Strange as this magnificent old tree is, it all works together to with a perfect blend of eccentricity and balance. But the nebari? That takes some getting use to. (This photo and the others in this post are from Peter Tea Bonsai.)
Don’t worry, soon we’ll be back to working up never-seen-before posts. Meanwhile, it’s still mid-summer and we’re still borrowing from the past. This one originally appeared December 2011.
A good place to start resurrecting
Way back in 2009 and early 2010 we ran a series of posts that we called Eccentric Bonsai (here’s the last one). Maybe it’s time to resurrect the series. If so, this absolutely unique Trident maple seems like a good place to start.
Borrowing from Peter…
As you may have noticed, we’ve featured several posts from Peter Tea’s blog lately (Peter is an apprentice at Mr. Junichiro Tanaka’s Aichi-en bonsai nursery). Peter takes good photos, writes with a fresh perspective, and knows something about bonsai. To an old editor and bonsai enthusiasts, that’s an unbeatable combination.
Here’s that nebari, and here’s what Peter has to say about it: “A close up of the root spread. Even the root spread of this tree is strange. Answer me this, would a more natural radial root base go well with the rest of the tree? or vise versa? My first impression of this root base was, “what is this?” When I looked at the overall tree again this root spread turned out to be so right for this tree (there is an important lesson to learn here). If you don’t believe me, look at the picture of the front of the tree again. ;o).”
A profusion of very small, very colorful fall leaves almost completely cover the tree’s eccentric nature.
Looking at this tree, I search for the “story” behind it; what forces it had to survive, that caused it to make those roots. For me the nebari resembles an eagle’s claw,talons embedded deeply into the earth. If that is true, perhaps a more harsh planting, say a precipice, comes to mind. The eagle silently surveying it’s kingdom from on-high?
Everyone is gonna hate what I say, but this tree looks le someone bought it for 10 bucks at an auction 20 yrs ago and used expert technique ( except for root work/ grafting) on it as a bet to say I can make something out of this stick.
It has no movement or taper. You can see the original chop on the trunk and the nebari looks like a tortoise foot with advanced arthritis.
A couple of suckers were encouraged in tbe right to fill in for lack of a proper branch.
I know in Japan, it’s the mecca of kooki trees and the mark of a pro is one who tosses the rules out the window, but although, I would still own this tree ( LOL ), I still think it’s a poor tree with expert work on it to get an awesome ramification.
Picture the way the apex cascades to the left withtnis superlative ramification on a trunk with movement, taper, and a nice mature radial nebari. Wow! That would be beautiful!
I know people will say that there are plenty of trees out there that are perfect, the faults are what sets this tree aside, and nobody loves unuasul trees more than I, but, I would rather have
spent 20 yrs ramifying something a little more to what I described above.
Just my 1/2 cent.