Now that’s a chunk of a block of a rock or something. Actually, it’s concrete, a manmade rock. But it’s “done broke” as they say…

It looks like a reptiles beak, below.

The story begins with a text, including some pics and videos, from Cincinnati.

The text was from Brendan. Say “Hi!” Brendan:

That’s him, my wife and me.

He got this “stone” from Poland, believe it or not. From a guy named Jacek Motyl. He makes rocks. Amazing rocks. Click on his name.

Anyway, Brendan ordered this stone and Jacek shipped it to him. In transit, it got “done broke”.

I’m not blaming the packing job. Jacek packed the rock well. I’m not blaming the Polish post office. Nor the USA postal service.

Let’s blame providence. The rock breaking gave me an opportunity to try something I’ve never done before. Sorry Brendan. Yes, this is my first attempt. I shall try my best sir.

The type of rock is technically called “tateishi”, or standing stone, used in a root over rock style called, in many modern spellings, “ishisuki”. When I was growing up in bonsai, we spelled it “ishitsuki”. Yeah, ishitsuki, I shit you not….but the modern spelling helps us to pronounce it correctly. The “T” and the “S” make a singular sound in Japanese. Kinda like an “tssss” sound.

Anyway, that’s my joke about root over rock style. It’s better in person, with the hand gestures and all.

Watch the video below to see how bad the break is.

Not to give away secrets, but the shape was created by taking screen or hardware cloth and making the basic shape.

Then the screen is built up with cement. And colored, shaped, sculpted, aged, etc.

Pretty cool right?

My job is to fix the break and match the colors and texture. So I first had Brendan try to find Ciment Fondue. I had remembered reading about the stuff reading in the old books and magazines when I first started in bonsai (books and magazines are these amazing learning tools that one held in one’s hands, printed on paper. You would flip pages and read and the knowledge was amazing. I could tell you about encyclopedias but you’d zone out quickly).

Brendan couldn’t find Ciment fondue. Searching on google, I found it. What is it?

CIMENT FONDU® is a hydraulic binder with an alumina content of approximately 40%. Composed mainly of calcium aluminate.

It’s a brand name, only available in Europe, so I told him to find something similar. And he did.

Refractory mortar.

Why something similar? So it expands and contracts in similar ways to heat and cold cycles as the original sculpture. And refractory cement is waterproof. An important thing up north, as water freezes in the cold, and can explode our rock. That might sound spectacular. But that’s not conducive to stable bonsai plantings.

There’s something soothing playing with cement.

Measure out a portion….

Add color (we had red, tan, called buff, and black. I eyeballed it).

And a trick, don’t mix it fully. You want variations.

Add water.

And move fast.

Brendan was watching me closely.

I smeared it, chopsticked it, blotted it. It’s a feeling thing.

I made sure to push the material into the cracks to ensure the repair of the rock, and not just make an aesthetic facade.

And with the leftover cement, I played around a little.

Yeah, I know what it looks like.

After the repair dried, I think it looks good.

I matched the texture and color. But most importantly, it’s solid.

I wouldn’t drop it, but it’s one piece again.

Below, is where I cemented that chunk back into place:

The “beak” is gone.

Now it’s up to Brendan what to do with it.

We have before us, up in the urban spires in the city of Cincinnatus, one willow leaf ficus. The tree, as is, would be good on most people’s benches. It has a biggish trunk, good branching and a full canopy. But, to quote the modern day vernacular, it’s kinda like a “helmet on a stick”.

And Brendan was bored with it. I might be able to do something about that, let’s see what we come up with, shall we?

Twirling it around, I think I like the front (below) with its nice root spread and interest. Now what?

I think you see what I saw…

…hah! I crack myself up sometimes. Let’s crack this trunk up….

Or saw it, as it were.

Maybe we (or Brendan) needs some liquid courage to steady the nerves. Or hands.

Bob Dylan has a new bourbon by the way.

But, oddly, I chose a Van Morrison song for the video, go to My Instagram to watch the sawing. It’s a good song at least.

“Are you sure the tree will survive this Adam?” my wife asks.

I sure hope so.

Using a knife, I make the saw cut a little less “saw cutty” looking.

That’s better. The willow leaf ficus almost heals like we do, from the inside out, as opposed to the bark spreading over the cut, like a maple tree. It’s an observation I’ve made in my career as a ficus bonsai guy.

That was the easy part, now I’ll go through and give the canopy some shape.

Which means, defoliation, removing unwanted and superfluous branching or budding, wiring, etc.

Without foliage (foil-age to some of those in the town of my birth), we can clean up some cuts too.

And no, Virginia, I don’t tend to use cut paste on figs. Why? A point to consider, the white latex “sap” that we see when pruning a ficus is not the real “sap” from the tree. It’s actually from a secondary, pseudo-vascular system that utilizes cells called “laticifers”. The sap flows through the xylem and phloem and it’s comprised of the water and sugars the tree uses in photosynthesis and respiration.

Laticifers are super specialized cells or a network of connected cells (often like the real vascular system, in tube-like structures) that make and hold the latex and can be found in various tissues, including the pith, the cortex, the secondary phloem, and even secondary xylem. The botanists believe that the purpose of the latex is to trap bugs and stool continued damage to the plant, and to help seal the wound for quicker healing

Let’s add some wire…

Look at that dude, he’s a stud.

My work is done, except to have Brendan add some raffia to the sawn edges. Willow leaf figs tend to bud right on any cut or wound, which is a good trait to have, but sometimes it’s too much.

