Page 56 - Tạp chí bonsai cây cảnh BCI 2015Q3

Bougainvillea

RE-BORN

By Lew Buller, USA

his San Diego Red was alive after being transplanted
in a hot month and continued to live another 13 years. Phoenix Graft
Look carefully and you can see the rotten spot at the
bottom of the trunk and the dead trunk on the left
Tside. Its ultimate death was caused by fertilizer. I fertil- “The technique of attaching young live plants to weath-
ized it in the spring of 2014, not expecting a second rainy season. ered wood is arguably the most controversial of all bonsai
The fertilizer I used was inorganic, in the form of pellets, meant techniques. The Japanese call the practice tanuki, implying
to be released slowly during daily watering. Four days of heavy deception or cheat. As you can imagine, this is frowned upon
rain released an enormous amount of fertilizer and that triggered in Japanese bonsai. American bonsai artist Dan Robinson
reverse osmosis, literally drawing all of the water out of the plant coined the memorable phrase “Phoenix Graft”, which views
in spite of the rain. the process from an entirely different perspective. It is based
I looked up tanuki or Phoenix Graft on the Internet and found on a legend about a bird that flew into the sun, died and was
a number of articles, some well written with no photos and some reborn. The terms tanuki and phoenix graft clearly illustrate
with exceptional trees for sale but no text. I wanted a combination the difference in attitude that can and does exist, not only
of photos and commentary so we, Eitan Hagler and I, decided to between east and west, but also between individual artists.
create one using a bougainvillea. If you set out to make a tanuki, a deception, you will have no
There is a rule of thumb with bougainvillea. Quite literally, if the respect for your work. But if you set out to create a phoenix
trunk is less than the size of your thumb, there is a risk in trans- graft, the implication is that you are embarking on a more
planting it. The one used here is an Orange King with a somewhat noble quest. What could possibility be wrong with combining
larger trunk of a size that I have transplanted before. It will be a magnificent piece of driftwood, nature’s art, with a healthy
paired with the dead trunk of the San Diego Red. young plant, to create an object of great dignity and beauty?
If you do it, do it well and above all, don’t lie about it. It’s only
Here are the steps necessary and the photos a deception if it is your intention to deceive. In England this
showing each step. technique is called wraparound.”
A. Clean the dead tree and treat it with wood hardener, using — Buffalo Bonsai Society
two coats of hardener. The brush proved totally inadequate for
applying the wood hardener to the dry old porous semi-woody
stump. I wound up pouring the hardener directly on the stump
for both coats.

54 | BCI | July/August/September 2015