AusBonsai

Hey all,

Recently, whilst attending the school of bonsai show at ray nesci's I bought a number of Sargents Juniper starters to try and produce some twisty mame and shohin stock in about 5-7 years. This was inspired by Jow's thread regarding growing quality, japanese level pre-bonsai stock (sorry for those who don't know it, but I'm not sure how to post a link yet ) .

When I start making shari lines in the future (3-5 years), which way will the tree bend relative to the growing shari? towards the face of the shari or away from it?

Or does this effect only relate to trees that are not wired and are allowed to gain a twisted trunk through a longer and more diligent process (e.g. increasing the width of the shari minutely every year from a very young age)?

Appreciate the help guys

Hey Ces,

I'm a bit by your question, but just remember this. The tree will thicken at the growing vein, and not at the shari. This means that if the shari is on the outside, your bend will eventually close, and if the shari is on the inside, then it will increase . . . . . . if you know what I mean . . . . .

Cheers,

Andrew

Ces, I am also a bit puzzled by the question. Are you implying that if you make a shari on a trunk the tree will then grow a bend at that point
Living trunks get wider but only elongate at the very tip so a living vein on a trunk will not bend the trunk, just grow wider wherever you leave live bark.

I'm not even sure Andrew has the full picture. A severe bend with shari on the outside may eventually close but the radius of the bend will not change, just the thickness of the trunk.
A bend with shari on the inside will also not change in radius, just get thicker on the outside where the living tissue is.

Increasing the width of the shari each year will not bend the trunk. It will produce an oval cross section and eventually a flattened ribbon trunk with the live vein on one side. Saw illustrations of this in Bonsai today??? some time ago. Maybe someone else will be able to locate some pics to explain.

Hey guys,

I thought i had seen a program that showed a japanese nursery that was achieving the same results as twisting up young stock with wire. the way they did this (I thought) was by starting shari's on young stock (i.e. 4-5 mm across) and slowly increasing the width of the shari's over the years. I imagined that the growing live vein might bend a small, flexible shari towards the young new growth.

I've got this wrong obviously... just to explain myself.

I'll stick to what's in the thread.

shibui wrote: I'm not even sure Andrew has the full picture. A severe bend with shari on the outside may eventually close but the radius of the bend will not change, just the thickness of the trunk.
A bend with shari on the inside will also not change in radius, just get thicker on the outside where the living tissue is.

Hey Shibui,

What I meant is that if the growing vein sits on the inside of a bend, it closes up the bend as it grows, changing the inside diameter. If it sits on the outside, then the inside diameter remains unchanged and the structure expands outwards. I think it's kinda logical as you're either adding tissue on the inside or on the outside.

I think the video Ces is referring to is one of the Lindsay Farr videos. I'll see if I can find it and if I do I'll name it here.

Cheers,

Andrew

That's it Andrew, we are all on the same wavelength after all

Hey Andrew,

I think you're right... I'm not sure which episode of 'the world of bonsai' series though

I had heard the same thing that if you took off the live tissue on one side of the trunk, that the growing tissue on the other side would tend to want to push the trunk into a bend away form it so that the live tissue would be on the outside of a bend.

Well I tried a little experiment and after 2 years, all i had was a shari on one side and new growth on the other that was still straight
I have a suspicion, that the meaning of the technique was lost in the translation somehow.

What will happen is if the shari is on the inside of the bend, then the new growth will get added to outside of the bend only and the width of the trunk at the bend will increase and you will end up with a really broad trunk, but quite thinn in the other direction.

Ken

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y525tElZ0AA

this is the episode.
I read that in the full dvd version of the world of bonsai t he goes into the shari making technique a little deeper, but I have not seen it so I am not sure what else he does, can anyone that has the dvd fill us in on the full version ??????

Ces wrote:Hey all,

Recently, whilst attending the school of bonsai show at ray nesci's I bought a number of Sargents Juniper starters to try and produce some twisty mame and shohin stock in about 5-7 years. This was inspired by Jow's thread regarding growing quality, japanese level pre-bonsai stock (sorry for those who don't know it, but I'm not sure how to post a link yet ) .

When I start making shari lines in the future (3-5 years), which way will the tree bend relative to the growing shari? towards the face of the shari or away from it?

Or does this effect only relate to trees that are not wired and are allowed to gain a twisted trunk through a longer and more diligent process (e.g. increasing the width of the shari minutely every year from a very young age)?

Appreciate the help guys

Hi Ces, I just watched the clip and what he's saying is you start the first year making a small spiral shari. Second year you clean the shari and make it slightly wider. Third year clean out shari and make it slightly wider again.
While you are doing this and the tree is growing each year the live vein/water pipe heals strongly up along the edges of the shari. Each year the shari gets slightly wider and the live vein/water pipe get thinner(in width). As this is happening, your trees trunk is growing and it should be increasing in girth but not on the shari(which has no live vein/water pipe).

Now each year as you make the shari slightly wider and seeing as the trunks girth has been increasing, you will be left with raised wood on the shari. The new height of wood on the shari is because the trunks has gotten fatter. He point to these raised woods at 7:34 ish in the clip..

The trunk will not spiral or twist by itself, you will need to wire the trunk for that to take place.. i hope this makes sense..