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Sharimiki
Prickly situation
Jean-Philippe Hoareau (JP) works with the prickly juniper The needle juniper or Juniperus rigida, is a far more rugged tree than the Chinese ‘shimpaku’. Its deadwood is spikier and so is its foliage, too. You can get in a very prickly situation when working with this variety because of its…...
An old friend
Update: Amigos of the tejos A small peek back at a tree created in 2010 by Kevin Willson. During the XX Trophy, held in February 2019, we came across an old friend, a yew styled by Kevin Willson. The tree had gone through an amazing transformation and was one of…...
Amigos of the tejos
How to transform a ‘pig’ of a tree into a breathtaking cascade Kevin Willson had a few years stay in sunny Alicante, Spain, where marvellous material can be found. Dug from the surrounding mountains are yews, junipers and olives — all Mediterranean trees that require a different approach from the…...
On the scrapheap?
Harry Harrington recovers a crab apple (Malus sylvestris) raft bonsai with a new design. I think many of us, as bonsai enthusiasts, will be familiar with the phrase ‘a bonsai is never finished’. However, I suspect that some people do not necessarily understand exactly what that means. Some bonsai can…...
The survivor
Rebirth of a juniper that survived the Tohoku earthquake The Sanriku Coast is a dramatic, rocky shoreline with countless bays, cliffs and coves that stretches for over 300 kilometres along the Pacific Coast from just north of Sendai to Aomori. On March 11, 2011, the strongest ever recorded earthquake in…...
Anti-clockwise
Harry Harrington reworks a Japanese yew with superb fluting. An elegant 88 cm Japanese yew (Taxus cuspidata) was bought to my garden by its owner in June 2020, explains Harry. My task was to style and carve it. A very healthy imported specimen, the yew had strong vibrant green foliage,…...
Don’t carve, but sculpt
Learn how to create natural deadwood with the methods of Andrés Bicocca The difficulty that a defect poses for some is, for me, an infinite possibility of creation. Many times it is used to cover some defect of the trees with branches or foliage; parts that have not been worked,…...
As one with the tree
Hiroaki Suzuki becomes as one with the tree during the styling of a pine Young artist Hiroaki Suzuki takes on the challenge of transforming and displaying a five needle pine. The aim is to change the front to enhance the natural, and rustic beauty of a white pine. It has…...
Step by step with Hemlock
Teunis Jan Klein shows us how to create a medium sized bonsai in just a few steps. This time he works on hemlock (Tsuga), a variety less commonly seen as bonsai. 1. Analysis The shrub has grown in the field for approximately 3 years. No pruning or other work has…...
Sharimiki | Driftwood style
Driftwood style – A tree where the trunk is mostly deadwood, more commonly seen on junipers and yews where the trunk is primarily deadwood with one or two live veins running up to the remaining branches. When accompanied with jins and shari this style presents a powerful and dramatic picture…....