AusBonsai

You can pinch the tips using tweezers so that you do it before the shoot extends too much. This way the inter nodes are close and you get better ramification.

Hello Rory,

That's cool, i respect your opinion and somewhat agree with you about how a Eucalyptus should be styled. However, I DO believe the 2 styles above are good representations of the eucalyptus sp. as bonsai.

I have collected some quotes that i started collaborating this morning, actually i was called away before even starting. But Flybri's comment sits strongly in my mind:

• "In keeping with my belief that it is of utmost importance to create trunk movement early in the life of a Euc, I wired this one to within an inch of its life about a year ago."

However, how do you create a bonsai from a eucalyptus if you do not create something like the two immediate examples above? A real, genuine question to an experienced native bonsai extraordinaire.

I'm basically bonsai 'illiterate' attempting a Forest Red Gum - a highly valued Eucalyptus, grown for it's timber - it's not a mallee or coastal wind blown, salt sprayed 900mm eucalypt. Which is where i tend to agree with you - I want my tree to represent it's natural form.

I have observed very closely over the past several months and i have NOT SEEN any Eucalyptus tereticornis with a straight bole or trunk. Which always takes me back to the above quote by Flybri.

Honestly, i do not know how i am going to make this happen, for me to succeed in my trail, my bonsai will be well below 900mm and obviously fully grown. We have had the discussion before re re-potting big trees, therefore nothing over 900mm. I even need a crane for 900mm now.

Tell me Rory - How can i style my tree similar to those posted above in the AusBonsai Logo to be under 900mm - better still - show me good images or where i can source good images or books and i could possibly answer many of my own questions.

Big brother, i need help - showing me your stick above (possibly E. punctata?) and saying it don't work, neither do any other styles is not what you have dedicated your life's mission to.

Thanks,
Kevin

There is an ongoing debate across a number of online forums lately. At the end of the day, If you truly treat this as a hobby, do as you see fit. Grow and style trees in a manner that pleases you, as an artist.
There should be no Japanese, European, Australian, Naturalistic, Fairy-tale, Cookie-cutter styles. If you truly see this as a hobby you should be out to please nobody but yourself. If you want praise and awards then follow the current trend, if you wish to be an individual then do what you see in your mind. Nobody is wrong or right in art, the viewer perceives the piece according to their own thoughts/belief/imagination.
Bonsai is a long-term commitment. Ask yourself, are you aiming for an image to please yourself, or do you wish to please everyone else to gain a pat on the back?

Sorry mate, I'm about to head off camping for a long weekend so detailed thread will have to wait. I completely understand what you are saying. Don't get me wrong, I was merely pointing out what Mike was saying, in that some species are harder. I certainly wasn't saying give up on eucalyptus, quite the opposite in fact.

Edward.... Thanks for the tip. I might try that.

Jezz39.... That doesn't really help Kevin, as Kevin stated he simply wants his eucalyptus to look like a natural tree, which as mike points out and others.... Is often what draws people into the hobby to start with.
Using the do what pleases yourself analogy is okay if you are content with that, but as mike has said in many threads, creating a natural looking tree can be very rewarding and is certainly what brought me into the hobby.

It is true there are many different natural looking eucalyptus. On the whole though, depending on the species, they have similar traits. Exceptions can be pauciflora and others. The easiest way is to just try and find a stock image of the species you like, and use that as your framework . Look at how the branches exit the trunk. Does the trunk twist and contort or does it just grow sporadically. Does the ramifications weep down or grow upwards. Do you get lots of bar branching. Does it form a dense canopy or a sparse one. Does the lower branches reach out beyond the middle ones. Does the silhouette form a triangle or does it really form more of an umbrella, or look conical.

The key is to emulate the style from the tree, not from a bonsai... If you are wanting the natural look.

Eucalyptus isn't harder, it just requires different treatments.

As usual, this is just my thoughts, take it with a grain of salt. But remember, if you want it to look natural, keep all the attributes from the real picture of the tree, like trunk height, thickness up the trunk, branch movement etc, and keep comparing it to the picture over the years. The real life picture will guide you through the rest.

Ken had a lovely Mel he posted a while back on the school of bonsai which looked very natural.
Peterh posted a very natural looking casuarina recently
Pup has posted some stunning natural looking Mels over the years.
Look at their trees, then look at wishy washy curved or exaggerated styling and you will begin to see the difference.

