BOR ROMAN

Roman is a bonsai enthusiast for many years now and he has a nice garden with beautiful niwaki trees. He is also a member of TORA international bonsai school and hosted the school workshops for many times. In October 2014 we were in his garden again and he took a nice pine for the workshop. When I saw this pine for the first time, I was thinking: what a great black pine! But then I realized that this is actually a red pine (Pinus sylvestris) with the character of a black one. Just exceptional! It has fantastic bark, roots are visible because rain washed out all the soil, great movement. Yamadori on its best! But yamadori usually has a lot of problems. And in that late October day we started to eliminate one by one. Pine was already styled once before by Roman, but he made some mistakes and we started again from scratch. 

Roman se z bonsaji ukvarja že vrsto let; njegov vrt je tudi poln čudovitih nivakijev. Je tudi član šole TORA in je naše delavnice že velikokrat gostil. Oktobra 2014 smo bili spet gostje v njegovem vrtu in za delavnico je izbral lep bor. Ko sem ta bor videl prvič, sem pomislil: dober črni bor! Potem pa sem spoznal, da gre v resnici za rdeči bor (Pinus sylvestris) s karakterjem črnega. Izjemno! Ima fantastično skorjo, korenine so razkrite, ker je dež izpral vso prst, krasno gibanje. Jamadori v vsej svoji lepoti! Toda jamadorji imajo običajno tudi veliko problemov. In tistega pozno-oktoberskega dne smo jih začeli drugega za drugim odpravljati. Roman je drevo enkrat že oblikoval, toda napravil nekaj napak in zato smo začeli znova. 

This photo (the oldest one I have of this tree) was taken when some work was already done ...

Roman working on his pine

We created an interesting line which was the main goal of first intervention. The result was interesting tree, all mistakes were eliminated, the branch structure was set, now the work on crown started. (Sorry for the bad photo, but we finished the work already in the dark ... )

Ustvarili smo zanimivo linijo, kar je bil tudi glavni cilj tega posega. Rezultat je bilo zanimivo drevo, napake odpravljene, struktura vej postavljena in delo na krošnji se lahko začne. (Opravičilo za slabo fotko, toda delo smo končali, ko se je že spustil mrak ...)

The result after first intervention (October 2014)

In spring 2015 Roman re-potted the tree in a first bonsai pot, pine reacted well and he brought it back to the workshop in January 2016. 

Spomladi 2015 je Roman drevo presadil v prvo bonsajsko posodo, bor je reagiral dobro in januarja 2016 ga je spet prinesel na delavnico. 

January 2016, pine is back on the table

We wired it again and with second styling the tree started to show all its potential. Of course, there are some years of work still waiting before this tree will be ready for exhibition, but Roman (and I too :-) ) is happy with such a quick progress so far.

Spet smo ga ožičili in z drugim oblikovanjem je že začel kazati ves svoj potencial. Seveda bo še nekaj let dela preden bo drevo pripravljeno za razstavo. Toda Roman (in tudi jaz :-) ) je z dosedanjim hitrim razvojem zadovoljen.

Pinus sylvestris after second styling, January 2016

Now the tree needs better pot, work on the crown will continue ...

Drevo zdaj potrebuje boljšo posodo, delo na krošnji pa se bo nadaljevalo ...