Winter forest walk

Today I had opportunity to go for short walk to forest with my friend. Mild weather was great for the trip. As bonsai enthusiast we had few looks on potential yamadori trees around, for spring collecting season, of course. And we were lucky enough to find some interesting field maples(Acer campestre), so we will have digging trip in March definitely. I took few shots of solitaire oaks as inspiration for next projects.

Dnes sa naskytla možnosť urobiť si výlet do lesa s mojim priateľom. Mierne počasie bolo skvelé na taký výlet. Ako správny nadšenci bonsai sme sa pozreli aj po potenciálnych yamadori stromoch, ktoré by sa dali na jar kopnúť. Našli sme niekoľko zaujímavých javorov poľných (Acer campestre), takže sa bude kopať koncom marca. Urobil som pár záberov solitérnych dubov po ceste ako inšpiráciu pre ďalšie bonsai projekty.

 

 

 

Inspirational old Oak tree

I use to walk around this tree from picture almost daily for several years. Christmas are coming, so at least to me it seems everything is calming down a bit. So today I took a chance to take picture of it. Tree on picture is an old English oak (Quercus robur) tree in our village. Tree has impressive dimensions - about 22m height and its girth is about 5,3 meters.

As it is unique tree and it is protected by authorities. Based on its dimensions I estimate its age to at least 350 years, most probably more than this. If you imagine tree was planted at time when GalileoGalilei, JohannesKepler, RenéDescartes or IsaacNewton were alive it is pretty exciting thought, dont you think?

From bonsai point of view it has interesting taper at the base, nice structure of branches. One can see there must have been interventions to keep it healthy and safe for pedestrians and traffic, since it is over busy road and sidewalk. Majority of main branches are aiming upwards, branches are crossing. We do not see it on bonsai too often, do we? Lower positioned branches are very long and heavy so growing horizontally and bending to the ground. I can easily imagine such bonsai tree in bonsai pot. Very naturalistic, indeed. 

What do you thing? Would you like to have bonsai tree with such shape on your bench?

English oak / Quercus robur / Dub letný