Progetto Futuro weekend with Enrico Savini

A team of bonsai friends visited Enrico Savini in his garden for a two day workshop. There is nothing more to say.  

Hard work, team work and intensive learning with the right amount of fun is the name of the game and exactly this is how we spent the weekend.

Akina Bonsai Center

Last weekend me and Vesna made a small road trip to Akina Bonsai Center in Wallbrzych. We decided to combine the bonsai trip with a little bit of sightseeing and made a stop for two nights in Brno which turned out to be a nice and interesting city.

On saturday morning we met with the owner of Akina Bonsai Center, Piotr Czerniachowski who is a great guy and a fantastic host. His bonsai centre is a part of a very old botanical garden in the city of Wallbrzych. 

The way through the botanical garden to Akina Bonsai Center

The whole place and especially the bonsai centre is truly amazing and I recommend this place to each bonsai enthusiast who has the opportunity to go there. Especial the ones who are looking to buy good bonsai or pre-bonsai.

Among Piotrs personal collection of private trees there are many good trees for sale of different varieties, quality level and size. Let me first show some photos of Piotrs trees.

Next to Piotrs personal trees there is a good selection of trees for sale. Mainly Acer buergerianum, Azalea, Carpinus coreana, Zelkova, different varieties of Pines and of course Junipers. In the photos below you can see some nice examples.

Carpinus Orientalis first styling

This Carpinus Orientalis was collected in 2013 and since then it was in my garden getting used to his new environment. The main focus in the first two years was to develop the root system and make the tree strong and healthy for the first styling. This species is very easy to maintain and develop so it was not a hard task to get the tree to the stage when it was ready for its first styling.

Carpinus Orientalis - 2013

I styled the tree in late winter and because the tree showed sings of vigour I decided to also repot it in early spring.

Carpinus Orientalis - 2015 after first styling

The main reason why I like this tree is the strong nebari which gives a solid base for a good deciduous bonsai. Of course the tree has also some huge errors. The major mistake of the tree are the two big wounds which will need to be closed during the next stages of development and the fact that both trunks are almost the same diameter. 

There are many more issues which needs to be solved during the development. But pluses and minuses are the name of the game when you dealing with yamadori and the fact that you can play with the design and expose the good sides of the tree and improve or even eliminate the bad ones, is something what motivates me in a special way. This is the internal engine which pushes me to always search for new knowledge and techniques.

Carpinus Betulus

This Carpinus Betulus is my first project on a deciduous tree. I found the tree while walking trough a forest with my son. I collected it a couple of days after I found it in 2010 and since than the tree developed each year. I'm happy with the progress when I look at the tree at the current stage, but there are many mistakes which I made in the beginning and now they are much harder to correct as they would be in the beginning. 


Anyway the tree is special to me for many reasons and some of the mistakes will be fixed in the future and some of them will stay as a reminder of the learning process which never ends.

Carpinus Betulus as found in nature

...and 5 years later in the pot