Back to normal...

It has been a busy week preparing for the Japan Day 2018 exhibition and young designers competition. Just like that the hype has past. Everything has return to normal and it back to my normal daily routine. In case you missed my series on the preparations for the Japan Day 2018 here are the links to the blogs:

1. https://steemit.com/bonsai/@romanolsamuels/japan-day-2018-countdown
2. https://steemit.com/japanday2018/@romanolsamuels/japan-day-countdown-part-2-bonsai-tools-and-cleaning
3. https://steemit.com/bonsai/@romanolsamuels/japan-day-countdown-part-3-final-day-prep
4. https://steemit.com/bonsai/@romanolsamuels/japan-day-2018

Here is a link to the highlights clip of Japan Day 2018.

https://www.facebook.com/bonsaiwithromano/videos/536622960042686/?hc_ref=ARSfOwvAY196lv0jQ9qVP4FQJwsQE6Y9FBjUIz7R3_vEH4hNxFBTT6uSrYy3JHigR7c

After all this excitement I woke up this morning with my mind set on catching up on the work I felt during the Japan Day prep. I walked into my garden and my mood was damped. There was a lot of work that needed to be done. I had to categorize things in order of importance as there where just to many things that needed my attention.

I started of with something light to set me in the mood for working on trees. I planted small plants in the gaps in between my trees that i planted on a slab in a forest setting.

There are still a few gaps that need to be filled but I will leave it open for now. These plant grow quickly so as they start growing they will form nice little pads that can be trimmed and shaped to my design.

The next little project that I wanted to complete today was removing the wire from my young designer competition 2017. Its been a year now and I have pruned this tree a few times during the growing season. I knew that it was time to remove the wire as the wire was just starting to bite into the bark of the tree.

Next on my list was to remove the wire from a tree I won with during a competition last year in June. This is a special tree as it was the first time I have won a bonsai competition. During this competition I received a lot of positive feedback and it's also the competition that open the door to an apprenticeship with one of the great bonsai artists in the Western Cape.

As you can see the tree was left to grow. The weeds are a problem in the soil mixture that was used for this tree as you can see the weeds come up very quickly in this container.

Here is the tree after I worked on it.

Both these trees that I had to style during the young designer competitions were very difficult trees to work on. They are normally just nursery trees with no real potential. Branches are often far apart and trunks are not always the best to say the least.

I will be forming these tree for the next few year to see how they turn out. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions on a topic that you would like to know more about reply to this blog and I will try my best to get back to you with a detailed blog on your topic.