End of season 2009.

My dear friends...this probably closes 2009 season of collecting. It is already very cold in high mountains and the winds are sometimes severe. But, it has been enough. This season has yielded many good and a few very good starter trees for bonsai. From now on, during the winter, there will be some wireing and drilling and some very basic styling of new material that has matured for the next step. And with that, cold winter months will pass. There will be no more talk of collecting 'till February when comes the time for The King between all deciduous trees...his majesty Carpinus orientalis. Even now I can hardly wait.Than we will have more extreeme yamadori collecting trips in rocky areas where this beautiful beasts grow.
S

Metuselah potted

Well, this is Metuselah in the pot. This is my biggest tree, and, I think, it's little too big. But, what does it mean "too big"? Now it measures cca 140cm from base to the top of the green mass. It is obviously a kind of literati cascading tree. This curve on the first picture is a cascading part. Probably, in the future, there will not be any green higher than that curve. On the contrary, the tree will cascade back towards the ground and future crown can be positioned in the middle part of the trunk, or, at highest, in the upper third. That will result with the tree 80 centimeters high, or even less. Only high positioned curve will be at the highest point. The bark on the curve is fantastic and old, so that can be very interesting attention spot. Much shari on this tree is obligatory in final design because, it has already rotten core and many stubs left from cutting dead branches.
Nebari is almost 50-60 cm wide. The tree was collected with good root system and I'm not too affraid if Metu will survive.
I believe this tree is old.

Mugo "Metuselah"

Hm, another collecting trip. This was a hard one. My body is broken, so was my yamadori soul in one moment. Extremely difficult terrain, steep rock faces, dense forest, huge mugo trees...
Cold, wet and windy morning, fog on the top of the mountain lingered all day...

Huge, old and weather beaten Picea trees

Chajko in the mist.

And this is area where Mugo lives, high in the mountains on rocky slopes, in the early morning mist...

This peak is our destination for today.

Chajko with mugo trees

And, my hunt for this time was very old and rotten mugo. This one is really a bit too big, but...as It was already dug out, we have to carry it to the car. And that was extremely difficult task.

Chajko's catch

In the next two days, I will put fotos of Metuselah planted in temporary pot in my garden.

The biggest problem... transportation of heavy pieces

Some locations are not accessible by car, and some yamadori pieces are just too heavy to carry with a backpack tree carrier. But, if there is a relatively usable forest fire road, this kind of device is very helpful. It is always easier to pull or push something that is on wheels than to carry one hundred kilos on your back.
Backpack tree carrier.

Team equiped with wheelbarrows. Much easier!!!

Trees packed for transportation to the car.

Loaded with yamadori :). You cannot carry this on your back.

Pinus mugo "Broken One" and "Cascade"

Two new Pinus mugo.
These are wonderful mosses on the high mountain beech trees.

First mugo, "Cascade". This can very easily be a garden tree, a tree that can be, for example, positioned over the pond. But, as it will be grown in the pot, can be clasified as bonsai, although a bit big and wide. This tree had something magical in it's appearance, and when we saw it on the mountain, love was immediate.
The tree has natural and beautiful shari. The coils and spirals are fantastic. I like the tree very much because it is very unusual. Something like cascading literati style of bonsai. It grew on the same cliff as Prometheus.

Spirals on the Cascade.

Shari on the Cascade.

And this is "Broken One". Well, it is not broken, but it looks like it is.

The trunk is very fat. To me, that's terribly ugly. But, the main volume of the trunk will be drilled and sharied, so, this will not exist in the future.

The collecting season will intensify in the next few weeks, and it will be ended November the first. Untill then, there will be more new coniferous material.