SUMMER IS ON IT'S WAY! (RAMIFICATION ON MY BIG LARCH).

Hi everybody,
a few day's ago I made some pictures of the fresh brightly green new foliage on my big Larch (XL). The new foliage is still immature and short and that makes the ramification look realy special.

Below: View of the lower right side branches.



Below: Birds eye view of the tree.



That's why I like Larch Bonsai so much, they change their appearance all year round and that makes them quit unique!
Cheers,
Hans van Meer.

Outstanding wiring job.

Billy M. Rhodes wrote:Outstanding wiring job.

Totally agree, really great wiring, and what ramification! Do you have a picture of the entire tree Hans? Looks like a beauty!

Fore wrote:

Billy M. Rhodes wrote:Outstanding wiring job.

Totally agree, really great wiring, and what ramification! Do you have a picture of the entire tree Hans? Looks like a beauty!

Summer is on its way, although you wouldn't have thought so. Last week I was repotting in 20C sunshine and yesterday -0.5 digging the car out from 2" inch of snow!!!

Awesome tree! The wiring must have taken an age to do? Beautiful job.

Regards
Bryan

Hello Hans

What can I say? This is probably my own favourite time with Larch species. Those small shaving brushes in that rich green are just ... well I need to get out more I suppose.

You are a brave man wiring so much on this species; the wire cuts in so fast at the initial growing season. This is when feed needs to be kept to a minimum of course. I tried everything I could to keep new growth as minimal as possible, but eventually I gave in. Sadly I lost my own Larch last year after 25 years of looking after it. I am looking for a nice small Larch right now. Nothing yet has turned up.

A full on picture please ... pretty please?

Mike

Wow!!! Hans awesome wiring job

Billy M. Rhodes wrote:Outstanding wiring job.

Fore wrote:

Billy M. Rhodes wrote:Outstanding wiring job.

Totally agree, really great wiring, and what ramification! Do you have a picture of the entire tree Hans? Looks like a beauty!

DangerousBry wrote:Awesome tree! The wiring must have taken an age to do? Beautiful job.
Regards
Bryan

Thanks Guy's,
it took me almost two day's to wire this baby! And that was mostly to blame because of my bad timing and freakishly warm Spring weather! Most of my trees were still in my (now open) winter shelter, because I was repainting all of my outdoor tables and fences! That took a bit longer than I expected and while I was struggling to paint the undersides of all those tables, Summer started! A week of short trousers painting followed and I even suffered my first sunburn, on one side of my face! Looked funny, but was quit painful! And than the buds on my Larch started to swell way earlier than last 3 years, and that meant trouble! When I finaly finished painting my tables, I brought my Larch outdoor and started to carfully wire, with out breaking of to much new buds! Well that was very tedious and time consuming work, and on top of that, winter had returned as soon as I started to wire, and man it can get cold when you are standing still for hours to wire! And because of the tight ramification that I created my self during the last years, it was now almost imposible to get my big hands in between those branches to wire, with out rubbing off a lot of buds!
Below: This one was made just after this branch was wired. You can see how many buds there are actualy on the branches all ready, that I needed to avoid as much as possible!



Below: Here I am finaly positioning the branches. In the background my freshly painted tables and fens!

Mike Jones wrote:Hello Hans

You are a brave man wiring so much on this species; the wire cuts in so fast at the initial growing season. This is when feed needs to be kept to a minimum of course. I tried everything I could to keep new growth as minimal as possible, but eventually I gave in. Sadly I lost my own Larch last year after 25 years of looking after it. I am looking for a nice small Larch right now. Nothing yet has turned up.

A full on picture please ... pretty please?

Mike

Hi Mike,
yes it is a calculated risk to wire this tree completely just before the growing season starts! I wired it pretty loos on purpose, because I need the branches to grow as much as possible in this fixed possition. The wire will be monitored constantly and will be cut as soon as it starts to dig in the bark! Than at the end of this growing season all aluminum wire will be cut off (thats a other full day of work) and then the tree will be wired with copper wire again, but not the thick branches that are already pretty fixed in their positions. This is all in preparation for the next Noelanders trophy in January 2013. The day before that show all wire except the tiny ones on the small branches are cut off as well! And than hopefully all stay nicely in possition!

I have made a small HD film of the work and of the finished tree that I want to upload on YouTube, but I dont know how to do that exactly so give me some more time, so that I can figure out how to do that! If that all fails, well than I will have to make a picture of the whole tree tomorrow afternoon, why you might ask? Well I did not make a decent one yet, all to dark!
So stay tuned, and you might witness me stepping into the 21 century!
For now I am off to bed!
Cheers,
Hans van Meer.

Beautiful, I love larch. Great wire job on that big guy.

Fantastic tree indeed. Thanks for sharing.

A labor of love! I look forward to seeing it displayed!

