Darko's nivaki

I spent yesterday's sunny Saturday at Darko's place, where we tryed to doo something outh of his garden juniper. Darko decided he wanted to have a garden bonsai, and that's what he asked me to help him with.

We started with this



Darko is happy. This is not finished. The side branches are not ling enough yet, so the complete styling will have to waith for another year or two.

Thuja with one 'branch'

Todaj I want to show you my thuja - thuja smargd. I got it in 2006 in a common tree nursery, near my home. It vas nothing special. An ordinarily grown tree.


The moment I brought it home I shortened it from 2,5 meters to a bit more then one meter.


The next step was done in summer 2007 when I made some shari on the trunk and made the basic branch selection. All the other branches were cut off.


'Sadly' not everything went as it should, and the whole tree but one branch had died. So, I could not do els as to carve the trunk and try to figure out another design. Slowely I realized that this style will be much better. That was in 2008.


In the next year - 2009 - I repotted it into this top japaneese pot, which is probably the final one and made some refinement work on the shari with some help of Enrico Savini.


Over the year I let it grow freely to have as much fine branches when I will style the crown.


This year (2010) the time of styling finally came. The main problem vas the trunk (a branch once), because it wasn't bent enough.
I didn't want to risk braking it, so I used a different methood. Firstly I holowed the part of the trunk that I wanted to bend. Then I put some thick aluminium wire into the hollow, straped it into rafia and plastic tape and bend it.
All it had to be done next was wiring.



And here I am prowdly showing you my finished tree. When the crown gets denser, it will be a prize-winning tree.

UBI convention in San Marino

This weekend takes the UBI convention in Italy, or actually in San Marino place. There are menny demonstrations, lectures, a battle for the representative on EBA's New talent contest and ofcourse an exhibition. I was there yesterday, where I saw quite a lot of bonsai frends: Ivo Saporiti, Enrico Savini, Adriano Bonini, Marco Invernizzi in še drugi.

The exhibition











A finished tree from the demonstration

The new talent contest

The selling tents

They allso hed a big suideki exhibition.

Making new acquaintances.

A gift =)
it's the first of its kind in Slovenia


PS: There will be no promissed report on the workshop with Steve Tolley, because it got canceled. Steve sadly couldn't fly to Slovenia because of the volcano dust from Iceland.

Work stopped due to rany weather

Work on my bonsay had to be stopped for some days because of the bad weather.
But be tunned for the reports, that will come the next weekend. In Saturday I am travelling to San Marino to the UBI exhibition and on Sunday I am attending a workshop with Steve Tolly.

Shohin shimpaku in a new pot

Last year I introduced to you this shohin itoigawa juniper. Now I repotted it into its new home. Most probably this isn't the final pot, because this is a bit to big.
Bit overall I'm happy with the look if it.

Wild cherry hunt

I spent most of today in Primorska (a region in Slovenia), where I wanted to find some good wild cherries - prunus mahaleb. I must say the hunt was quite productive.