I got this Kishu shipped to me about a week ago. This is my first large (to me) peice of purpose grown bonsai material. I plan to repot it into a grow box with some assistance from a local club member next month, but in the meantime I would love to see what kind of styles you guys might think of. To be clear it will likely not be styled at all for quite a while until I see how well it takes to the repot and how it fares in my climate, but I think it would be nice to start getting some idea of where to take it in the future. I have added my poor attempt at photo-editing the first idea that has come to me so far.
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Nice! Looks like a fun piece of material! I’m jealous haha! Is the side you’re showing most going to be the front you’re basing your style from? Looks like the one close up of the trunk (Looks like the back side maybe?) has a nice base with some nice taper and still some dramatic movement. Maybe with some tilt play it might be nice from that side too? However I do think the side you’re showing has really interesting movement. My initial thought would be similar to yours I think but ultimately imagining the apex and upper foliage to be a bit lower and to the right, putting some depth behind that upper twist and lessening the negative space between it and the defining branch. I think that negative space can be nice when you’ve got some interest in the branch structure there but that one looks pretty straight. So I’d think to lessen any accent on it. Granted I know you’re just drawing up an initial idea from your computer haha. This is all just my newbie opinion too. Styling ideas are fun so I wanted to play too. Curious to see what the others come up with! Happy for you on your first big pre-bonsai grown material!
That picture is from the other side and a bit above. I do think that side is more refined in appearance and would lend itself to an informal upright style, but I’m really partial to the yamadori like appearance of the side most of the photos are from. It’s kind of a Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde situation. That said, I’ll post more pictures of the other side in the near future. I can’t shut out my options this early. I also agree about the straight branch or branches, they will probably get sacrificed into jin in the future, although I am somewhat confused about how to manage them. At their current length they kind of look like the antennas on sputnik and they’re not terribly appealing. It will be nice once it stays dry enough to clean off the deadwood and put some lime sulfur on it to see what I’m working with as far as the sharis are concerned. The wood at the base could definitely benefit from some preservative. Thanks for the feedback!
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It’s a nice tree with interesting movement. I also like your initial idea. You have a good root base on the left side of the tree and it can anchor a good degree of asymmetry to the right. A harmonious design with the apex and defining branch to the right would look nice. Also closing down the negative space between the apex and the Jin on the left appears it will help accentuate that push to the right.
After taking another peak at the base It appears that a fair amount of the cool nebari is not attached to roots which may be bad news. I’m hoping to dedicate some time to cleaning off the deadwood and figuring out what is live vein and what isn’t.
I feel like I may have done more harm than good… the first photo is pre-cleaning, the following are post. I’m having a really hard time differentiating what is alive and dead. There is a live vein bulge on one side but the only logical place is could attach to the ground looks like dead wood (next to last photo), and I can’t figure out how to get the last layer of fibrous tissue off to explode the red beneath. Anyways, I’m terrified I did a bad. This seemed like it would be relatively straight forward and help me expose all of the deadwood to treat it from rotting even more, but now I’m worried I screwed up my tree. It’s definitely not aesthetically more pleasing.
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It’s a really cool tree. And I don’t see anything that you have done that looks particularly alarming. Suspect that live vein is being fed by roots under the trunk
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Boxed this bad boy and got it in some bonsai soil. The semi de-barking seems to have gone over fine, but now I’m worried about fungus as I seem to have some foliage die back.
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Use a hydrogen peroxide spray 1 part hydrogen peroxide to 3 parts water. Make in small amounts and apply every 24 hours. Can be applied in full sun as the light helps with the oxidation process that kills fungi.