Category events
The Noelanders Trophy 2012 winners report
Having just returned from The Noelanders Trophy, visiting friend’s gardens and sharing some great stories it’s hard to imagine a better weekend for a bonsai artist to experience. Arriving mid day on Friday it soon became clear that this event would indeed be the best ever, in terms of quality of trees, organisation and enthusiasm for the art.
It is strange but the amount of ‘Brits’ at the Trophy appears to be getting larger every year, great to see Kevin Willson, John Armitage, Simon Temblett, Simon Jones all showing trees, and Steve Tolley harping back to “Tony two trees!” does he not know that I now have three! (You are so 1990’s Mr. Tolley) … And some of the Brits coming away with nominations despite tough competition from the rest of Europe with Simon Temblett winning two awards and the tree that I presented for David Barlow also securing two awards, the “Sonderpreise” awarded by Bonsai-Museum Düsseldorf being dedicated exclusively to European trees, in particular when they are cultivated in a very naturally and typical “European”-way/style… its a nice feeling knowing that I have helped a great guy like David secure YET ANOTHER award for this wonderful bonsai. A full list and photos of the winners and can be seen on Bonsai Eejits blog.
I know that there are HUNDREDS of photos available online, a great selection is available from Nik Rozman and Jeremy Norbury
I will be posting lots of videos from The Noelanders Trophy throughout this week so keep coming back to see the next instalment.
Ready for Noelanders Trophy XIII
The car is packed and I am ready to leave tomorrow morning. I am picking up Mikey in Leeds and then onwards to Hull and P&O ferry to Rotterdam. We dock about 8.30 and then its about 3 hours to The Noelanders trophy Centrum voor Duurzaam Bouwen, Marktplein 1 in Heusden-Zolder, Belgium. Last year I was the first trader to arrive so it was easy for me to unload, sit back and watch everyone else struggle. Peter Landerloos has been kind enough to accommodate Mikey and Me for the weekend I am showing the raft beech that won a Ginkgo award in 2007.
The tree is owned by David Barlow, over the last couple of days we have been putting the final touches to the tree. It looks great.
I know that this will be the biggest and best Noelanders ever and it is great to be part of such a high class show.
On the way Home I will be calling in to see Hans van Meer my old friend who will be one of the visiting artists a the Burrs workshop in November Mikey and I are getting the ferry back to the UK on Monday evening.
Enrico Savini explains what to look for when Selecting Yamadori
During Burrs 2009 workshop Enrico Savini explains what to look for when buying Yamadori, roots, foliage, movement, age, price… and why some Yamadori is expensive.
Bending a trunk on my Hawthorn Raft
At the last re-potting of the Raft hawthorn I change the angle of the tree by rotating the tree anti clockwise by approx 15 degrees to improve the ‘depth’ and to bring the low left hand branch forward. However in bringing this forward meant that the far right ‘trunk’ moved away from the viewer. This needed to be rectified by bringing the trunk forward so that the tree ‘embraced’ the viewer.
The branch that is being bent is shown in the first photo from Swindon Winter show 2011
The problem was that the trunk is very old and stiff (a bit like me) below is shown how I overcame this. The photos speak for themselves. The final photo shows the wire brace that ‘pulls’ the trunk towards the front by being anchored to the front trunk.
When the tree is viewed as a photo you will see little difference as the image is ‘flat’ but when the tree is in exhibition it is much improved.
Bonsai & Yamadori from Tony Tickle 