South Africa Bonsai Convention 2013

Walter Pall posted very nice pictures on his blog about the convention.

He linked his blog on the SAbonsai forum here:

SA Bonsai Convention

His blog:

Walter Palls blog


Thanks Walter - you were great at the convention!

Open umbrella - Eugenia (Brush Cherry) progression.

I love to work with this species - they grow so fast!

I planted a few seedlings into growth bags to be trained into Lollypop trees. When I started in bonsai I did not have access to a lot of bonsai material so I used this one to practice proportions, ratios, branch placement etc. Looking back today I can not figure out what I have done to the poor stick in a pot! This is the tree somewhere in 2010:

I know I could not use the tree as is and decided to let the two lower buds on the base grow out to try and thicken it up:

I decided to remove the old trunk as well as the thickest sacrifice branch so I could get some taper and movement. At that stage I was thinking of growing it into the traditional informal upright:

Picked up the new trunkline:

I decided to let go of the idea of an informal upright and rather go for an African style. The tree 2012:

June 2013 - decided to cut the lowest left hand branch:

The tree October 2013:

The right hand side's crown will be grown out a bit. There is a good chance the tree will end up as a Pierneef form tree.