Thanks Rory, Dennis, Edward, Jezz, Craig and everyone else,

Just a quick note for now. I will acknowledge everyone's contribution personally with all your helpful advise.

Yes Jezz, i hear what you are saying, and yes, my word, it's all about me and the enjoyment i get from practising - creating life, and nurturing it onto its own journey, as healthily as i can provide . Reading your comment brought back memories of an article i read recently of Walter Pall's. It took me a tad to locate again and i hope it's the right article as i'm posting now without reading again. Walter discusses ART, HISTORY............ and how it forever changed one day many years ago. Maybe most have studied this previously - but it was an interesting read for me.

http://walter-pall-bonsai.blogspot.com. ... world.html

Thanks everyone,
Kevin

Rory wrote:Jezz39.... That doesn't really help Kevin, as Kevin stated he simply wants his eucalyptus to look like a natural tree, which as mike points out and others.... Is often what draws people into the hobby to start with.
Using the do what pleases yourself analogy is okay if you are content with that, but as mike has said in many threads, creating a natural looking tree can be very rewarding and is certainly what brought me into the hobby.

It is true there are many different natural looking eucalyptus. On the whole though, depending on the species, they have similar traits. Exceptions can be pauciflora and others. The easiest way is to just try and find a stock image of the species you like, and use that as your framework . Look at how the branches exit the trunk. Does the trunk twist and contort or does it just grow sporadically. Does the ramifications weep down or grow upwards. Do you get lots of bar branching. Does it form a dense canopy or a sparse one. Does the lower branches reach out beyond the middle ones. Does the silhouette form a triangle or does it really form more of an umbrella, or look conical.

The key is to emulate the style from the tree, not from a bonsai... If you are wanting the natural look..

This discussion can go round and round in circles and never come to a conclusion. Its the same as discussing what soil mix to use in a bonsai pot.
As you know, in nature, anything goes. I agree that most species if grown in non hostile conditions will develop certain attributes across the board in which we can draw similarities and design our trees in a similar manner.
Ask yourself how do Eucalyptus generally grow...tall, very subtle/non-existant taper, curvy branches arching up and out? etc
If you look at bonsai 'styles' I have seen them grow in nearly all of them with the exception of cascade. Not to say they aren't out there
There is a large paddock full of 'literati' Gums in rural NSW. Large trunks struck down by nature, tops jinned and one living branch forming a new canopy. If I were to replicate this in bonsai would I be told its not natural because that is not how they grow? Surely if they are growing like that in nature then it would be acceptable. I have also seen them resembling oaks - large tapered trunks, huge spreading canopy with branches well below horizontal under their own weight. Bottom branches touching the ground.

I think the greatest downfall when people look to trees in nature to draw inspiration is that they are looking at immature trees. If we are aiming to represent 200-3000 year old trees then go and find those old trees and study them

Hi Kevin,

I'll leave the discussion of the merits of Eucalyptus as a bonsai other than I think you can get good results. If you are inspired by a type of tree in nature then I think you need to pursue it.

I have a handful of gums that I've been growing for a while and initially I grew them in classic bonsai shapes. I'm now reshaping them all to look like an actual gum tree - so I've wasted a lot of styling time but I've learnt a bit about growing and shaping them. Most of them are River Reds but this might help:

Wire the trunk straight away but also choose and wire the primary branches as soon as possible. In nature Gums have massive branches that almost match the width of the trunk so you want them in place and growing quickly. In my observations even branches that extend below the horizontal still start off leaving the trunk close to the vertical so wire accordingly.

Don't let the wire bite into the bark, it can take years to lose the wire marks!

Let the branches grow unheeded until the base of them are really thick, at the final desired thickness. Then cut all the branches off, leaving large stumps and start again. You'll get masses of new shoots all over the tree, so pick the ones leaving the stumps at the desired angle, remove the rest and wire into place. Let these grow until the thickness is achieved and go again. Keep this up until you get the desired framework.

I've found with the river red gums I can get very small leaves by continuously letting the shoots grow out to about 4 pairs then cutting back to the tiny fist pair of leaves. If the internode is too long to the first pair, cut it all off and wait for the replacement shoot. It's a lot of work though as you need to do this once a fortnight at least. Don't do this though until your framework is finished.

Beware of letting any shoot getting too big in relation to the others as gums are really good at shedding branches they think they don't need. That's why I like to do all that uncontrolled growth evenly over the whole tree early when building the branches. Any strong shoots along a branch that grow vertically will cause all remaining growth along that branch to die off, so keep that in mind when building your tree.

