A commonly perceived idea is that each tree has something to teach us. This could be extended in variation to many other fields I’m sure. It just becomes a matter of, are you ready to listen and will you act accordingly?

Thinking of how to bring context to this post I wanted to break it down to the bare metal and help others see through the sometimes haziness of design discussions. The main school of thought is that an old tree has mature sizeable branching which vary in thickness. Whether you fall on the side of the fence of the lowest branch being the thickest or it being up in the canopy that is neither here nor there.

What gives a bonsai the illusion of being a grand old tree, often just comes down to scale and proportion. It’s a magical feeling when you have had a piece of raw material that you have worked on for a few years and then one day you look at it and it gives a sense of being a ‘tree’. Is that just the tree starting to reach the proportions necessary to achieve that scaled design?

So what do we need to do to get the variable size branching that is in proportion to the trunk? Simply put, selective growth and pruning. To get the required growth, the tree needs time in a container such as a wooden box to allow for this constant grow and cutback. Without this, the process is either slowed or maybe not even attained. Lesson learnt!

So where do we stand now with this tree? The lowest branch on the right is extending to thicken up, but this will be kept short and won’t be the thickest branch on the tree, similar to the notion of the regrowth seen in old trees. The lowest two branches on the left, either both will be kept or just one, but they will need to be considerably thicker and will be the thickest on the tree. At the same time the branches in the upper canopy have been kept tight to avoid them becoming too strong. It’s a real battle between the strength of the canopy and wanting to extend those lower branches.

The work we can do along the way is wiring and styling. Putting movement (character) into those branches while you still can at the early stages is so important. Work below the ground almost always goes unnoticed, to give some context this root ball had major roots extending in a 50cm diameter, this over the years has been reduced to +-38cm.

If you have a plan and you stick to it, even if you don’t hit every milestone you will still be far enough down the right path to jump straight back on and pick up where you left off.