The raffle should keep new buds from forming.

And Bob’s yer uncle!

This is where you, my Constant Readers, are quoting Jurassic Park “You.. were so preoccupied with whether you could, you didn’t stop to think if you should…”

But I jumped past all that and posit the concept that I needed to do it.

We had some reverse taper building where the branches were coming off the trunk, pretty much in the same spot, so something needed doing. Whether it was chopping them off or, this. If I chose the chop option (just as traumatic as this technique) we could have created a sweet short tree. But it too would be just a “regular” bonsai. Brendan was bored with the tree before. Now he’s excited to see what happens. And the tree will be a better one for this. That’s Brendan below, on the left in the front.

He looks happy. I do too. That’s my second or third liter of beer, so…..I’m happy.

The tree, for Brendan, was a good tree, but boring. And living up in Cincy, it was becoming a chore to go through all the labor of winter protection, including grow lights, heat mats, etc. Now, Brendan has something to look forward to as the tree responds.

The tree looks happy too.

Another video of the finished work.

And yes, you saw White Castle’s and a sparkling beverage called Bonsai, tasty and expeditious. Food and beverage of the bonsai gods we pray to.

Let me know what you think. I’ll add updates as they pop up.

Here’s a challenge.

Julie Trigg has been developing this tree (Ficus microcarpa “green mound” or “green island” for many years. Her goal was to create seven levels, or pads, or clouds, on the tree, to represent a personal symbolic idea.

The tree in question is the one next to the beer (of course I’d show scale by beer can. I learned from the old timers of bonsai. All the old magazines showed scale by beer). And if you know anything about beer, you’ll also know that Abita Brewery’s “The Boot” beer is only sold in Louisiana.

And it is a mild felony to smuggle it out of the state. Good thing I’m not there anymore (did you know that Louisiana is still governed by napoleonic law? Meaning you are guilty until proven innocent. Well, not really, but my 7th grade civics teacher insisted it was still in effect. Good story but, you know, don’t believe everything your teachers tell you. If you can only recite the words, you haven’t learned the lessons.)

But I was there this last weekend. In New Orleans. Proof:

Better proof:

Damn these meat pies are fine cuisine. To get them shipped to Orlando I have to buy 45 individual pies (well, 45 in a box) for $129.99.

But they’re available at the Walmarts in New Orleans, in the hot food section, for like a buck fifty.

Yes, I am jealous.

Makes my mouth water.

Anyway, back to Julie’s tree. Here’s a close up.

Julie is a real artist. She is one of the finest painters I know (follow this link: https://mustseesarasota.com/julie-trigg-artist/)

In oil, acrylic, mixed media, watercolor, whatever medium you can think of, she’s one of the best. And in Bonsai too. She’s shown trees multiple times at the BSF Exhibit at Epcot’s Flower and Garden show…..

…at the BSF Convention exhibit, at Bill Valavanis’ National Bonsai Exhibit, at both Komorebi shows David Camargo and I put on several years ago in Miami, and at many Shofu Bonsai Society shows, her home club when she lived in Sarasota Fl.

But why seven levels? It’s not a question I asked her. I’m a very personal person, and I feel very uncomfortable asking others personal questions. But if we do some research: seven levels could be religious (7 days of creation in Judeo-Christian religions or seven heavens/hells) spiritual (7 levels of awakening in Buddhism or the 7 energy chakras). In medieval learning, there is the sum of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and the quadrivium (astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, music) adding up to seven as well.

Seven colors in a prism or rainbow, seven principal notes in music. if you take any three things or entities, say A B C, you can only express them seven times (A, B, C, AB, BC, AC, ABC

Like it or not, going as far back possibly the caveman times, who were, believe it or not, more capable than we were intellectually (technology often dumbs us down), the number seven is significant.

Julie’s challenge to herself was to make a tree with seven pads, or levels. It was a challenge she conveyed to me when I worked on it.

Here we go:

First step with me is usually defoliation. Hey look, it’s me!

Why is it always defoliation? Thats a whole other article. (This one, by the way: I use some fancy words to justify my defoliation habit, go figure )

All defoliated and who do I find? Awww, look at that little dude!

Now for some wire:

But which side is the front I wonder?

Some more views. Then a video or two.

You can see how much work was needed to create the levels.

And if you say something silly like “You done ruint yer tree, you got wire scars”, then your slip is showing.

If your tree doesn’t have wire scars, you’re just not trying hard enough. Don’t want wire scars? Go buy a topiary.

We, as bonsai artists, use wire to shape our trees. Speaking of shaping….

One trend I’d like y’all to think about in modern bonsai is the concept of a growing a fully encompassing canopy over the tree. I’m pretty sure there is a Japanese name for it.

Is it a valid? Sure. Do I like it? Count up seven lines. That’s my answer.

I like to see the tree.

The story of a tree begins at the trunk, and (get this) branches off into ancillary chapters that tell their own stories. We may have scars (shari) or broken, dead branches (jin) that create drama, or climax.

What story does a full mushroom top tell?

How about we leave that discussion to the bonsai professionals.

Did we maintain the seven levels that Julie was going for? How about we just do some counting, sound up!

Another detail video. No sound this time. Copyright is a bitch.

Now, to go back to the question of “Which view is the front?”

Is it this one?

Or this?

They both tell different stories. They almost look like different trees. One is more massive looking, the other has more movement.

One is almost closed up, one is open.

I won’t tell you which I prefer. If I even have a preference. Julie likes the last one.

How about you?