Blog of a bonsai amateur and tree lover

...om mina bonsaier och andra träd

måndag 1 februari 2016

Noelanders Trophy 2016



The winter is not a completely bonsai-free time of year. In January I was in Belgium together with other Swedish bonsai friends to visit the big bonsai event Noelander's Trophy.
When we planned the trip I had in my memory the last time we were there, in 2013. This year everything was so much bigger, so much more!!! I was not prepared for the large, almost unlimited variety of pots and tools and books and everything... I didn't bring a large enough bag to take very much home with me.

This time it was not allowed to take pictures of the exhibition trees, like I did the last time. So this is my only picture of the exhibition.

There were many lovely trees of course. One funny thing: The winner tree of the Noelander's Trophy looked so much the same as the winner from 2013 that first I thought it was the same tree. I had to look at my old pictures to really understand it was not!


These pictures below are from the demonstration:



Three demonstrators worked simultaneously on the same stage (but not the same tree!). So good we didn't have to choose one or another!
Taiga Urushibata from Japan worked two days on this enormous pine.



In my eyes it was a total mess of short dead branches...



...But with a nice crown on top, it started to look more like a bonsai. There has of course also been some thinning out among all those dead branches.



He did not decide a front for the tree, instead made it with two fronts, so the owner would be able to make his own decision.  But as far as I understood, this side of the finished tree is the front he himself would prefer. And the winding movement is interesting, I can admit that!

Here you can also see Peter Warren that was a great translator for us not Japanese-speaking in the audience!



A pine that was worked on by Koji Hiramatsu. 



This tree was shaped by Mauro Stemberger from Italy. It looks like two trunks, but one of them is actually dead, it's a jin.



The second day Mauro worked on a Buxus, which he managed to change from a big bush into this result: