https://www.birdguides.com/articles/photo-of-the-week/photo-of-the-week-29-july-4-august-2020/
Author: africanbirding
Review of the Week: 29 July-4 August 2020 – BirdGuides
Hermes the caracal takes leisurely stroll past hikers
St James Beach colourful bathing huts burn
State of the World’s Birds | BirdLife
Next meeting
Upcoming event. Workshop with Rafael Torres
Bonsai from home
With the summer coming in hot (literally), we take a look at some our members bonsai tree images from the last few months showing tremendous seasonal growth. We look forward to when we can go back to hosting our monthly workshops and meetings, but in the mean time, stay safe out there!
Yamadori Scots Pine (First Styling)
This tree has been sitting on the benches at the back of my garden for about 12 years. I have done very little to it in that time because I have always considered it a difficult tree. Its best feature is undoubtedly the old flaky bark but some of its other characteristics are less than desirable. I thought initially that I might attempt to turn it into an informal upright but the lack of movement and taper in the lower trunk meant that I would never be entirely happy with that. Any attempt to bend the lower trunk would be at the expense of the beautiful bark
Lovely old bark
In the past few years I have developed an interest and appreciation for the literati style of bonsai and I have been thinking that the tall thin trunk on this specimen might be best suited to training in that style…
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Literati Pine #2 First Styling
I dug this Scots Pine out of a friends garden about 12 years ago. It started life as a self sown seedling and at the time of collection I estimated that it was about 4 years old. For most of its life in a pot, it has had very little attention other than the wiring of a lateral branch to create a new leader. It was planted into the pot you see now in 2011.
The first picture shows the tree at the start of the current work
I put a lot of thought into how I could incorporate the lower right branch into the design but eventually decided that the lower trunk did not have the girth to support a very full branch structure, so it was removed. The next picture shows the tree after the preliminary branch selection.
And the final picture shows the tree at the moment after…
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