The Bonsai Blog of Hans van Meer

Hi every body,
A few weeks ago, when I was in the UK to do a other “BURRS” weekend, I stayed as a guest in the warm home of my dear friends Charlot and Terry Foster. Every year they spoil me half to death when I visit them and this year I even was surprised with a real Halloween party (my first), with great food and light refreshments! :)  All to soon this weekend with my talented friend ended and I probably wont see him until next year, for the next “BURRS” event. But he took care of that problem as well for me! The last morning, during a wonderful breakfast, he surprised me completely again! He gave me this lovely little Yamadori “Yew”, he collected him self 6 years ago. He sad, here is something to remind you, of this fun time we spent together. Once again this modest man had struck a nerve in me and I just had not enough words to take him for his wonderful gift! You got to love him!
I am because of my back problems, still not being able to do much work at once, so I decided to work on this little gem. Trying to honor Terry’s design, but with a little twist of the Hans.

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Above picture: Before the work began.

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My back is a little bit better today, but I am still not able to work on any tree for a wile. So I decided to take some close up pictures of the beautiful deadwood on my Pinus uncinata.

I can look at it over and over again and get totally lost in the beautiful random patterns and the many shades of gray of this wooden history book of this very old tree! This is just the thing I like to see in a yamadori, the wonderful beauty of nature! This wonderful mane focal point of this tree, should only be en’hans’ed by the artist(), to bring out the best of both into one Bonsai.

Hans this I dedicate to your tree.

Mom.

                                   ” The Whisper of the Wee Tree”

                         tells the world the story of me.*

Thanks Mom!

Hope you like them?

Hans van Meer.

*copyright is freely given to Hans Van Meer November 15th 2008 by Irene I Britton

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I am a bid sad today, I have been looking forward to yesterday for quit a while! I really wanted to start working on my Pine again! But 2 days ago at the store, while bending over to pick up a PlayStation 1 game of the floor, my *##*GR## lower back popped out again! So instead of having fun, while working on my tree, on my day of, It took me 10 minutes to go to the toilet and 20 to get back to bed! GGGRRRRR!

I hope that it gets a bit better soon, so that I can start working on my trees again. It might take a while, but they will be styled!

So I will post as soon as I am fit enough to do Bonsai again…sad isn’t it?

Regards,

Hans van Meer.

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Hi everybody,

next Thursday when my student Ed is in my garden to work on one of his trees, he can help me to lift this heavy Mugo Uncinata on a turn table, so I can start working on it. I am really looking forward to restyle this ancient Pine, there is plenty of new foliage to work with, so I am pretty sure that I will be able to bring the image of the tree closer to the end result I have in my mind! The red line shows were the deadwood stump will be cut in the future.

I will post the pictures as soon as I have start working on it!

Hans van Meer.

                                            “PINUS UNCINATA”   Sept. 2007.

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Here is the “TURKEY CATS” group picture that Kevin Baily made at “BURRS”. 

You can find more pictures here: http://www.dragonbonsai.co.uk/burrs.htm

  And a picture of some typical “BURRS” humor!

Hans van Meer.

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Hi everybody,

I had a lot of fun working on “BIG RON ” again today, although the weather is so horrible at this moment, that I had to use my flashlight to get a decent picture (sorry for the poor quality)! I did some more needle removing and than placed all the foliage more or less in the desired position. Than I touched up some of the deadwood with lime sulfur (wet spot in the middle of the trunk), and placed some french moses were necessary. Than I started to reduce the deadwood stump in the middle of the two lower branches, but quickly had to stop, because it got to dark to work! But I will finish it as soon as I have some free time later this week. I hope you like this far?!

regards,

Hans van Meer.

                                                                    “BIG RON”

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HI everybody today I finished the second styling of “WOOLFIE”, my old Austrian Black Pine (Pinus nigra).  This little tree, has come such a long way, in just a short time! So for now, I am pretty pleased with this second styling and I will leave the tree in peace. The deadwood will be worked on later this season, when I am more used to the new look of this tree.

Picture above: The pine before any work was don (2005).

Picture above: I styled the tree for the first time during my demonstration at JOY OF BONSAI ‘05

in Bath U.K.

Picture above: The tree after my demonstration.

                                                                      ”WOOLFIE”

Hope you like it so far?

You can read the story of its styling here: http://forum.bonsaitalk.com/f83/austrian-black-pine-joy-bonsai-05-coming-along-19029.html

Hans van Meer.