Well would you believe it?! After a full day of trying to make a posh video of the work I did on my Larch, with music, picture in picture and other fancy stuff! Like any 6 year old can do these day's! But after remaking it all over again for the second time and than to loos it all again...I "##FUZZER RAZZER, RAZZZER FRAZZZER ## ...managed to post two straight on to YOUTUBE. At first I did not knottiest that it was actually already uploading 2 of my 4 video's! By the time I did, I only managed to add some info about who or what, but I did not managed or did not know how to change the titles that my new automatic friends at YouTube had come up with! So my first and most likely....last moving pictures of my work in progress that I ever posted for the world to see, are from now on known as..........wait for it..........114-0264.MOV and 114-0271.MOV! AKA "the sequel" of 114-0264.MOV! Ain't it great, top of the world ma, TOP of the world...114 ##FUZZER RAZZRR##!
But seriously, I wend trough a lot of trouble to oblige your wishes to see the whole "XL", so I hope you enjoy my poor attempt of a video. It is so funny now to be able to see just how happy I am after finishing a tree like this one! There is just no other feeling like it in the world! Collected in 2004, with not much more left on it than two long and tin branches! And than look at it now, this tree is starting to look huge! At the end of this growing season I hope to have lots of new fourth and fifth year growth on my already established first, second and, third year branches. Those tiny branches will be wired more upwards to fill out the winter silhouette of this proud tree!
Cheers,
Hans van Meer.

Part I
Part II

PS: I discovered, YES all by my self, how to change the title of my video's! The first one now is named: 115- instead of 114! Has a better ring to it don't you think?


No seriously, this is what the are named now:
"MY RESTYLED OLD YAMADORI LARCH BONSAI PART I". And "MY RESTYLED OLD YAMADORI LARCH BONSAI PART II". catchy dont you think?
[b]

Hi Hans
Congratulations!!!
Your work is very inspiring.
( also video )

Greetings Pavel

And part III HERE!!
This is a close up of the ramification on the tree. And still the birds can fly trough!
Cheers,
Hans van Meer.

Pavel Slovák wrote:Hi Hans
Congratulations!!!
Your work is very inspiring.
( also video )

Greetings Pavel

Thank you my friend! Looking forward to finaly meet you at "Burrs"
Cheers,
Hans.

Hi Hanns, my friend.
I would be pleased to meet you.
Pavel

Pavel Slovák wrote:Hi Hans
Congratulations!!!
Your work is very inspiring.

The 360 video has rendered me speachless... Truly inspiring!

I've not been brave enough to tackle YouTube yet... So well done with that. Look forward to seeing more of your great trees.

Thanks again
Bryan

Larch envy....
Probably my favorite species, but I've been told they don't do well here.

I'm in Chicago and have 2 that are doing very well....so far.

DangerousBry wrote:

Pavel Slovák wrote:Hi Hans
Congratulations!!!
Your work is very inspiring.

The 360 video has rendered me speachless... Truly inspiring!

I've not been brave enough to tackle YouTube yet... So well done with that. Look forward to seeing more of your great trees.

Thanks again
Bryan

Thanks Brian,
yes going YouTube with this tree of mine was a first for me as well! I dont know why, but it gives me a unsettling feeling of being out in the open and overly exposed! Strange isn't it?!
Cheers,
Hans van Meer.

chappy56 wrote:Larch envy....
Probably my favorite species, but I've been told they don't do well here.

Larch envy, thats cool!
Cheers,
Hans van Meer.

Fore wrote:I'm in Chicago and have 2 that are doing very well....so far.

Hope the will keep on doing well for you, because Larch as a Bonsai are on of my favorite species to work with!
Cheers,
Hans van Meer.

Thanks for taking the time to figure out Youtube, It's a real pain at times. Windows Movie Maker is great for putting clips and music together. You can also upload direct from it to Youtube which is handy. Very basic but that suits me :-) My 17 year old son laughs at my efforts as he uses Sony Vegas which confuses the hell out of me!!

I love this Larch, great work. Would you ever consider joining the top jin with the lower shari?

Ian Young wrote:Thanks for taking the time to figure out Youtube, It's a real pain at times. Windows Movie Maker is great for putting clips and music together. You can also upload direct from it to Youtube which is handy. Very basic but that suits me :-) My 17 year old son laughs at my efforts as he uses Sony Vegas which confuses the hell out of me!!

I love this Larch, great work. Would you ever consider joining the top jin with the lower shari?

Hi Ian,
me and my wife sold for many years all sorts of games and gaming consoles in our old shop. But even so, the knowledge of how and why those things worked, was even with the very young costumers, way bigger than we cold ever lurn!
Yes joining the top Jin with the deadwood section lower on the trunk is a work in progress. The tree is doing it all by it's self! This might take a lot longer than doing it artificial by hand but it will look much better in the end! The bark is amazingly thick on this tree, in some places more than a centimeter, and is make up out of many layers of bark. By allowing that section of the tree to die back by it's self, this thick bark will crack naturally and will eventually fall off, leaving a rough and natural looking edge between the deadwood and live bark! I could never get that edge to look that natural and beautiful if I would do it myself by hand or with powertools! So pattieance is the name of the game again!
Cheers,
Hans van Meer.