Clean Sweep - Show Us Your Brooms

Idealized trees are the goal still, right? Even among the sloppy Pallys? It's about an idealized tree in nature? Still? Right? We're still working with Aristitolean forms right? Or did I miss something.

I have to agre with Ryan....a broom is to me a idealized tree, in the japanese style....no need to drag this style dawn, and call every informal nice tree a broom.
I am working on brooms at home, and somehow have I during this summer, been thinking more than one time...why bother...
The tree that look like a lampshade....I can only imagine how refined and pretty the tree are during the winter, when the leaves are gone

Kind regards Yvonne

I would also like to see it bare...any winter pics, Ryan?

No winter pics John, I'll see if I can't find one.

Just before I pruned it heavily this week.
Unlike most of the trees shown on this thread, I believe this is a broom style or form.
Unfortunately my photography skills are no better than my bonsai ones!

WOW So naturalistic

Beautiful tree Mambo!

Wow Mambo! I think I am in love! Tell us more about this tree!

Killer tree!!!!

Thanks for sharing!!!
Sam

Thank you for your comments.

Though I don't intentionally do naturalistic

There's not much I can tell you about it. I purchased it about 9 or 10 years ago from a collector in Barcelona who was selling off her own collection. It was then some 40 years old, grown from seed and imported from Japan. She had what I felt were some great trees and this was one of three I purchased from her. At the time as many of the tips had thickened through lack of attention (lack of time to tend her collection was the main reason she was selling), I cut it right back to the primary/secondary branches and started almost from scratch. This week I again pruned it back, taking almost 1/2 the finer branch work off to improve taper on many of the branches so I guess I now have another five years of work. For some reason I can't seem to get the density of branches that the great bonsai artists achieve, though I do everything by the textbook - bud pinching, leaf pruning etc. Somehow, when I prune it at the end of winter, about 1/2 of the new branches have died so progress is slower than I'd like.

It could be the tree, or it might just be me.... if anybody has any ideas, I'm all ears!

This is my neea buxifolia

Hi Plecostomus,

This for me is not a broom style tree. Before posting my tree I had to plough through 18 pages of photo's and frankly, what I considered broom style would have fitted on three pages. My read on the broom style is not as flexible or naturalistic as Mr. Pall's. The debate was interesting to read though!

Here is my Acacia Black Monkey Thorn

Nice tree Joe.
Since the South-Africans seem to be posting, here is my willow.

OMG, a willow in broom, the first one I've seen, and it is beautifull.
Do you have trouble with it shedding branches?
Is it a Cork Screw Willow?
very very nicely done Frojo

Plecostomus are you on acid?

Stunning....Stunning....Stunning!!!! Top-notch photography too. Great DOF, brightness and clarity.

Thanks for sharing.
Sam

A reminder when it comes to defining (or re-defining) what is what (in bonsai as elsewhere):

"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock down argument,'" Alice objected.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all."

Lewis Carroll - Through the Looking Glass

Nicely stated Jim!

Whatever some bonsai artists would have us believe, a square peg will never fit in a round hole, and where I come from, I believe the saying goes "a spade is still a spade".... or is it "a broom is still a broom?"......

Thank you so much Andre & Sam.
I think it's a Cork Screw, it certainly is kinky. Only lost a bit the first winter, after the trunkchop 3 years ago. It made it through the last 2 winters without a problem.

My big broom fig, collected from the wild some 30 odd years ago. Was found growing on the top of a boulder with a small amount of soil around its roots
It did have large roots growing over the boulder and into the ground so i cut them off and took out the top of the tree which was mostly dead. I left it on the boulder for a year and collected it the following year.
It measures 1.3 mtrs across from tip to tip and .850 mtrs high , including pot. Hope you enjoy
Bonsaiboy50

Here's what 3 of my broom Zelkova serrata look like today, this years 8-16-13.

The first is 27" and was grown from a pencil sized tree in 1989.

The second is a cutting of the first.

The third is a cutting of the first, and on and on

All three  have orange red fall color.

•••No leaf pruning at all this year to gain trunk size.







•••Number 2 will be a tall one when I'm finished and #3 will be short. All three are in need of root pruning next Spring.

Thanks for sharing Gary....they look nice.

Kind regards Yvonne

Thanks Yvonne.

As you know, they are really never finished. 

here's mine - end of May before defoliation



and after removing all the outer leaves so light could reach the inner shoots



winter/spring will bring a repot and a new front !

Excellent example of the broom shaped Zelkova Marcus!

Can I ask about it's past? Was it an import when you first got it and how long has it been in your training?

It really does convey the expression of a of the Zelkova.