks very much like Stevens avatar. So today when the wife and I were out I took a picture of it, but the back ground takes it out as a clump. So I will have to try again. We have at the moment the rain that was promised so I will have to wait.

Cheers Pup

Mr W
Good points. Not an easy subject to make generalisations about, so I'm prepared to call help as I fall into one of the traps!

Down in your water drenched and cool part of the great south land, some of your eucs have very dense crowns indeed, even with the leaves hanging down. But they are not all that abundant across the breadth of the landscape.

Yes, there is a look to many eucs that is quickly suggestive of 'euc', even when growing in overseas locations. Seeing eucs in E Africa or California, they stood out as 'what are they?' first then, 'surely not a euc!'. I was young and naive then about austral biogeography. Seeing them in dense plantations in Uruguay, it was difficut to believe they were eucs. But it is hard to speak sweepingly about 'eucs' in a way that. There are so many different kinds of eucs, and I don't mean Angophora/Corymbia/Eucalyptus. The deciduous northern ones are a real eye-opener, the variety of forms that get lumped into 'mallee', the various woodland species, the dense forest ones and so on. But for most people, the commonly seen ones do have characteristic forms that in the context of 'here' are readily identified as 'euc'. You don't really need to go out to check!

Cheers
Mr K