Hi All,
Ten members attended, it was a less well supported meeting this month as a few of us had gone away on short holidays, as Berice wasn’t at the meeting David kindly stepped in to supply refreshments and nice chocky biscuits.
Alan and Roy started the evening off with an overview of the Bonsai Expo 7 at the K2 Sports Centre Crawley. The quality of the trees and other exhibits is exceptional and if you want to find inspiration or like me just look in awe at the unachievable these exhibitions are the place to go. There was also a few dozen traders present from starter trees to rarer species and some very expensive trained examples from collectors.
As material in pots and collected Yamadori from British hills/mountains are very expensive now Roy showed us three Blaauws Juniper air layers he had taken from an old stock plant, and had produced some very nice potential shohin size trees. He did explain they take a lot of manipulating and in his descriptive way had to wire the SH-T out of them to give them character but they looked very healthy and would be potentially £100-£150 each if purchased from a nursery so propogating your own is a very economic way of producing stock for training.
I was asked by Bob what the Japanese terms for collected trees from towns and gardens were so here is a full definition these words are modern variants of course:
The word for “urban yamadori,” dosing actually exist, as yamadori (山採り) literally means “mountain-collected.” Yama- mountain and Dori- collected or picked. However, in the context of modern bonsai, urban yamadori is sometimes referred to using the following terms:
Key Concepts for Urban Yamadori
- Yamadori (山採り): Literally “mountain-picked,” it refers to trees collected from the wild.
- Context: While traditional yamadori comes from harsh, mountainous, or wild locations, “urban yamadori” has emerged to describe rescuing neglected trees from, for example, construction sites, old landscapes, or abandoned properties.
- Definition: It is a tree that has been developed in a built environment rather than in nature, but which has nonetheless developed age, character, and artistic form from the environment, similar to natural yamadori.
- Toshidori (都市採り – City-collected): This is a direct, descriptive term often used to mean “urban yamadori” (city-collected trees).
- Machi-yamadori (街山採り): A compound term combining machi (town/street) and yamadori (mountain-collected), specifically referencing collecting from urban environments.
- Niwa-kikori (庭木樵り): While less common, this implies collecting from private gardens, often used for older, mature garden trees (“repurposed” plants).
I distributed a pamphlet on choosing pots for those that find the theory and colour selection difficult, if you did not attend don’t worry I will have a few for next meeting.
Going around the room;
Alan brought along his Hawthorn raft and appears to still be trying to decide which new pot to transfer it to. He also had a Trident Maple with a very stout wide trunk and nebari which Roy likes to refer to as a Sumo trunk maple but it was a great looking tree.
James had a Blackthorn with an excellent shaped and proportioned trunk planted in a dark red clay tray style pot A nice tree in my opinion and although the flowers had faded you could see how grand it must of looked. James spent most of the evening carefully removing the faded flowers.
David had brought a nice slender upright larch which Alan and Roy helped with explaining how to keep the apex from becoming too dominant.
Bob came along with an old Deshojo Maple which due to has mobility had got rather out of control so I spent a few minutes with him showing what trimming was needed to get it back under control. Unfortunately you have only got to turn your back of Maples in the spring and they are away causing long internodes and the trees profile and ramification is soon lost.
Richard came with his cascade pine and also a Berberis that needed a good trim.
Rob had a collected Sycamore with a funny story of how it had suffered damage from a farmers Flail but he rescued it and it is now thriving in his collection, he also had a Ficus Retusa on Ginsing roots which he gave a light trim and asked some advice about repotting it.
Matt came with a larch that he had remodeled a few times which was doing well and a Crab apple in flower which we had a look at and tried to find a pleasing front and style for it.
I brought along two acquisitions from the Expo a Scots pine from Cris Thomas which he collected from the New forest and a Kishu Juniper from Greenwood bonsai which needs a full clean out and styling but I could see it had good potential as a shohin size tree.
Thats it for now see you next time,
Kev