Nursery yew

The story of this yew begins in 2007 in a tree nursery not far from where I live. At that time I was still often wisiting nurseries, looking for some material to make bonsai out of. And then one day I saw this freshelly dug out yew. Since the trunk and nebari were clearly visible and fairly good-looking I decided to purchuse the tree.
On the first photo you can see the Taxus right after I brought it home. Quite a big bush.

Zgodba o tej tisi se začne leta 2007 v drevesnici ne daleč od mojega doma. Takrat sem še pogosto obiskoval drevesnice in iskal primeren material, da bi ga spremenil v bonsai. Nekega dne sem v eni od teh našel tole sveže izkopano tiso. Ker sta bila deblo in nebari dobro vidna in zanimiva, sem se odločil za nakup.

Na prvi sliki je tisa ravno, ko sem jo pripeljal domov. Kar velik grm.

After shortening most of the branches and planting it into a plastic container.

Po krajšanju dolgih vej in sajenju v plastično posodo.

 

The next year after the tree has sattled in it's new pot I continued cutting branches to bring the crown into a good size. And then in spring 2009 I repotted it in it's first bonsai pot. Far from it being the final one.

Naslednje leto po tem, ko se je drevo lepo ustalilo v novi posodi, sem nadaljeval z rezanjem vej, dokler nisem prišel do krošnje ustrezne velikosti. Nato sem tiso spomladi 2009 posadil v prvo bonsaj posodo, ki pa je bila še daleč od končne.

In May, the same year, our bonsai club organized a workshop with Progetto Futuro bonsai school and seing the tree growing very well after the repotting I decided to start working on the crown there.

So at the workshop the crown was reduced drasticly, leftover stumps were turned into jins, and some shari was added.

Meseca maja istega leta je naš klub organiziral delavnico s šolo Progetto Futuro. Ker sem videl, da je tisa lepo prenesla presajanje in se je dobro odzivala, sem se odločil, da jo odnesem s seboj in pričnem z delom na krošnji. 

Na delavnici sem naredil osnovno selekcijo vej, iz štrcljev naredil jine in dodal nekaj sharija. 

Believe it or not but the tree survived that drastic procedure with no problems at all. So in 2010 the crown was totaly green again.

Verjeli ali ne, tisa je tudi ta poseg prenesla brez težav. Tako je izgledala 2010, ponovno vsa polna zelenja.

Unfortunately after that the tree had some problems with the roots. It got very weak and some branches died.Till autumn 2013 it finally recovered enough so I could work on it again. I finished the work on the deadwood and turned some new dead branches into jins.

Na žalost pa je po tem drevo imelo neke probleme s koreninami. Postlo je zelo šipko in kar nekaj vej je odmrlo. Toda k sreči mi ga je uspelo rešiti in do jeseni 2013 si je toliko upomoglo, da sem lahko končal delo na suhem lesu.

Next spring - 2014 - after a new flush of green I finally decided to wire the tree for the first time.

Naslednjo pomlad - leta 2014 - po tem, ko je drevo spomladi sveže odgnalo, sem se odločil, da je končno pravi čas, da ga prvič povsem ožičim in oblikujem.

This spring I repotted it into a new pot since I had to change the angle a bit. So after 8 years of development this is finaly starting to look pretty good. This pot may as well also be the final one.

Letošnjo pomlad sem tiso posadil v novo posodo, saj sem moral nekoliko popraviti postavitev v posodi. Takole po osmih letih tisa končno izgleda dokaj vredu. V naslednjih parih letih se bo še lepo zgostila in rezultat bo lepo razviden. Tudi ta posoda je mogoče že celo končna.

Thymus

During my recent trip to Arco I purchesed this small thymus. So now I gave it a little trimm and planted it in this nice pot by Conny Hackel from Austria.

Euonymus

My Euonymus verrucosa is currently in full bloom. This one is actually planted in a Bigei, Tokoname pot.

A video clip for a local TV - in Slovene

Reportaža o bonsajih. Nekaj osnovnih informacij in smernic.

Arco XXX

Don't worry, the XXX does not stand for any unappropriate contents. It stands for the 30th Arco exhibition in a row. And that is one hell of an achievement. :)

So yes, this previous weekend I attended the 30th Arco bonsai exhibition in Arco, Italy. This year the organizers decided to make a more international exhibition for their anniversary. Therefore I did not go there as a visitor only, but as an exhibitor and demonstrator, represanting Slovenia at that exhibition.

The scenary of this place is just wow. Nice warm mediteranian climate with high mountains surrounding them.

The exhibition was very good as usual. Also a few levels higher then last year if you ask me. 

I exhibitted my cinese Itoigawa juniper.

Like I mentioned before I was also there to perform a demo. I carried it out together with Tomaž Kovšca and Gašper.

The final product. Since Tomaž supplied the material, and since it was our joint demo I left the styling of the crown to him. Not completely my style if you ask me and I would have done quite a few things different, but we had fun and we still made a great tree :)

The prize-giving ceremony was just after the end of the exibition on Sunday, where all the winners were anounced. 

Since the organizers aimed for this year's Arco to be very internationally directioned, they really should have taken care of some italian to english translation...

Overall it was another great event and I'm sure to visit it again in the future.

Prunus flowers

My Prunus mahaleb has got lots and lots of flowers this year. In a few days I will have to cut them off since they use up too much energy.

This little guy joined me in the photo studio.