What a great convention!
I've come away feeling inspired and invigorated thanks to Koji, Tony, Joe and everyone else sharing their skills and passion on stage. Andrew, your committee and the South Australian Bonsai Society are to be congratulated for the huge effort you have put in!
Thank you to everyone who contributed to the exhibition, demonstrations, sales area and the partying
It was great catching up with bonsai friends, new and old from around Australia and getting to know Koji from Japan.
I was fortunate to do 2 workshops with Koji and also spent a lot of time asking questions and learning about bonsai from his point of view. I've picked up lots of great advice and tips and I can't wait to start putting into into practice.
I worked on 3 tree's in the workshops. The little Shimpaku that I took with me as hand luggage, a Dwarf Spruce that was grown by Treeman and a Procumbens grown by Tien at Bonsai Sensation. I ran out of room so the procumbens is being driven back to Sydney by a friend.
The Spruce was a simple exercise in wiring and rearranging the branches. BTW I love Treeman's stock!!
2015 May (A).JPG
The Shimpaku was a lesson in growing shohin from scratch. Koji went into great detail explaining the process and techniques of growing high quality shohin material from initial shaping of trunks to branches, styling, creating deadwood etc.
Eventually this tree will only have the 3 pads of foliage on the left hand side. Everything else on the tree has been shaped and is growing on to become deadwood. In early Spring I'll start increasing the shari up the trunk and extending it out to the dead branched.
2015 May (A).JPG
And here we are just after the full day of workshops (and before we hit the town).
2015 May Koji (A).JPG
Now I'm back home I'll be able to catch up on some sleep
Regards,
Steven