Shunka-en working on a Black pine with reverse taper.

The people in the pictures are gardeners.
They all wear a blue uniforms.

These people are still studying to be gardners.
They had to follow a 3 day class at Shunka-en for the gardner education they follow.

The woman you see first lived in fukushima but had to build a new life in Tokyo, pretty brave i must say.




A beautiful looking black pine cascade from a costumer.




Here is a other black pine i could work on.
The minor thing of this tree was the reverse taper were the curves start.
My idea to solve this was to create some deadwood.
So i asked Oyakata if we could do this and so we did.



We looked carefull we followed the lines of the veins, so we could create deadwood so the reverse taper would be much less.


Oyakata created the shape of this one with a knobcutter(also to create movement in jin he used his knobcutter).
To make the deadwood smaller.
After i could rework the deadwood by peeling the fibers of.
There are still some visible signs of the knobcutter but oyakata said good deadwood needs time and these will be gone in a few years time.




Than i could wire and style the tree.
With a guywire we put a backbranch more down and closer to the trunk to have a nice cascading movement down just like the big jin.
You also can see a big open space where the ten-jin is, this is done because the tree has to look like a tree in nature and the old top broke of and a new one rised up like a elegant tree with not much foliage.
Now the tree has to mature and fill up more in the top.



The right side.


Left side, and peter thinking he can hide himself behind a bonsai tree :D



After Oyakata came back and we discussed the ugly aerial roots.
We had to create a better nebari so we decided to cut 2 roots.
Oyakata said you can cut 2 roots a year and the roots in the pot will have more energy and grow better.
He also said a safer solution would be to cut a little of the roots and each time a little more till they are cut off.But this tree was for sale.

Shunka-en restyling a red pine.

Also have to say that Kobayashi has 2 european native trees.
A italian took a big Olive and Mugo pine with his suitcase ,unfortunately i don't have pictures of it.

Here a few antique chinese pots.
On the top of the pot were some cracks filled up with gold, have to search the picture.





Some just repotted trees, they put blankets on them for light frost.


And a red pine i could work on.
Before you work on a tree you have to tell your idea to oyakata and he will tell if you may or not and give his advice.

The previous front,
I didn't like that the base was smaller than the middle of the tree and it had 2 large cutwounds.



I liked the back of this tree more , better base , good movement.
The only minor thing was the apex going to the back.
So we had to bend the trunk.



the parts we had to bend.
So i applied raffia to use as a bandage so the branch doesn't break that easely.






Use a wire around the part to bend.
to prevents it breaks easely.



So i wired the tree and styled the first branch.I knew the bend wasnt enough and styled it to tight.
So oyakata came and said i had to use a rebar and style the tree more like a red pine or sylvestris in nature with hanging branches and the tips slighly going up.

I thought by styling it close to the movement the movement would be better to see.
Oyakata said i had to bend the branch even more to the back and place it behind the movement to accentuate the movement.






made the deadwood a little bigger to accantuate the movement more
And the tree finished, Oyakata was satisfied
Wondering how this tree wil evolve in future

2 week trip to Japan at Shunka-en part 4 Auction

Than at night there was an action with all the bonsaimasters from Japan with high quality trees , display stand , pots,...
But first we had a delicious dinner over there :D



And than the auction could start
In the middle you see Kimura-san ,...
Over there i hald a good talk with Tyler Sherrod and Owen reich




When the Kokufu is we have lots of visitors at Shunka-en like many Chinese, European, American people.
So we had to take the chinese antique pots out of the attic.
We also had a group of Ambassador's wifes from some countries over the world

2 week trip to Japan at Shunka-en part 3 Green Club market

Here are some of Green club market.
We also went to Kokufu but unfortunately we couldn't make pictures.
i had some nice talks with Matt Reel and Peter tea ,...

Here you see Oyakata








The S cube salesstand and some others.
With some of the most amazing trees, pots and tables,...





A pretty cool Bunjin :D