This weekend was the start of many great things. Firstly I was up at 05:00 on Saturday to get everything ready for the workshop. Normally I like sleeping in on Saturdays but when it comes to sharing my bonsai knowledge I will get up early.
I picked up my cousin from his house at 06:00. It was raining cats and dogs. I wished I was still in bed at that time but I was up. Never the less I picked up my cousin and his 12 Pine trees. They where the select few that fit into my cars boot. Once we off loaded all the trees. I saw that some of the trees where freshly planted so I told my cousin that I would not work on the newly potted ones as the need time to recover from the repotting. I started with a cup of coffee. Then it was over to a short presentation and a few videos. After the formalities where done it was over to styling. I had my cousin choose trees he liked to start with and asked him what he saw as the best front using tooth picks we would then mark all the options keeping in mind the design points we spoke about in the presentation. I would then guide him to what I thought to be the best front by removing the tooth picks one by one. This was a long process and by the end of the first few trees he started spotting the front much faster.
Here is a photo of the trees we styled:
As you can see some of the trees are very young and others were a bit older. These trees all come from the same area but if you look closely there are three different types of foliage on the trees. I’m new to styling pines and I know that everyone wants to work with pines but man did I struggle. Here are a few before and after pic’s.
The following tree has been styled by me in the past about a year ago. Its the scond styling and as you can see it has potential. The foliage pads are a bit more dense and the tree looks better than it did last year. I introduced fertilizer to my cousin last year and he has been using it on this trees and you can see the difference in the growth on the trees.
These are just the trees that I liked. We restyled a total of eight trees. Not all of them drastically changed from where we started and what we ended up with. Some I just trimmed as there is not enough foliage on the tree to ensure its survival.
My little bundle of joy eager to help. She asked if I can take a photo of her with the trees. She loves the trees just as much as I love them. She has her own tree that she cares for. When ever someone comes to look at my trees or asks for help with their trees she will follow us around and if I miss something she would remind me of it. She also has this thing where she would explain things about trees or mention her tree. Or just call out different tree species as we pass them. Some times it does become a bit over whelming but most of the time people find it amusing.
The second thing that happen over the weekend was that I finally after years of pitching and meeting with potential investors I got my first investor on board. I will be posting more about the project and how it fits into my plans later for now all I can say is things are looking brighter.
Hope you enjoyed the blog. Please feel free to leave your comments below.
Bonsaiwithromano 
Reblogged this on Wolf's Birding and Bonsai Blog.
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