Noelanders Trophy 2012 - first impressions

Today was a great day and I would like to share the first impressions from this year’s Noealanders Trophy. For the beginning I’d like to show some trees that made the strongest impression on me and are great by my personal taste. 

There will be much more to follow in the next posts.

Pinus Sylvestris - David Benavente

Juniperus Chinesis - Luis Vallejo

Taxus - Mauro Stemberger

Abies Picea - Nicola Crivelli

Pinus Densiflora - Mario Komsta

Carpinus Turczaninovii - German Gomez

Juniperus chinesis Itoigawa - Mauro Stemberger

Juniperus Chinesis - Nicola Crivelli

Juniperus Sabina - Vaclav Novak

Cretaegus monogyna - Hans Van Meer

Juniperus chinesis Itoigawa - Andrea Melloni

Olea Europaea Sylvestris - Gabriel Romero Aguade

End of the season - Yamadori and workshop in Croatia

This season has been very interesting, lots of things happened, new knowledge and experience have been acquired, my collection of trees is bigger and quite a few trees had made a good step forward with the development. Overall it was a good season.

So as the year unfolds it is also coming to the end. The last days have been quite intense, and more than interesting. For the beginning of the end of the season my collection was completed with a new very interesting spruce (Abies Picea).

11-2011 - Spruce (Abies Picea) - Yamadori

On Friday I joined Janez and Matej on a yamadori trip. It was great, good discussions, beautiful nature, lots of laughter and much too fast walking (I seriously thought about quitting smoking :)). Excellent company has been the main reason that time has gone by a little too fast, but for my consolation a nice larch (Larix Decidua) yamadori joined my collection.

11-2011 - Larch (Larix Decidua) - Yamadori

Saturday and Sunday also passed in a blink. The Croatian bonsai club as a branch of Tora organized a workshop and I am very glad that I had the opportunity to help Tomaz Kovšca in this two-day workshop.

First part of the workshop was theoretical

After the theoretical part of the workshop we started with practical work on the trees. On the first day I helped wiring Željkos spruce, which was later styled by Tomaž and got his first new appearance. On the second day I helped Nikolaj to work on his juniper. Both days ware incredibly fun.

Tomaž Kovšca working on a Pinus Mugo

Željkos Spruce before the workshop

Željkos Spruce after the workshop

Dean working on his nice Pinus Mugo

I will remember this workshop by two things. First, a lot of wiring and secondly by a great group of colleagues from Croatia, a group that has a strong energy, a group full of enthusiasm and I really hope that I have a chance of meeting them again.

Progetto Futuro with Enrico Savini

I spent this weekend in Progetto Futuro school, where I worked and learned as a second-year student for two days under the guidance of Enrico Savini and his assistant Tommaso Triossi. The main theme of this session was Pines and after an interesting theoretical part of the class, we started with the practical part of the school session and worked on our trees.

Theoretical part

The knowledge level of this session was a bit higher than usual so I gathered a lot of new information and practical advice but most of all I realized that when you think you know a little something, you quickly realize that this is so little, almost nothing, that it is such a small fraction of the whole picture….there is truly a lot to learn.

I worked on my Pinus mugo, which has been styled for the first time. At this stage, the tree was designed only to a degree where the primary form is shaped, the first idea of the style with the possibility of some minor changes is done and the development took the health of the tree in consideration as the most important thing.

Pinus Mugo before the styling

Enrico Savini and his "magic hands"

Some branches, which will no longer remain on the tree in the final design stayed as an aid to absorb the energy for the most important branches. The tree is shaped to a level which is safe and good for the health of the tree. In the next development stages the dead wood will be further developed, the structure of the secondary branches, the design will get a more detailed definition of the structure and so on…similar as gathering the knowledge the development will need a lot of additional time.

Pinus Mugo after the first styling

For the end of the post I like to share some pictures of trees from other participants, who are already in more mature stages of development and have transformed remarkable in this school session.

Pinus Mugo before (Nik Rozman)

Pinus Mugo after (Nik Rozman)

Pinus Sylvestris after (Blaž Jemec)

Pinus by Rajko Podgornik Reš before

Pine after (Rajko Podgornik Reš)

It was great....

5. Alpe-Adria exhibition in St. Veit

This weekend many members of the Slovenian bonsai club participated at the Alpe Adria exhibition which was held in the nice and very charming town called St. Veit in Austria. There were 5 trees from Slovenia next to around 100 trees that came from different clubs from Austria, Italy and Germany. The exhibition was nicely organized, the atmosphere was very nice and next to the exhibition workshops were also held by representatives of individual clubs. Most of the workshops ware led by the Italian instructor Adriano Bonini, who also reviewed and selected the award winning trees.

For me it was an exhibition premiere, since it was the first time for me to exhibit one of my trees and somehow I cannot imagine a more pleasant start. I spent two beautiful days in excellent company of my bonsai friends and my family Vesna Tilen and Natan. Our bonsai club has achieved a nice success and we received a total of four awards.

Niks Thuja received the first prize selected by the audience, as well Niks Korean hornbeam, received the award in the category of medium-sized tree, Tomažs juniper received the award in the category of large trees and my cascade juniper "Waterfall" received the price for the best tree at the exhibition.

For the final touch before the end of the exibition my son Tilen responded to the invitation of the organizers, gathered the courage and walked to the podium to help with the draw of the prices for visitors who participated in the audience price award. Simply great, what more do I want?

Thuja - Nik Rozman

Juniper - Tomaž Kovšca

Chemachiparis - Miha Medvešček

Korean Hornbeam - Nik Rozman

My Juniper cascade "Waterfall" 

My son Tilen after the draw of awards for the visitors.
Tilen you ware very brave and made your Dadi proud :)

However there is more. The story of my "Waterfall" means much more to me, it is a story of trust between teacher and student, it is a story that started a bit more than 2 years ago in St. Veitu where Tomaž Kovšca selfless told me that he knows about a good stating material which is on sale, it is a story where Tomaž as the teacher an me as a student made the first styling of this on a workshop, two years later, just before the exhibition Tomaž and me again prepared the final touches on the tree and prepared it for the first exhibition, it is a story about the transfer of knowledge and experience, it is a synergy of tree, teachers and students ... thank you Tomaž for all this.


And above all, it is necessary to continue the good work at the club level. Already in the previous post I have touched on this theme, the good energy, the rising quality of knowledge, a good potential among the members and the trees that we have. I really hope that we will continue on this trip as a team that we are.

That’s it, enough of writing…lets enjoy some of the trees from the exhibition, its all about the trees:

P.S.: Nik thanks one more time for the table :)