I did start a thread on styling a River Red Gum which I should get back to, but here is some more reading ..

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=19627

Good luck.

Matt.

Hello Matt,

Thank-you, you have posted very helpful and constructive advice.

Your previous thread was interesting. Unfortunately, i lost all designing thoughts for my Eucalyptus tereticornis with Ken's post of another thread where Jon Chown made the below statement.

Jon Chown wrote:
The area that I have always found the most difficult to learn and find out from other exponents is 'ramification' and how to obtain it - when to start working on it - which branches to keep and which to eliminate. Take a look at any of the trees done by some of the big names and study the ramification and you will quickly forget abot what style it is. Min Hsuan Los award winning Ficus is a great example.

Ramification - I completely agree with every word Jon has stated.

Then Jon Chown attached a thread which took me into the Ficus world of Min Hsuan Los - WOW! He has created beautiful Bonsai Ficus.

Seriously this place is a labyrinth, and SO interesting - i cannot put it down or remember what i started on.

This morning i started on colanders, then thread after thread and WOW! - RayM.

Thank-you RayM haven't you done some great work.

I need to do some work around the house.

Thanks everyone,
Kevin

I was recently encouraged to post this tree after having it on display at the symposium for australian native plants as bonsai last weekend it is a Eucalyptus tereticornis I have had in training since 1999 overall it's height is 550mm and its trunk is 90mm at its base

Nice tree Cap'n
good work and love the flaking bark

Ken

Rory wrote:

MacGuyver wrote: I've heard people say they don't lend themselves to training and they experience branch die back inexplicably but doesn't that just mean we should work with that as a feature such as jinning or shari on junipers/pines?

Correct. In the wild this is often seen, and I have commented before in other threads about them. The limbs occasionally die, break, fall off, make a big crash, scare a bunch of animals....

or fall on my house...

capnleo wrote:

20160302_175508-1.jpg

I was recently encouraged to post this tree after having it on display at the symposium for australian native plants as bonsai last weekend it is a Eucalyptus tereticornis I have had in training since 1999 overall it's height is 550mm and its trunk is 90mm at its base

Now that is cool. I like it a lot. Hello capnleo, welcome to the board. Please post more of your trees, we'd love to see them. That is very nice.

pebble wrote:

Rory wrote:

MacGuyver wrote: I've heard people say they don't lend themselves to training and they experience branch die back inexplicably but doesn't that just mean we should work with that as a feature such as jinning or shari on junipers/pines?

Correct. In the wild this is often seen, and I have commented before in other threads about them. The limbs occasionally die, break, fall off, make a big crash, scare a bunch of animals....

or fall on my house...

yeah, it happens to us too. I hope you don't mean as in the whole tree, and I hope your house is okay mate.

Hello capnleo,

capnleo wrote:

20160302_175508-1.jpg

I was recently encouraged to post this tree after having it on display at the symposium for australian native plants as bonsai last weekend it is a Eucalyptus tereticornis I have had in training since 1999 overall it's height is 550mm and its trunk is 90mm at its base

Thank-you capnleo,

Your E. tereticornis is brilliant - I love the foliage, the branches....I JUST LOVE THE BRILLIANCE OF YOUR BONSAI. The natural features of the Eucalyptus tereticornis is clearly and proudly displayed, the glaucous foliage is sublime.

I am extremely grateful for your post above. I will also second Rory's above request for you to post more of your bonsai on this site, especially of Eucalyptus as there are many of us out here requiring the inspiration of seeing and reading about your great achievements.

AusBonsai needs a Progression on this Eucalyptus tereticornis - a history for all Australians to learn and grow in their own pursuits of Eucalyptus as Bonsai.

Thanks,
Kevin

Hi Capnleo , I'll second Rory and Kevin . I absolutely love that E. tereticornis . I think our aussie natives are tops ( I think Mike will have have to back trak here because that is a splendid representation of a gum )
peterb

It's just how I see them around here.
Unfortunately, I have found that because it seems to always shoot long if I let it go,( which this current picture kind of shows since the last pic because I haven't trimmed it) I have to go hard on it to keep it in check but dont get flowers as a result.
I suppose its the old "Flowers on new growth" rule with natives so I will keep tinkering. Haven't decided on a pot yet. Any suggestions?