Page 180 - Ebook cây cảnh Art of Bonsai

180 Creating your own bonsai

Clean and polish the trunk

5 Gently clean the bark if
necessary. Juniper bark can Smooth off fibers on
Remove flaky
be very flaky: on some bark with a the shari with a wire
species this adds character, wire brush brush or sander tip
on a rotary tool
but for others it appears dirty.
Here, removing it refines the
image and also adds contrast
to the reddish live vein and
the white deadwood. Take
care not to scrub so hard that
you expose the pink-purple
live vein. Stop if you see this.

6 Tidy the shari, but do not
do much detailed work. The
freshly made deadwood is
full of moisture and must dry
out before it is refined. Never
apply lime sulfur to brand
new shari or jin: it will kill
off the cells if it gets into the 5 6
live vein through the wounds.

Shape the tree

7 Assess your tree and fine-
tune your plan now that the
deadwood has been created.
Remove unwanted branches,
leaving stumps for a jin or to
continue the shari. Remember
not to remove more than
40 percent of the foliage in
one session (see p.117).

8 Wire the tree and set the
main structure. Apply fine
wire to secondary shoots, but
keep in mind the amount of
live vein removed from the
tree: too much work on the
branches could cause the tree
to stall and then stagnate.
Leave active growing tips at
the ends of the branches to
ensure the tree continues to 7 8
grow without skipping a beat.