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As a member of Colin Lewis's Ho Yoku school of bonsai, one of the main points taught to students is "high-quality bonsai begins with high-quality material". This is one of the many reasons why I prefer to shop at New England Bonsai Gardens for trees (along with interacting with the personable staff, the reasonable prices, and wide selection of accessories).
I had acquired this colorado blue spruce from New England Bonsai Gardens in July of 2006. It had been sitting on the ground in the pressed peat pot, along with other new arrivals to the nursery. It was a bit unusual. I didn't immediately see a future design with it, but, I thought I would take a chance and purchase the spruce.
I brought the spruce to my next Ho Yoku workshop for a group critique. While studying the tree, the other school members and I had assessed the strengths and weaknesses of the tree. We also considered a variety of design options. One that I remember involved using the tree in its present planting angle and keeping as much of the height as possible. Another was to tilt the tree drastically to the left for a windswept appearance. As this piece of material was quite a design challenge, Colin suggested that I explore the tree for deadwood before committing to a design option.
As the fall of 2007 came, I still had not settled on a final design. Colin invited me to bring the spruce to a workshop with Marco Invernizzi, who was to run a class as a guest artist. While studying the tree with Marco, he saw something that was not considered in previous workshops - applying a severe bend in the top third of the trunk for a more compact design. This would place emphasis on the heavy lower trunk, making the tree appear larger and older. We would also incline the tree to the left. The iron pipe shown in the picture is used to anchor a guy wire that bends the top third of the trunk. Although the tree's planting angle is not changed during the first styling, the branches are arranged as if it were. Repotting would come the following spring where the tree would be placed into the round plastic bowl.
After two years of diligent care and pinching, the spruce was ready for a second wiring. As September was a bit early for wiring of the finer branches, (which would involve removing of older spruce needles), only the main branches were wired. The smaller branches were wired and positioned during the first week of December (minimizing sap loss through needle plucking). I also saw the opportunity to replace the long bar with copper guy wires. This would make it easier to re-pot into a display container in the spring of 2010.
After the repotting in the coming spring, the goal will be to build foliage density with pinching the new growth. Hopefully, the spruce will be ready to submit for a future national exhibition. (Can you see the fish in the deadwood?).
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