Contents:
- Bernie in Elandan Gardens
- Bernie as a Mudman
- Weblog Bulletins
Little doubt most of you could have seen the meme going round this week based mostly on Senator Bernie Sanders braving the inauguration day chilly bearing his now-iconic mittens and sensible Vermontian style sense. Political leanings apart, Bernie’s inauguration sighting has rapidly exploded on the web as netizens place the Senator in their very own photographs all over the world. The senator is even promoting T-shirts and sweatshirts that includes his inaugural meme and is donating 100% of the proceeds to Vermont charities like Meals-on-Wheels which helps feed low-income seniors. Naturally, I needed to take part on the enjoyable! Not solely is that this meme a very good alternative for some Bernie bonsai sightings, however I am additionally glad to have the excuse to undergo my previous Elandan Gardens photographs and to mess around in Photoshop once more. With out additional ado, get pleasure from my Bernie-fied stroll down reminiscence lane at Elandan Gardens together with some experimental concepts with Bernie standing in for conventional Chinese language mudman collectible figurines.
So sit again and benefit from the refreshing style of this contemporary can of memes I’ve cracked open for you. If it’s good to boost that work-from-home life, be at liberty to make use of these as ZOOM backgrounds or you possibly can put Bernie in your personal photographs by means of this free photoshop-esque template.
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| Elandan continues to be open within the winter, although some days it may be chilly and windy – the bushes do not thoughts. Bernie is true to bundle up! |
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| Here is Bernie appreciating the serenity of the pond and one in every of Dan’s yamadori bald cypress bushes. It is extra of a niwaki panorama tree now as some massive roots have escaped its planting space and run into the pond. |
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| Bernie should have a very good view from up there! |
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| This image was taken whereas Dan and I have been pruning that Monterey Cypress on a sizzling summer time day. Dan (who just lately turned 82) is just 3 years older than Bernie however he appears rather less involved about overlaying up. |
The final two photographs are from the final time I went to Elandan Gardens earlier than my transfer. Dan was doing summer time pruning on this Scot’s Pine niwaki (bonsai-styled panorama tree) and we had the entire crew serving to out to make the method go sooner. This tree has been pruned so a few years in a row that the foliage pads had gotten unbelievable dense on account of repeated backbudding. This referred to as for reducing off new development from again to final 12 months (this leads to new buds rising with shorter needles) after which simplifying the remaining branches all the way down to 2 or 3 per junction and in some circumstances pruning off previous pruning stubs that have been missed in earlier 12 months’s thinning.
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| My good friend Lisa made a brand new 12 months’s decision to strive 5 new hobbies in 2020, so I roped her into serving to prune bushes. No phrase but if the bonsai dependancy has contaminated her but… |
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| One final Elandan Gardens apprentice reunion (partially anyhow) from left to proper: Hansy, Dan Robinson, myself, Tice, and Bernie after all. Each Hansy and Dan provide bonsai classes and landscaping companies across the Paulsbo and Bremerton, WA respectively. |
Mudpeople have a protracted historical past in bonsai within the sense that they have been initially included into Chinese language penjing a whole lot of years in the past. Although hand-made mudpeople are way more troublesome to seek out in the present day, they’re nonetheless utilized in Chinese language penjing in the present day and are actually mass-produced by way of molds to the good thing about fashionable capitalism. Traditionally, these mudpeople have been extra distinguished in Chinese language penjing as a result of penjing has at all times been a extra holistic panorama of bushes, rocks, and collectible figurines whereas Japanese bonsai in some methods dissected penjing into separate artforms of kusamono (accent crops), suiseki (viewing stones), scroll artwork, and bonsai (bushes merely in pots). Whereas the separate Japanese parts could be woven into one story like a penjing panorama for formal three-point shows, mudmen are a lot much less widespread in these Japanese conventional shows.
Although on-line histories of mudpeople are few and much between, sufficient collectors have now investigated them additional which you could learn extra on their historical past
right here.
Perhaps in the future I or a extra gifted artist may make mudman Bernie a actuality, however for now this is what we are able to think about that will seem like.
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| Bernie and Dan’s large Daybreak Redwood. |
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| Bernie likes forests too! This tree was beforehand featured in my put up “A Rocky Obsession” (although the picture is newer). |
- Submit your bushes for critique or recommendation right here. I want new bushes for the following Bonsai Buds episode! Visitor announcement TBD.
- Contact me in case you ordered seeds from me final 12 months and they didn’t germinate. I have been doing way more analysis on long-term seed storage and germination and may have larger charges of germination this 12 months. I am completely happy to ship new seeds at no cost.
- New seeds varieties with my 10 12 months bonsai rising information might be on sale in February.
