Comprising a Life
The Bonsai, Travels and Haiku of Vaughn Banting
Pictures of my old bonsai collection
The following photographs and links cover not only my bonsai collection but many other aspects of the hobby as well.
http://webzoom.freewebs.com/banting/late night work shop.doc
http://www.vlbanting.com/repottingabonsai.htm
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Picture of it trained from the back side and when I was still into putting little bridges and other clutter on my bonsai
What it looked like when I returned from LSU and then from Vietnam and resumed its training, now again from its original front
Front bench, different trees and including three of my hand-made pots. Pictures of one example follow
When I was into pottery and bonsai at the same time, I slab-built a pot to be used to grow companion plants in for bonsai. My intent was to accent different interior close ups of branch structures on each side of the pot. Side one
A visit from Errol Ruben in whose home I stayed in during a lecture tour to Johannesburg South Africa
Before it suffered freeze damage that required the removal of the cascading branch this tree was being styled as a cascade style
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As it looks now at The National Bonsai and Penjing Museum housed in the National Arboretum in Washington DC
Water Elm (Planera aquatica) as it sat at the National Collection, (recently it had to be removed from the collection due to declining health) developmental pictures follow
Slanting style Water Elm, showing the two branch scars that led to the greatest taper reductions in the trunk
This Water Elm is styled in the formal upright style but I always referred to it as my Keebler cookie tree because of its elfin appearance and the door (branch scar) in its trunk
I took this Podocarpus to a John Naka workshop for its first styling. Notice the long hair and equaly long beard.
Its first styling left a lot of jin on the tree and the # 1 branch was allowed to grow out in order to thicken it.
Shown here in its first pot, this Sweetgum (Liquidambar styaciflua was developed from a sappling collected from a gravel pit where I was primarily collecting Spruce Pine (Pinus glabra).
I found this weird piece of material by answering an ad from a lady whose husband had just died was trying to sell what she thought to be his priceless bonsai collection. So the first thing I did was to cut off its rank growth and begin again.
By the time this picture was taken, it was clear the problem was with the relative increments between the braches; they were reversed.
At this point nothing could be done about the trunk's messed up ascending increment order but something could be done about getting the center of gravity closer to the base of the trunk.
This is my earliest picture of a field grown, semi-cascade style Wakaebisu azalea. Its interesting life is documented in the following pictures.
Actually two separate trees grown as one, here you can see how their combined trunks and roots made for a very good base. On January 9th 1983, however a freak, long lasting freeze weakened the tree so severally that one trunk had to be removed.
In 1975 I noticed a low boxwood hedge in a client's garden contained a rather unusual specimen, so I kindly replaced it with a "better plant" and took that one to use for bonsai. In its earliest picture you can still see the shape of the hedge.
This is the bonsai I made from it. I even made a pot for it that picks up the curving trunk in its walls.
Bonsai training area
Before this space became a play yard for Gayle's grandchildren it served as a training area for my bonsai collection.
In designing the space, one gate was made to provide entry for both courtyards, so whether one was loading up trees to be taken to an exhibit or returning from a collecting trip, one need only decide into which courtyard to turn. Trees could easily be taken into the garage from either section to be pruned, wired, repotted or redesigned. The garage also served as home for the, now famous bonsai study group whose members used to meet there on Thursday night's.
I had a mold made to form the tops of these training tables. They are made of cement with steel bars and fiberglass fibers running through them
Thursday "Knights" Guy, Gary, Dal, Bryan, me and Don as Flat-Top team members with Yuji Yoshimura at International World Bonsai Friendship Federation meeting in Orlando Florida in 1993
I collected this Bald Cypress sapling from an old rotted out cypess stump and gradually substituted a large original branch near the top of the tree for what was once the main trunk
Most recent picture of the immature form Bald Cypress bonsai that was produced from the collected sappling
Bald Cyprus in the Flat-Top style
The previous photographs dealt with training a Bald Cypress in the immature style.
Although deciduous, bald cypress is a true conifer and coniferous trees usually have a Christmas tree-like growth habit or what we call in bonsai, a formal upright style. But as bald cypress mature they begin to depart from the natural form of the most conifers. Their lower branches begin to shed and their crowns begin to spread out and lose any suggestion of a single apex or terminal. If one has grown up in the swamps of the deep South, the silhouettes of these trees have a special place in the psyche. So it was quite natural when some of us here in the bonsai community of the deep South began to try to capture thier mood through bonsai.
Over the years I have studied and photographed the branch structures that normally account for this strange form and have given it a name; Flat-Top style. The next photographs are of examples of some of the cyprus I have trained in this style. One you have already scene above in a series of its development.
In the middle of its training towards becoming a nomal formal upright style bonsai (see photo) I became intriqued with the flatter, more interesting crowns I was observing on really old Bald Cypress
Alex Long helping me prune flat-top before it was shipped to Washington DC to be a part of the permanent American Bonsai Collection at the National Arboretum's Bonsai and Penjing Museum
