High Advanced Grade 2 Various Trees

First tree is a Prunus dug from the side of the road at Bathurst, about 200 kilometres west of Sydney.

One of a number of Prunus at the side of the road, I dug three of them to work on

Settling in to the grow box

                

One growing season later, autumn colour

      

Two years since being dug up, ready to start styling

  

Mature Sageretia Theezans

I aquired this mature tree which is known as Chinese Sweet Plum or Sageretia Theezans an import from China, about 35 years old which was dug from a garden in Southern China.

A Chinese Maple which I dug at Kulnurra from Bob Cherry's garden and have grown for about 9 months,

 A good fibrous root ball and into a grow box

Grown on for 9 months, trimmed of excess top growth, all the energy will go into this branch.

Showing movement of an old branch, this will be the focus of the tree with a small top forming when new shoots are produced.

Advanced Grade 10 Rebirth

This shows how a tree survives if it falls down, maybe in a storm of if there has been very wet weather. About 18 months ago we did lateral root development, I did this on a fig and am using this for rebirthing the tree now that it has developed some good strong roots.

How it looked before:

And the finished tree on a tray with a figure doing Lin Xue Qigong beneath it.

The figure under the tree

4 weeks later and there are new shoots beginning to appear

Chinese Swamp Cypress tray setting.

I was given 5 Chinese swamp cypress by Bob Cherry, who had recently sold Paradise Camellia Nursery at Kulnurra, near Peats Ridge north of Sydney. The botanical name is Glystrostrobus Pensilis, and they are endangered in the wild in China and Vietnam.
Using a jade tray and Snowy Mountain rocks they are now a forest of 5 trees.

    How it all began

            Starting to add moss.

                                Still adding moss, harvesting it from my other penjing.

Chinese calligraphy

At the end of term our class did a final work, which is a saying of our choice.
In keeping with penjing, this complicated set of characters translates to "Simply simplify" and down the left hand side is my signature...........my Chinese name  is Hai Lun.

Advanced Grade 9 Square Turns

Part of penjing is learning to take things slowly and tune in to your tree..............extreme patience!

Starting with a magnolia, and yes it has big leaves and will take time to get them to reduce, we do 90 degree plus turns using a formwork of bamboo to support it.

This is the tree before starting

It is now a week until Christmas 2012 and two turns are done, one is nearly 90 degrees and the upper of the two needs to be bent much further, this was done over an eight week period so as not to stress the tree. 

This is how it looks now.

Details of the turns, quite dramatic

Advanced Grade 8 Su tree

We are dong an Eastern Su tree this term, using a Cupressocyparis Leylandii. The before photo:

Severe turns and Qi harnessing with wooden skewers, in a Shanghai pot.

Mature trees for Penjing

I was lucky to be offered some mature trees to dig, a very large Wisteria Issai Naga, and two Trident Maples, one about 18 feet tall and the other about 12 feet.

Murraya dig

A Murraya I am digging from the garden to work on, it was in a pot from 1996 until about 2009, then planted in the garden to let it grow and mature. It was kept trimmed the whole time so it didn't get too tall.

Advanced Grade 7 Lantana

This term the lesson is cloud and disc techniques, so I have chosen to use a Lantana, which is listed as a noxious weed here in NSW, but will make a great penjing as the flowers are small and the leaves reduce in size well.

Lantana bush dig, from Wisemans Ferry about 18 months ago.

It has been in a grow box until June 2012, ready to start work.

Defoliated to show the structure.

I have done some breaching to remove the straightness of a couple of the branches.

       Detail of the breach, got good movement from a once straight branch.

Finished and potted up and already putting on new growth which will fill the framework of skewers to form layers. Another few months and it will look more like a tree.