Page 40 - Tạp chí bonsai cây cảnh BCI 2017Q1

Seven

Logwood

Years

CREATING A LOGWOOD BONSAI

FROM RAW MATERIAL

By Budi Sulistyo, Indonesia

n June 2009 I had a chance to visit Puerto Rico. One thing
that I like most about Puerto Rico is that it is a tropical is-
land on the other side of the globe from my home land, the
Indonesian archipelago, but I really feel home on this tiny
Oisland with the temperature, weather, greenery, coastal area,
rain forest that are quite similar to what I experience every day at home.
One difference is that Puerto Rico is very well managed with good infra-
structure and organized surroundings. I can imagine that one day when
Indonesia makes progress is these areas, it will be like Puerto Rico, but on
a very large scale. Anyhow, I found that there were some trees that I could
not find in Indonesia. One of them is logwood.
Logwood or Haematoxylum campechianum grow mostly in the south of
Puerto Rico near the dry forest. Although it is a small island, Puerto Rico
has tremendous differences of climates from a rain forest in the North-
east to the dry forest in the Southwest. During my trip to the dry forest
we stopped in a logwood forest. I saw that almost all trees were growing
straight. It made me wonder of how to have a bending logwood bonsai
that is different from most logwood bonsai in the island.
In the following day I asked my friend José Luis, a bonsai artist from
Puerto Rico, to go to some plant nurseries where bonsai material is sold.

38 | BCI | January/February/March 2017