After getting my own larch sorted out, attention turned to Stephen’s one.

This is it sitting at Stephen’s house. When we worked it out, it hasn’t been wired in 8 years. The last styling was done by Marco Invernizzi back in 2004.

Photos from then can be viewed here.

It’s a big tree and we wanted to try and complete the wiring in one day. Phil collected the tree in his van and we transported it to my garage for a little space to work in. Stephen’s bonsai studio was only build for hobbits and I’m definitely not that size 🙂 This it is photographed before we started.

About now you are probably having a close look at the base of the tree. Yes, it’s a strange one, it’s hard to see but there is a strong root that runs directly under the trunk lying parallel to the ground. This will be exposed to help show stability. There is another option, but that’s for another day!

The three of us got to work and managed to get the wiring completed.

One area that was a problem was the apex. It had been created from a single branch curled around to make it look fuller at the time. 8 years on this has become a problem. It could have been hidden by placing branches over the offending bits but could not be removed totally and make a convincing apex. We discussed it and Phil was keen to make a change rather that it becoming progressively worse with time. He came up with an option and Stephen decided to go for it.

This is the offending apex.

Branch being reduced.

Keep an eye on him Stephen 🙂

A typical Stephen Coffee break.

Birds eye view.

Final tweaks

The final image. Stephen is considering a change to the top jin, what do you think? Remove, leave, shorten?

The new apex looks a great improvement.

A closer look at the base.

Side view

Back

Before and after side by side.

The 3 amigos for scale, and just for fun.

We did this work without looking back to Marco’s styling in 2004. It was interesting to compare now having looked for the original photo.