Making Pinch Pots

(Alternative title: "We play with clay!")

     For our March 2017 meeting, the Fort Wayne Bonsai Club got together to make pinch pots. One of our members, Pat Guido, kindly opened her home so we would have plenty of space for our creative efforts. Thanks, Pat!

As many of you may be right now, I was wondering just what a "pinch pot" is. A pair of videos on YouTube were very helpful. A pinch pot is simply a pot you make with your fingers, rather than on a potter's wheel or by pouring slip into a mold. You can - and many of us did - literally pinch the clay into the desired shape. Frankly, it's almost as much fun as making mud pies was in childhood! 😄 

Another of our members, Mark Sturtzenberger, has considerable amateur experience with ceramics. He led the session, sharing his knowledge with anyone who asked for his assistance, and also took care of the firing afterward. Thanks, Mark!

Forming one of my creations.

Glazing, if desired, had to be done after the first firing, and any pots that were glazed had to be fired a second time. The glazed pots were delivered at the club's annual picnic-and-auction this past Saturday.

Here are my three efforts, with a standard DVD for a size reference. I decided to glaze just one of mine.

The lighting is a bit off in this picture, but I don't know why. My apologies.

We had two kinds of stoneware clay available. I used the finer-textured one for my tray, which I expect to use for a small bonsai or, more likely, a kusamono.

The texture on the outside of the rim is there just to avoid monotony, but I think almost suggests stone.

The other two pots were made from the other clay. I made the walls of this next one so thin I was a little concerned that they might collapse under their own weight. They held up, tho. I can see a fairly wild-looking kusamono in this pot, or a very informal small bonsai. 

You can see the coarser texture of the clay. I'm not sure what the black dots are, but I think they add interest.

I wanted to try for a muted glaze on my last pot, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out! This will hold an accent plant or - just possibly - a mame-sized black pine. I think the latter could work.

The glaze turned out even better than I had hoped: muted overall, with darker variegations. ☺

Some of Ian Young's pictures on his "Bonsai Eejit" blog gave me the idea for the next two pictures. I leave you with these two views.

Until next time, keep having fun!

:-)  :-)  :-)

"A Heat-Tolerant Leafy Green Vegetable Disguised as a Flower"

     That is how a writer at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange described "Jewels of Opar," Talinum paniculatum, also known as "fame flower" and "pink baby's-breath". The blossoms certainly bring jewels to mind: they are a deep carmine-pink, less than 3/8 inch across (.8 cm or less), and carried on panicles so delicate that the slightest breeze makes them dance in the air! 😊

This picture doesn't do the blossom color full justice, but it's about the best my small camera can do.
The strand of spider silk in the picture was left when I removed a small web.

Talinum paniculatum is a member of the purslane family, Portulacaceae; it is native from the Gulf states of the USA well into South America. Sources I checked differed widely in regard to its cold-hardiness, giving minimum survivable temperatures from 35° to 20° F. (I'm going to keep mine with my serissas in winter.) The plant is apparently tough, tolerating heat and fairly dry soil. The leaves are said to be a good substitute for spinach, especially since they don't wilt in hot weather.

Darlene Kittle, current president of the Fort Wayne Bonsai Club, gave me a seedling after the club's Fall Show last September. (She had sold several and didn't want to take the last one home.) I have it in a small pot for now, but it will need a larger one sooner or later; the species grows to 18-24 inches (45-60 cm). 

Here's a picture taken a few days after I got it and after I potted it up.

Talinum paniculatum, September 27, 2016.

When Darlene gave me this plant, I thought the yellow-bronze globes were the flowers. Now I'm sure they are seed pods. (You can see one peeking out from behind and below the blossoms in my first picture.) That conclusion is supported by the seedlings that can be seen coming up in the substrate in the next picture, taken nine months later. (Five days ago.)

"Jewels of Opar" with new growth, a new panicle developing, and babies around the base!

I'm sure I'll try a leaf or two sooner or later, maybe in a salad. But for me this plant will always be a "leafy green vegetable disguised as an accent!"

:-)  :-)  :-)

Pedestals and Hot Dogs

     Almost two years ago, the Fort Wayne Bonsai Club took a tour of Michael Himes's bonsai garden. Mr. Himes is CEO of one of the USA's largest gasoline and diesel fuel wholesalers, and his collection is housed on a specially-built deck on the second floor of his company's office building. I wrote about that visit in this post. (The link will open in a new window; when you close that window, you'll be returned to this page.) At that time Mr. Himes's trees rested on temporary bases made of stacked concrete blocks surrounded by narrow bamboo matting. 

One of our members, Ryan Wilmer, has a small concrete business. Some months ago, he and his crew replaced the trees' temporary bases with permanent concrete pedestals. Last weekend we paid a return visit to Mr. Himes's collection to see the results of Ryan's efforts, as well as to visit the bonsai again.

For any who don't know, a bonsai is customarily displayed on a stand. These pedestals function as all-weather outdoor stands. Each one is designed to harmonize with the bonsai it supports, just as a stand is chosen to complement the tree it holds.

In my opinion, Ryan Wilmer and his crew did a very good job. Congratulations, gentlemen!

A yamadori ponderosa pine on its new pedestal.

"Littlefoot," a Ficus microcarpa var retusa and Michael Himes' first bonsai.
The low, wide stand matches the low, wide design of the tree.

No pedestal was made for "Bigfoot," another F. microcarpa var retusa and perhaps the pride of Mr. Himes's collection. That's because, at roughly 5 feet high from the soil surface and weighing hundreds of pounds, "Bigfoot" sits permanently on a wheeled metal cart that is also a humidity tray. No other arrangement would allow it to be taken out to the deck in spring and back inside in the fall, given the layout of the building.