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Hi everybody,

today I started to work on my Mugo Pine named “BIG RON”. It needs to be prepared for next years “NOELANDERS TROPHY” in Belgium. I started to clean out the brown and damaged needles and pinch out the, to long ones, as well. I have been waiting for month’s to finally start working on this old yamadori, that is one of my favorite trees in my collection. I will post more of the work tomorrow, I hope that the sun will shine, like it did today!

Hans.

MORE TO COME!

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     THE 2008 “BURRS” RESIDENTIAL BONSAI WORSHOP WEEKEND!!!

Hi everybody,

this weekend I had the immense pleasure to be a part again of the, 2008 “BURRS” residential bonsai workshop weekend, that Tony Tickle organize every year. This was already my 3 time there and I am already committed to do the next one in 2009. And it is almost fully booked, so if you are interested to join use next year, you can find more Information here: http://www.bonsaischool.co.uk/

I must admit that lately I have lost my believe in a part of the bonsai community. I was so very disheartened by the behavior and attitude of some, that I decided to stay out of any debate in the future, that could not be won, even if I was right! So I have stopped posting on some forums to avoid temptation and aggravation. My precious time is better spent on my own Bonsai and Bonsai friends. It just wasn’t worth any more of my good intended time!

But after this weekend in “BURRS”, being a intimate part of this large group of ego less and pretence less Bonsai lovers, that I call my friends, I know again, were I can find the true heart and soil of Bonsai.

They all come every year to this magical place in the U.K, from different countries in Europe, to teach, lurn, eat and drink and have immense fun, wile creating beautiful stuff!!!

I thank all these dear Bonsai friends for their trust in us. This weekend was like a warm bath for me and you all revived my spirit and believes! Thanks Tony for organizing this event so well every year! And thanks to: Ivo, Enrico and my dear friend Terry for their love of Bonsai!

I will see you all next year in magical “BURRS”!!!

                                                “Turkey Cats” Rules !!!

Have fun,

Hans van Meer.

Picture above: I arrived at the “John Lennon” airport in Liverpool early Friday morning, were my dear friend Tony Tickle was waiting for me. We then drove up North, had a typical English breakfast in a fully for Halloween converted diner, wile we waited for my other friends Lee and Simon to arrive. From there we drove up to a wonderful place to collect some Yamadori from a rather steep and hard to climb mountain. This picture tells how lucky I felled to be able to do that, because only a week ago my back problems became so bad that I could hardly sit up, let along climb up a mountain side. It took some heavy medication, but I made it up there! The Bonsai gods were with me again on this one! The view was breathtakingly beautiful and worth the struggle!

Left picture: I took this other lovely view after I had to climb down most of the way to find my camera that had fallen out of my broken backpack. I was lucky again to find it back amongst all the Black and Hawthorns, but having to struggle all the way up again was no walk in the park for me!

Right picture: Tony and Simon found their first Hawthorn.

Left picture: Early next Saturday morning at Terry’s place, wile he allowed me to get a bid more sleep, he prepared everything to pot my collected trees in plastic containers. Then he woke me up, and with a warm cup of real thee we started to do this exciting work! This promising Hawthorn was collected by Simon and Tony for me.

Right picture: After a fitting container was found, the tree was firmly secured from 4 sides to prevent any movement. Than it was filed up with a mixture of Akadama and Biosorb.

Left picture: This hawthorn is planted in a cascading style, this meant some roots up the trunk were exposed to the air. That’s why Terry placed some Sphagnum moss around it, so they would stay alive to help the recovery of the tree next growing season. Later on, when the tree shows enough signs of recovering, they could be removed!

Right picture: Here are my 6 Yamadori potted up. So it was time for the lovely breakfast that Terry prepared as well for us! You got to love this guy!!!

Picture above: Here we just arrived at the “BURRS” venue. Isn’t this a fitting way to move a great talent and his wonderful material!

Left picture: Hawthorn after first serious cutting.

Right picture: Simon wiring his Pine. This odd looking Yamadori turned out to be rather stunning in the end!

Left picture: Pine forest on a natural slab.

Right picture: Ivo working on the deadwood of Jerry’s Mugo Yamadori.

Left picture: Cutting away this to thick and straight cascading branch on this Juniper, instantly created a very exciting fat Shohin!

Right picture:

Left picture: Eric and Ivo, having a get to getter, over Eric’s Larch.

Right: My quick drawing, of a posible future, for  Jerry’s Mugo. He was very excited about it, I hope he brings the tree along next year!

                                        ”And above us only sky”

*more to come!

Hans van Meer.

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HI everybody,

this afternoon I started the second styling of my Mugo Pine “WOOLFY”.

More to come!!!

Hans van Meer.

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