Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend a workshop over at the Ginkgo Bonsai Center owned by Danny Use. The workshop was given by the one and only Ryan Neil of Bonsai Mirai.

Ryan started out by discussing every tree that was brought to the workshop.

Just for the record, the one in the brown sweater is Ryan, I’m wearing a green one 🙂

All the material that was brought was excellent Yamadori material from Danny Use’s nursery. Only 2 species were worked on. Sabina Junipers and Pinus Sylvestris (Scotts Pines).

No wallmart trees in this workshop….

Here’s my tree before, with Ryan and after.

Before…

Ryan pointing out the one and only possible direction of the tree…

… and after.

No real heavy bending was done on my Sabina Juniper. About 50% of the branches were wired and put in a better position. Next step is to repot it and let the left portion of the foliage grow out so it fills out the empty space behind the deadwood.

But the best result in my opinion was for Nico. He transformed his Sabina into a real work of art.

Ryan showing some tricks to Nico.

Almost finished. These pictures don’t do the tree justice.

Another Sabina Juniper owned by dutchman Niek gets worked on.

Ryan discusses the tree.

Quite the transformation.

This yamadori Scotts Pine would get a whole lot smaller by the end of the day.

The before…

… and the after

The owner of this next Sabina Juniper bonsai had a cascade in mind. He even bought a pot for it already. Well, things turned out a little different…

Cascade? Ryan didn’t think so 🙂

The next tree is the double trunk Sylvestris you saw in the 2nd picture. Pieter almost finished it by the end of the workshop. Too bad he was sick otherwise he would have pulled it off completely. Good work though.

Lousy picture of a good tree.

Because The Trophy was happening a lot of big bonsai names passed through Danny’s Nursery. One of them was this Czech rock dude you might know. Yeah, Jan Culek was creating another masterpiece in the next room.

Danny checking out Jan’s work.

An awesome experience, that’s what it was. No other words for it.