# 101 EspritBonsaiInternational - 43away all the soft wood, and safely treating it
with a lime sulphur product that both bleaches
wood and preserves it from further decay.
Before any work is done on a tree, it is
important to analyse it and to understand
what level it has reached – with a focus on
both health and artistic possibilities.
This one displayed very healthy growth. Its slightly
pale colour indicated that a good feeding regime
would be advisable. The root ball was healthy and
strong, as was the foliage despite the pale colour.
Another important thing to observe is whether
any stressed juvenile foliage is present. This often
takes the form of sticky needles, distinguishable
from this variety’s typically soft kind of scale
growth. These are the sign of either a weak
tree, or a tree that has been pruned too hard,
thus placing the strong juvenile growth under
stress. This tree was healthy and ready to style.
Weak or strong growth
Inside foliage masses, it is natural to discover
weaker growth, often shaded out by dense
foliage. It is important to open the tree up
and let light in, forcing new growth further
back to keep the tree small and within shohin
size. Shohin size means the tree must not
exceed 20 centimetres (7¾ inches) in height,
measured from the rim of the pot – the
common standard of the shohin category.
At the time of styling, this tree measured
approximately 23 centimetres (9 inches).
Before wiring the tree I removed any small
and weak growth situated in its inner parts.
Clearly oddly placed or obviously unnecessary
branches were removed. Only enough was
cut away to be able to wire and shape the
tree, leaving a good number of short or longer
clean branches with foliage at the ends.
I chose to keep the initial front of
the tree. If it works, don’t fix it.
Creating deadwood
There was another feature that I could
see was an option for changing the
tree’s look. Dramatically, though.
It was a drooping, twisted branch with
good foliage, with leftward movement.
I decided to remove all the foliage from this
branch, making it a deadwood ( jin) branch
that shows a tree’s struggle to overcome
storms, winds and harsh winters.
At the same time as minimising the amount
of foliage, I kept a canopy and foliage mass
that were fitting for the trunk’s size. •••
Front or back,
or maybe
a new and
different
angle?Weaker growth is cleaned out.(^1) Morten decided to remove all the foliage
from a central branch, turning it into a piece of
deadwood and giving the tree real character.
(^2) Themovementofthefuture
deadwoodbranch(jin)willaddmuch
dramatothetree.
(^3) The branch is
connected to the
deadwood parts at
the top of the tree.
The curvy branches
at the top must be
visible after the
foliage pads are
arranged, to expose
the tree’s full
potential.
Small and weak growth is removed, to
reduce the overall foliage mass and make
it possible to arrange the foliage.