It's been too long - again - since my last newsletter, so this one is extra long....

Those of us who have been growing bonsai for a few decades will have noticed a trend towards ever thicker and shorter trunks. In Japan many development nurseries have had to shorten and re-design their stock in order to appeal to current tastes.

There's nothing wrong with heavy, powerful trunks, mind you, but I confess that I do mourn the passing of grace and elegance as familiar elements in bonsai design. This coincides with the decline of fine deciduous specimens being produced. Perhaps the two are linked: there is an inherent elegance in the branch structure of a deciduous masterpiece, and failure to consider this when planning and pruning leads to ugliness.

Compare these two sketches, both from great bonsai visionaries: on the left by John Naka, 1980 and on the right, from Sandro Segneri, 2010.

About a year ago (time flies) I was at an annual event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with a great group of enthusiastic people who had mounted a darn good exhibition which I was to judge. I was instantly drawn to one tree - this lonely larch, the last tree remaining where a mighty forest once stood. Its simple elegance was most striking. I wanted so much to award this tree the 'Best in Show', but I knew my response to it was emotional, not objective in conventional bonsai terms. I agonized for most of the day but in the end the award went to a very good taxus. This was not after I had groveled to Dean Bull, the creator of this wonderful image, and explained myself.

Although, come to think of it, should the best tree be the one that satisfies the generally accepted bonsai criteria or the one that stops you in your tracks? The one that gives you the shivers, the one that makes you 'feel' you are with the tree, whatever its style?  If bonsai is an art, shouldn't creativity and originality carry more weight than convention?  But I digress... I'll leave you to ponder that.

Back to the subject of elegance...
You've seen those short, fat, curly shimpaku that are all the rage, all between four and eight inches high, with lots of deadwood. But you don't see many bigger ones, right? At least, not on this side of the ocean. For decades people have been propagating shimpaku for bonsai, both commercially and as a hobby, but they all seem to have been in a bit of a rush to achieve the desired size.  An eighteen inch tall tree with a trunk an inch thick at best, was okay back then. 

But shimpaku are slow to thicken at the best of times so we now have a legacy of trees whose bulk of foliage is far too great for the bulk of their trunks. On older specimens the trunks are typically endowed with fluid live veins and natural (or old) sharis, many of which would be sacrificed if the trunk was shortened or even if the upper branches were removed. So what is the answer?  Elegance! The trunks are the major feature of such trees so their visual impact should be maximized. Rather than settle for a short fat trunk, the lower branches can be jinned and the upper foliage retained and reduced in proportion to the bulk of the trunk.

Here are a couple of examples, both shimpakus.  The first was once an established bonsai but had suffered some chemical damage whilst in Roy Nagatoshi's nursery in California, causing all the existing jins and sharis.  The second was really little more than unprepared bonsai material with a sinuous trunk but little else in the way of character or appeal.  The treatment was the same and the results an improvement in both cases.

Although it's lost about fifty percent of its foliage, the genera visual energy of the tree remains. The reduced foliage bulk emphasises the strength of the trunk and nebari.

Ironically, having lost at least seventy percent of its foliage bulk, this tree now has to grow a little: the lower right hand branch needs to extend a tad, and it needs some foliage grown into the area just above the upper left hand jin.  And a new pot, of course!

This spring, during repotting with students and clients, I have seen several pines (mostly parviflora) with remarkably few roots.  Alarmingly few, in fact.  I have no scientific evidence of this, but I suspect that these trees were once heavily mycorrhyzal and therefor had few roots in the first place.  (Pines will cease to grow roots if they have willing fungus to do the work for them.)  I know at least one of the owners had used  Beyer systemic fungicide that is applied to the soil.  My guess is that this killed the mycorrhizal fungi and left the trees practically rootless and struggling to survive.  As they say on the old country: "Horses for courses".  Before using such products, consider two things: First, is the tree mycorrhizal, if so, perhaps you should give it a miss.  And second, does the tree really need a blanket treatment for fungus?  Pines are not the particularly susceptible to fungal diseases, apart from needle rust which can easily be treated topically.  Sometimes the "one size fits all" treatment ends up not fitting anything very well at all!

There is a comprehensive and well-researched article on mycorrhiza at Bonsaideals, my commercial website.  Read it here.  You can also purchase Myconox, which contains seventeen species of mycorrhizal fungi spores here .

I've heard lots of people say that there are too many exhibitions, conventions and festivals in bonsai these days, and they simple can't get to them all. Choosing which to attend often means picking the closest even if it's not the best.  It's tough.  However, the problem isn't so much that there are too many events. Per square mile, or per square bonsai enthusiast, Europe has at least twice as many events, in some countries far more, and nobody complains about it. In fact they rejoice! The root of the problem is that Europeans have around four times the leisure time of their American counterparts, and more disposable income with which to enjoy it. There, it's not a choice of which event to attend, rather one of how to get to them all logistically.

The crowds at most European exhibitions are like this all day long, and there are many such events several times a year.

I really miss the opportunities to exhibit newly show-ready trees several times a year.  In my view, the opportunity to regularly exhibit trees and to visit exhibitions, is the largest factor in the progress of bonsai art to a higher level. The ability to see the finest trees around on a regular basis, to inspect the workmanship and to discuss them with your peers is absolutely the most effective possible learning opportunity. To be able to display trees regularly in competition with your peers is the greatest incentive to do better. A high quality competitive exhibition motivates artists and visitors alike. It stimulates enthusiasm and the determination to improve skills and design.

I know that Maine is hardly the hub of bonsai endeavor but, nevertheless, in the entire east coast, north of DC, there is only one major annual show: the Mid-Atlantic Festival. And that has followed the same tired formula for decades and is consequently losing support.  One rather mediocre show for an area larger than Spain, where there are half a dozen or more high quality shows every year!

The Third National Bonsai Exhibition will be held in a new venue in Rochester NY, June 9-10. You should go. You only have the chance to see the very best of the best once every two years and that is not enough.  If you miss the chance this year, two years is a long time to wait for the next one.  Too many events?  No way!

Oh well, time to throw another log on the fire and shuffle off to bed.  More another time.