Shohin On Parade

bonsaistud wrote:All we need now, is a picture of Fiona relaxing under one of these babies...

Pat

Pat, your wish is my command.

But rather than derail Rob's excellent thread, you can find my gift to you HERE

Thank you all for sharing those nice little trees. I’m a shohin lover too. Mines aren’t so good yet, but I’d like to share one of mine. Needs some refinement yet and I used to thought was a “San Jose” Juniper , but now I’m not sure.

Looks like San Jose to me. It appears to have the same difficult to master mixture of mature and juvenile foliage as mine.

Wonderful shohin everyone. Gives me ideas for what to do with my collection of tiny Walsall Studio Ceramics pots.

A few pictures of a few shohin from my collection.
M
quince (shaped for the last two years)



ilex(shaped for the last three years)




azallea (shaped for one year)

Martin S wrote:A few pictures of a few shohin from my collection.
M

ilex(shaped for the last three years)

Looking good Martin. I like the Ilex and the photo of it is cool.

Thank you all for sharing your tree photos; great trees and pots. This gives me a lot to strive for. I just started growing and shaping some mame; sure are easier to carry around the benches!

How about this one - I call it Hedgerow. You European folks should know about them and anyone with US Army experience or interest in World War II history knows about Hedgerows. Anyway the trees are collected Florida Elm trees. When I first saw these growing they were in the crotch of a fallen Elm tree. At first I thought they were a witches broom but when I removed the duff and old leaves I found they were a bunch of individual seedlings that had sprouted in the crotch and since they were at ground level were continually munched on by deer. Who knows how the seedlings were so congregated in one spot - I have my idea and it involves the alimentary canal of the deer. I arranged the little trees into this long unglazed but green Japanese pot. Looks like a Hedgerow to me.

Is it a shohin? The height is less than 9 inches but it is about 20 inches across.

There are several Chinese Elm cuttings being marketed in Florida as a weeping variety. I tried one and sure enough it sort of has a weeping tendency but not really perfect weeping. Hence it requires lots of wire to truly weep. Here it is crying in all its glory as it starts to bud out for 2010. Horst Heinzritler made the pot and I made the stand.

Green Island Ficus: 5" (13 cm) across the base - 6" (15 cm) high.
It will branch and fill out with leaves this growing season.

Pinus contorta
14 cm high.

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Some more?
Martin

a little rose


a little juniper (the top is now a little more down and flat)


a premna japonica before and after shaping

before


after

a forsy (can't spell the rigth name -> sorry!) BUT this is one of my favorits


Enjoy (if you want ;-) )

Hi!

During my "surfing" through the hard disk on my computer, I found some more.
Maybe you have some fun looking at them?


BR
Martin


a Poti on the rock. Very old! The guy who sold it to me brought it approx. 15 years ago from Korea.


a little "acer palmatum var. seigen". It has been three years in training. Approx. 10 cm! Difficult to water during the summer


One of my favorits! Acer palmatum with a wonderful root base. Difficult to find such a tree.


just another quince. This one and the one I showed you before are these with the smaller bark-plates and they are not flowering so much. But the ramification of the branches is (or should be!) better then the normal quince.

These are indeed lovely, Martin. Keep surfing that hard disk in case you have some more pictures!

all very beautiful trees!!!!!



this' fantastic

,

Luis Fontanills wrote:Green Island Ficus: 5" (13 cm) across the base - 6" (15 cm) high.
It will branch and fill out with leaves this growing season.

Luis,
Do you still have this Sea Grape in my pot from 2nd Florida BSF show in Ft. Lauderdale about 10 years ago?

Rob, congrats with your shohin hedgerow, I really like it!

Next time you come to Belgium you should place it on show.

They served as land-fences, but it's a pity these hedgerows are slowly disappearing in the European landscape.
Only remark I could make is that a hedgerow is very seldom made up with only one species of trees. (except in gardens)
Mostly they are a mixture of acer campester, prunus, cornus mas, hedera, carpinus, fagus, crataegus and many others..

But I suppose it would be really difficult to make a convincing mixed hedgerow?

Anyway yours is very beautiful.

Jaco (New Bonsai Art)

Jacos wrote: But I suppose it would be really difficult to make a convincing mixed hedgerow?

Now there's a challenge! What would the purists say about a Shohin group/forest composed of different tree species?

[quote="fiona Now there's a challenge! What would the purists say about a Shohin group/forest composed of different tree species?[/quote]

"It's all so wrong on many diFferent levels!"

I take it form the speech marks that you're suggesting what the purists might say.

So the next question (to them) would be simply: Why?

No marks for telling me "The Japanese wouldn't do it" unless it is backed up with the reason why they wouldn't do it.

Here is a little shimpaku I got at a local landscape nursery a few years ago mostly because they said they had gotten it for bonsai and so I felt obligated lol. It was just a stick in a pot but I've had fun trying to make something at least pleasant of it.



It had virtually no taper, so repotting it yesterday I attempted to improve this by splitting the base of the trunk in the back and then wedging pieces of bamboo skewer into the splits. I sealed up everything with Elmer's glue when done. We'll see how this goes but hopefully the scarring will close over the splits eventually. Visually it was pretty effective I think, considering what I started with, giving it a pleasing amount of taper for it's size.

Jacos wrote:Rob, congrats with your shohin hedgerow, I really like it!

Next time you come to Belgium you should place it on show.

They served as land-fences, but it's a pity these hedgerows are slowly disappearing in the European landscape.
Only remark I could make is that a hedgerow is very seldom made up with only one species of trees. (except in gardens)
Mostly they are a mixture of acer campester, prunus, cornus mas, hedera, carpinus, fagus, crataegus and many others..

But I suppose it would be really difficult to make a convincing mixed hedgerow?

Anyway yours is very beautiful.

Thanks for the comments Jacos. Can't wait to return to Belgium, maybe for the next Gingko Bonsai Show.

As for a mixed forest hedgerow, interesting concept. It probably would work for trees in their dormant phase.
This might actually be a good idea for an IBC project. Let's see what various members worldwide can devise. Anyone up to the challenge of creating a bonsai replica of a mixed species hedgerow simulation? I am willing to give it a shot, but need to think about what species to use. A tropical verison might even be intersting if not truly authentic. It doesn't have to be a shohin

fiona wrote:

Jacos wrote: But I suppose it would be really difficult to make a convincing mixed hedgerow?

Now there's a challenge! What would the purists say about a Shohin group/forest composed of different tree species?

Hopefully - "very nice" Check out Saburo Kato's book on forest plantings. Loaded with great examples of mixed tree forests.

Alas, I do not have Saburo Kato's book.

But what I do have is some small trees in my growing fields.
I have Acer campester, some Prunus, a Fagus, Sorbus, Betula and Larix.

Maybe I should give it a try...

Jaco

Here's a picture taken today of a small Trident maple over a rock...

fiona wrote:.....Keep surfing that hard disk in case you have some more pictures!

Thx. for your comments.
Here I found another one.
Forsy before and after first shaping. Approx. 9cm Pot by Erwin Grezminski (Germnay)
Enjoy!
M
before

after