Bonsai techniques: Bonsai styles for specific Bonsai tree species by Luis Vallejo

The question I'm often asked is whether I think each species of tree should have its own distinct style And I'd recommend people feel encouraged to mix style and species and experiment I'll go through several examples of different tree species each accompanied by a corresponding commentary in a distinct style There is no specific style for each species of tree Many of them in the case of pines do indeed come close to what actually happens in reality There are others as in the case of some examples I’m about to show that are more abstract which is why the style comes across that way We're going to look at several different examples Let's examine three olive trees each displaying a style defined by the shape and structure of its trunk as is the case with all of them But in this case in turn the tree replicates the scale of a natural olive tree which has this form This is another example of an olive tree that maintains its natural form but not the style of nature It's another cebuche where the trunk crosses the main trunk creating a more abstract style We call it in this case the churro Another example of a tree whose parts typically propagate olive trees very old indeed This trunk base is what it is but then logically it's idealized into the clouds that shape the silhouette of the canopy An example where style absolutely matters just as it does in nature is this stone pine the Spanish pine And sometimes it also expresses itself in different ways with various styles This is the style of literati the manner in which superior art calligraphy is reproduced or imitated With these lines that give the trunk such slenderness and that sense of motion This is a pine tree that also replicates a style based on the tree's shape with these two trunks and also represents a style that is commonly found in rugged mountainous areas of the Mediterranean region where the tree falls echoing that sensation of falling within the tree and the same tree gives rise to the style because the shape seeking light intensifies this motion of falling into emptiness And this small tree which defines the style seeks the light by growing alongside the main tree This is also a Spanish tree the museum's logo which I associate with the Sydney Opera House along the hollows of the bowls and the pot that mic the dome or roof of the Sydney Opera House I call it the Hudson Tree the architect of this opera This white pine also illustrates the model we use for bonsai And they are trees that defy conventional form with straight trunks and so on They use the oldest tree in nature both by age and location as an example These movements this expressiveness are how it captures the distinctive style of this tree This is a tree a beech forest which I call the Irati Jungle a forest located in northern Spain Reproduce it exactly with a natural sense of scale as if in a forest It is the one most committed to creating the forest the one most driven by the idea of representing a forest of evoking a forest Another style that arises in the case of forests where the forest style already establishes a particular way of doing it a forest of fir trees in nature in Hokkaido I imagine It is the Hokkaido fir growing atop a slab of stone from Spain and the tree is built here according to the principles of a forest leaving dead trunks to enhance its natural appearance and reproducing the classic shape of a fir tree This is another very classic upright formal style with a bold branching structure extending to both the right and left and mics the shape of the sugi Japanese cedar and cryptomeria trees found in the mountains surrounding Kyoto In a way as always more evocative more sophisticated What does this have to do with it It's directly related to the pillar supporting the tea house's overhanging structure in the gardens It is vertical and formal in fact it is cultivated this way following the tree's natural tendency to grow straight with lateral branching from a single upright trunk This is a Spanish mountain juniper It reproduces in a way that is the most sculptural form within bonsai yet also occurs naturally in the wild This closely resembles my inspiration here—a Chinese juniper by Masaiko Kimura which we'll see shortly And this one which I made as a tribute to Kimura reminds me a lot of the junipers found on the island of El Hierro in the Canary Islands It appears as a composition of dry woods filigrees sculptural elements and so on—exactly as it presents itself in nature This juniper by Masaiko Kimura is a fine example of a tree reproduced at natural scale in its original form With this ability to transform it into a sculpture into something where wood and dry firewood mixed with green elements create this effect This is a classic among bonsai yet it also bears strong resemblance to natural junipers As we know in Spain and wherever there are holm oaks A palmatum maple a Shoyo variety of Japanese maple with red foliage This is a tree that embodies what an ideal large maple would look like in a spacious garden It has the distinctive quality of having developed its own style within the bonsai tradition particularly among maple trees It does imitate nature but it's the tree itself—their tendency to grow and their structural patterns—that always leads us toward forms of this kind