"Bigfoot," easily the most eye-catching tree in Mr. Himes's collection.

Bigfoot was putting out a flush of new leaves when we were there, and I got a close-up.

The bronze-yellow of the new leaves is set off nicely by the green of the mature foliage.

After this stop, we were invited to the home of Cody Harris, our club vice-president. Cody is fairly new to bonsai; very enthusiastic but also quite serious about the art and eager to learn. Cody's father George already uses Japanese esthetic principles when pruning in-ground trees, and it won't surprise me if he too jumps into bonsai in the near future. The Harris family's hospitality left nothing to be desired: opening their spacious garage for a place out of the sun where we could gather, and grilling hot dogs for the mob that had descended on them!

Cody's hand-built bench. Some of his selections show a good eye and some careful thought.

This bougainvillea particularly caught my eye. When it's finished, I expect we will see a great deal of character in something not much taller than my handspan! I'm looking forward to it.

Forgive the cluttered background, please. I think you can still see the bougie clearly enough.

At the April meeting of the Fort Wayne Bonsai Club, we played in the dirt - or, to put it in more dignified terms, we made clay pots and trays, many free-form, under the guidance of an experienced member, Mark Sturtzenberger. Once I have mine back (I made three) I'll write another post about the whole process, and the fun it was!

Until then!

:-)  :-)  :-)

Fort Wayne Bonsai Club Spring 2017 Workshop

     Spring is a good time for bonsai workshops. To borrow an expression from my friend Dave Burke, a workshop "gets the bonsai juices flowing" after the winter. What better way?

This year the guest teacher for our Spring B.Y.O.T. workshop was Scott Yelich, current president of the Indianapolis Bonsai Club and owner of Eagle Creek Bonsai in that city. (B.Y.O.T. stands for "Bring Your Own Tree," for any who don't know.) Scott specializes in tropical species, but he's experienced and knowledgeable when it comes to temperate-zone trees as well. Which is a good thing, because as best I recall, none of the trees brought in for his attention on April 22nd were tropicals!

Jerry and Darlene Kittle hosted us once again, and a carry-in lunch made sure no one was distracted by a discontented stomach. Before the workshop itself started, there was a soil-mixing session; the club maintains a supply of bonsai soil which is available to members at low cost.

Jerry Kittle loads another bag into the cement mixer. 

Susan and her daughter Sophie bag the finished mix.

Young people are the future of any bonsai club, and several of our teenage members were on hand. One young man, Elias, brought in his urban-yamadori boxwood. (For internet security reasons, I'm not going to include the last names of any minors.)

Scott offers some thoughts about the design of Elias' tree -

- and Elias ponders what Scott has to say.

Al McMillan brought a nursery-purchased Boulevard cypress (Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Boulevard') that had obviously had its leader chopped 8-10 inches above the soil when it was younger. Several shoots had broken just below the chop, resulting in an almost artificial-looking tree (to my eye) with four rather spindly-looking trunks.

I think Scott's solution is best described as elegant. He removed two of the trunks, leaving jin and shari behind, and transformed Al's tree into a very natural-looking twin-trunk bunjin. I look forward to seeing it on display once Al gets it moved into a bonsai pot!

Right to left: Al, Scott, Shay (sp?) and Deanna (partially hidden).

Scott does some detail work near the apex of the "daughter" trunk.

I found myself in a dilemma as the workshop approached. The best candidate for a B.Y.O.T. workshop, in my judgment, is a tree which is ready for some serious styling work but which has me stumped (word-play intended) as to what to do with it. And I had no tree available that fit that description! Every tree I had either was not yet ready for styling or was one for which I already had a definite design in mind.

Scott had offered to bring along some specimens for people to buy. One of them was this collected common privet (Ligustrum vulgare.) When I saw it, I thought it would provide some interesting challenges, so I bought it and went to work. (I apologize for the fact that some branches don't show up well against the background.)

Multi-trunk common privet I bought from Scott, before work was begun.

This tree was collected, Scott told me, from a private nature preserve near Bloomington, Indiana. Privet is an introduced species here in the US, so the preserve owners gave Scott and his companions permission to remove as many as they liked!

Scott moved this clump specimen into a 12-inch plastic pot, mulched it heavily, and kept it long enough to be sure it was healthy before offering it for sale. Ligustrum roots readily, and when I started probing to find the natural nebari, I discovered almost 2 inches of fibrous roots, all through the mulch, above what were presumably once the surface roots!

I used a hose to clean the root system enough to find the nebari. At this point I still hadn't found it.

Picking a front was the next step, and Scott gave me a good suggestion on that point, which I accepted. The original main trunk is dead down to the orange line in the next picture. I plan to hollow that portion out, if the wood isn't too weakened to stand up to the Dremel. The blue arrow indicates the new primary trunk, and there will be four auxiliary trunks, for a total of five living trunks.

Pruned, wired and repotted in my own mix after I got home. This is the provisional front.

Some of my readers may have seen a multi-trunk privet bonsai that was owned for many years by the late Jack Fried (pronounced Freed) of Highland Park, Illinois. Jack would enter the tree in the Mid-America Bonsai Exhibit every 2-3 years, and it just kept getting better and better! In 2010, that bonsai was accepted into the National Bonsai and Penjing Collection in Washington, D.C., where it may be seen today.

To my frustration, I could find none of my own pictures of Jack Fried's privet. The picture below was posted on Pinterest by someone with the username "Constant Gardener." I could find no copyright information, but hereby acknowledge the source of this image.

Jack Fried's Ligustrum vulgare bonsai, now in the National Collection.

I don't know if my privet bonsai will ever be as magnificent as Jack's. But Jack's tree sure gives me something to strive for!

:-)  :-)  :-)