The scholarly man's tree, Bunjingi style

Bunjingi is a style that flies in the face of conventional popular japanese bonsai aesthetics. The style is very old. This style is a throwback to chinese potted trees. That's that for the history lesson. This post is not really about the style. When I took this cutting I knew that it was going to be bunjingi. It had a long narrow trunk with two very dramatic curves. The problem was how was I going to make this tree look amazing in my eyes.

The tree had started to develop ramification, and it had a basic shape. The tree was looking like it was going to be a chinese type miniature tree. The chinese call their miniature trees penjing. Penjing is not really a style but the chinese word for bonsai. However, the chinese aesthetic value is different from the japanese, so the trees look very unalike.

I was pruning my tree to further develop ramification when my mind's eye saw the bunjingi tree I had been looking for. The best part was that I was going to create this new tree by cutting one branch.

So i took the pruning shears to the main trunk and lopped off the unwanted part. The transformation for now was complete.

I will be starting over with this tree. I have to build ramification and keep shaping the tree, Aesthetically it is a lot closer to done.

The piece I cut off will not go to waste. I potted that piece in bark soil. It will grow roots in a few weeks and I will have the foundations to another future bonsai.

I have said it before, don’t be in a rush to shape, cut, pot, etc your tree. Work on building it up. You will get ideas on what direction to take your tree. cheers.

Myrtle

Myrtles have beautiful bark, beautiful leaves, and beautiful flowers. Most myrtles come from asia. The popular one in Southern California came from china/ korea.

At the last bonsai meeting it was 2 ½ hours all about Myrtles. It was fantastic. I had not considered this tree for bonsai. Its beauty and fast growth made the myrtle more desirable. I learned that the myrtle is easy to grow from cuttings. As these are abundant trees in my area and they grow many branches from the base of the tree (suckers) it was an easy decision to try my hand at this tree.

I cut these branches friday June 17th. It was about 9:30 in the evening. I had gone to a dinner with my wife and on the way home I picked them up. I could not see where I was cutting it was to dark. I managed to cut some long stems. I placed them in a cup of water. The weather had been hot, so the tips of the branches were a little wilted. The next day in the morning the tips looked a little better.

I placed the cuttings in a bark medium four days after I original cut them. The bark was the kind used for potting orchids. Then we got hit by a heat wave. I thought I was going to lose all the plants. Two of them survived. YAY! It did look like I had lost them all. However, I kept watering the myrtle.  

I am going to go cut some more. Cheers.