Pavement Ends Fellowship

The cars began arriving at 9AM sharp! By noon we had ten thousand trying to get in the doors...well we actually had twelve sharp bonsai enthusiasts! What a great day. It was a bit cool, but everyone had a great time.


Frank Kroeker brought some Japanese black pines he's been growing, and just about everyone brought something to work on.
Each of the trees Frank brought had something to like. They were all about twelve inches tall, and had some nice trunk movement.
We worked throughout the morning, had lunch, and continued until about 3 PM. It was fun and I know I enjoyed every minute. Below is the ending point on Ciro's tree from two weeks ago.


And this is how far he has gotten by the end of this week. A few short hours will finish this initial styling, and then he can begin to work on ramification. His tree is vibrantly healthy, a great job! He still has some branches to pull down, which will fill the hole on the right side.


Dan's beautiful shimpaku juniper came from Brent at Evergreen Gardenworks. Brent does a fantastic job of growing trunks for bonsai. He is quite knowledgeable and always willing to share what he knows. Dan contacted him and told him he was coming to the workshop, so Brent sent something that was perhaps just a little directed at giving me a challenge...Brent, you win!

We spent some time on the tree. I showed Dan how to brush the flaked bark with a brass brush, which will expose the live veins if there is dead wood on the tree. We also worked on cleaning it out from the suckers and weak material to get a better look at the tree. What a magnificent trunk! The only difficult part here is that the large branches are very hard and go out to the edge of the foliage. This one will take some studying.



Frank has a brother, who'da figgered? Todd lives very close, in Topeka, and he brought a few things with him to work on.

Bill also hails from Topeka, and is working on a nice little Scots pine we have been looking at. Today it went from 18 inches tall to about 8. In this photo from left to right: Ciro, Randy, Phil, and Bill.